ExtSolo Library – to extend your Robotium test automation

Today, I found a really nice library extension for Robotium. The name of the library is ExtSolo and stands for Extension Solo. The name stands for itself, it extends the known solo object provided by Robotium.
The library is developed by the guys from bitbar, the company behind testdroid.

If you check the provided API documentation, you find some really useful methods to integrate them into your Android test automation framework. There are methods like:

  • changeDeviceLanguage(java.util.Locale locale)
  • fail(java.lang.String name, java.lang.Object e)
  • setGPSMockLocation(double latitude, double longitude, double altitude)
  • turnWifi(boolean enabled)

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Mobile Page Objects with Robotium-Sandwich

In several blog posts I wrote about the Android test automation framework Robotium. Those articles described the setup of the tool and how to split the whole test suite into smaller parts. Splitting the test suite into smaller parts is sometimes neccessary because building huge test suites can be a real challenge. If you don’t think about the architecture and about an abstraction layer of your test suite, the code will be impossible to mantain, impossible to scale and at the end, you will end up in a nightmare.

The guys from appThwack developed a library called ‘Robotium-Sandwich’ which is built on top of the Android instrumentation and the Robotium framework to solve the problem of unmaintainable test suites. The idea behind Robotium-Sandwich is similar to the page objects from Selenium 2.

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How to record your Android tests with Robotium Recorder

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about the release of Robotium Recorder.
Today I want to show you, how to install and how to use the tool to record your Android tests. This tutorial based on the example Notepad app provided by the Robotium project, the source code can be found here.

Prerequisites & Installation

Before you start with recording, you have to install the Java JDK and the Android SDK. Be sure you have the latest version of the Android SDK installed or updated. If your development environment is up to date, you can import the sample app, provided by the Robotium project. Please follow the instructions in the sample, on how to insert the existing project to eclipse.

If Java, the Android SDK and the sample project is downloaded and installed, start Eclipse and open the Install New Software section in the Help menu (Help → Install New Software). In the input field “Work with” enter: http://recorder.robotium.com/updates and Press the Add… button and enter a name for the installation.

1_install_robotium_via_help

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Robotium Recorder

This week the version 5.0.1 of Robotium was released. The latest version has of course again many improvements and some new functionalities (methods) like pressSoftKeyboardNextButton(), waitForEmptyActivityStack(int timeout) or Solo.config. With Solo.config you have now different configuration options for your project. For further information check the latest javadoc.
The new version has also a new package name com.robotium.solo. To see all the new features check the example project or download Robotium 5.0.1 from here.

Robotium Recorder

Robotium Recorder

The biggest update that came with the new version of Robotium is Robotium Recorder! With the recorder you are able to capture your test steps of your app and to automatically
import the results to your test project. Robotium Recorder is an Eclipse plugin and can be installed from the following URL “http://recorder.robotium.com/update“. To install it, open eclipse and navigate to: Help --> Install New Software. Copy the URL in the “Work with” field and press Enter, wait while eclipse is loading the plugin and follow the wizard to install it. The full installation guide can be found here.

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It’s like 10000 knives when all you need is a Spoon

Isn’t ironic that there are so many Android test automation tools and it took me half a year to stumble up on Spoon?
Spoon is an Android test automation tool that is able to run your written java tests on several devices at the same time WITHOUT rooting the device.
Spoon is developed by the company Square, the company already open sourced some really nice tools (see the Open Source Space).

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