Step-by-Step Tutorial: Creating an Appium Test Automation Framework

Introduction: Appium is a popular open-source mobile test automation framework that allows developers and testers to automate testing of native, hybrid, and mobile web applications on iOS and Android platforms. In this step-by-step tutorial, we will guide you through the process of creating an Appium test automation framework from scratch.

Prerequisites: Before we begin, ensure you have the following prerequisites:

1. Java Development Kit (JDK) installed on your machine.
2. Android SDK or Xcode installed, depending on the platform you want to test.
3. Appium installed globally on your machine. Install it using npm (Node Package Manager) with the command: npm install -g appium.
4. An Integrated Development Environment (IDE) such as IntelliJ IDEA or Eclipse.
   Step 1: Set Up a New Java Project:
5. Launch your chosen IDE and create a new Java project.
6. Configure the project with the necessary build tools (e.g., Maven or Gradle).

Step 2: Add Dependencies:

1. Open the project’s pom.xml file (for Maven) or build.gradle file (for Gradle).
2. Add the Appium Java client dependency to your project’s dependencies section. For Maven, add the following:

<dependency>
    <groupId>io.appium</groupId>
    <artifactId>java-client</artifactId>
    <version>7.5.1</version>
</dependency>

1. Save the changes and let the IDE resolve and download the dependency.

Step 3: Set Up Appium Desired Capabilities:

1. Create a new Java class (e.g., AppiumTestBase.java) to set up the Appium desired capabilities.
2. Import the necessary Appium Java client classes:

import io.appium.java_client.AppiumDriver;
import io.appium.java_client.MobileElement;
import io.appium.java_client.remote.AndroidMobileCapabilityType;
import io.appium.java_client.remote.MobileCapabilityType;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.DesiredCapabilities;

3. Set up the desired capabilities for the target device and application:

public class AppiumTestBase {
    protected static AppiumDriver<MobileElement> driver;

    public static void setup() throws MalformedURLException {
        DesiredCapabilities capabilities = new DesiredCapabilities();
        capabilities.setCapability(MobileCapabilityType.PLATFORM_NAME, "Android");
        capabilities.setCapability(MobileCapabilityType.DEVICE_NAME, "device_name");
        capabilities.setCapability(AndroidMobileCapabilityType.APP_PACKAGE, "app_package");
        capabilities.setCapability(AndroidMobileCapabilityType.APP_ACTIVITY, "app_activity");

        // Set other desired capabilities like automationName, appium version, etc.

        // Initialize the Appium driver with the desired capabilities for Android
        driver = new AndroidDriver<>(new URL("http://localhost:4723/wd/hub"), capabilities);
    }

    public static void tearDown() {
        // Quit the Appium driver
        if (driver != null) {
            driver.quit();
        }
    }
}

Note: Appium driver is being intitialized here for Android App. Similar way we can do with iOSDriver class. Update the device_name, app_package, and app_activity values with your specific device details and application information.

Step 4: Create Test Cases:

1. Create new Java classes for your test cases.
2. Import the necessary Appium Java client classes:

import io.appium.java_client.MobileElement;
import org.testng.annotations.AfterMethod;
import org.testng.annotations.BeforeMethod;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

3.Extend the test classes with the AppiumTestBase class:

public class MyTest extends AppiumTestBase {
    @BeforeMethod
    public void setUp() throws MalformedURLException {
        setup();
    }

    @AfterMethod
    public void tearDown() {
        tearDown();
    }

    @Test
    public void myTest() {
        // Write your test steps using Appium APIs
        MobileElement element = driver.findElementById("element_id");
        element.click();
        // Perform assertions, interactions, and validations as required
    }
}

4. Customize your test cases with the necessary test logic, assertions, and validations.

Step 5: Run the Test Cases:

1. Open a terminal or command prompt.
2. Navigate to your project directory.
3. Execute the command mvn test (for Maven) or gradle test (for Gradle) to run the test cases.

Conclusion: By following this step-by-step tutorial, you have created a basic Appium test automation framework using Java. You learned how to set up a Java project, add Appium dependencies, configure desired capabilities, create test cases, and run them using Appium. With this framework as a foundation, you can expand and customize your automation suite, adding more test cases, implementing additional functionalities, and scaling your mobile test automation efforts to ensure the quality and reliability of your mobile applications.