Interesting; recently wanted to get into iOS automation testing and we also have an Android product so a unified test framework would be great.
I notice from the screenshots it takes a while to get through each step, is this due to the simulator, Appium itself, or for demo purposes?
Cheers
This is a delay built into Instruments. Most of the UI actions in an app take some time, so it's not that bad. There is also a way around it; one mode of Appium skips the system clock forward to get around the delay.
So, can I use Cucumber with Appium, like I can use with Frank?
I'm not familiar with cucumber, but if it can be used with the selenium-webdriver gem, then it can work with Appium.
(disclaimer: I'm an appium committer) While Frank and Appium provide a similar set of solutions to a similar problem, we're driven by slightly different philosophies. Two of Appium's core tenets are (1) you shouldn't have to modify your source code or add 3rd-party libraries to test, and (2) it's better to leverage existing successful "driver" protocols. To that end, we've designed things so that all of the interaction takes place between Appium and your un-modified app, whereas Frank requires compiling in its own libraries for testing. Likewise, we opted to make Appium a Selenium WebDriver-compatible server, so that the thousands of developers who are already familiar with using their favorite WebDriver library can jump in and start writing tests without having to wrap their heads around a new automation model. Frank is an extremely impressive piece of technology, but we felt the need for an approach born out of a different philosophy.
Very cool. With Frank, Calabash and Zucchini already out there (to name just a few), the iOS UI automation space is getting pretty crowded. Having said that, it is definitely nice to see something that is not based on Cucumber. Any ETA on the Android?
No ETA for Android, but it's very high on our list.
You stating your philosophies won me over, mostly because I agree with them. I generally test using the builtin stuff, and only on models. Never controllers or views.
This could be useful.