Test UI for multiple apps

A user interface (UI) test that involves user interactions across multiple apps lets you verify that your app behaves correctly when the user flow crosses into other apps or into the system UI. An example of such a user flow is a messaging app that lets the user enter a text message, launches the Android contact picker so that the users can select recipients to send the message to, and then returns control to the original app for the user to submit the message.

This lesson covers how to write such UI tests using the UI Automator testing framework provided by AndroidX Test. The UI Automator APIs let you interact with visible elements on a device, regardless of which Activity is in focus. Your test can look up a UI component by using convenient descriptors such as the text displayed in that component or its content description. UI Automator tests can run on devices running Android 4.3 (API level 18) or higher.

The UI Automator testing framework is an instrumentation-based API and works with the AndroidJUnitRunner test runner.

You should also read UI Automator API Reference and try out the UI Automator Code Samples.

Set up UI Automator

Before building your UI test with UI Automator, make sure to configure your test source code location and project dependencies, as described in Set up project for AndroidX Test.

In the build.gradle file of your Android app module, you must set a dependency reference to the UI Automator library:

dependencies {
    ...
    androidTestImplementation 'androidx.test.uiautomator:uiautomator:2.2.0'
}

To optimize your UI Automator testing, you should first inspect the target app’s UI components and ensure that they are accessible. These optimization tips are described in the next two sections.

Inspect the UI on a device

Before designing your test, inspect the UI components that are visible on the device. To ensure that your UI Automator tests can access these components, check that these components have visible text labels, android:contentDescription values, or both.

The uiautomatorviewer tool provides a convenient visual interface to inspect the layout hierarchy and view the properties of UI components that are visible on the foreground of the device. This information lets you create more fine-grained tests using UI Automator. For example, you can create a UI selector that matches a specific visible property.

To launch the uiautomatorviewer tool:

  1. Launch the target app on a physical device.
  2. Connect the device to your development machine.
  3. Open a terminal window and navigate to the <android-sdk>/tools/ directory.
  4. Run the tool with this command: 
    $ uiautomatorviewer

To view the UI properties for your application:

  1. In the uiautomatorviewer interface, click the Device Screenshot button.
  2. Hover over the snapshot in the left-hand panel to see the UI components identified by the uiautomatorviewer tool. The properties are listed in the lower right-hand panel and the layout hierarchy in the upper right-hand panel.
  3. Optionally, click on the Toggle NAF Nodes button to see UI components that are non-accessible to UI Automator. Only limited information may be available for these components.

To learn about the common types of UI components provided by Android, see User Interface.

Ensure your activity is accessible

The UI Automator test framework performs better on apps that have implemented Android accessibility features. When you use UI elements of type View, or a subclass of View from the SDK, you don't need to implement accessibility support, as these classes have already done that for you.

Some apps, however, use custom UI elements to provide a richer user experience. Such elements won't provide automatic accessibility support. If your app contains instances of a subclass of View that isn't from the SDK, make sure that you add accessibility features to these elements by completing the following steps:

  1. Create a concrete class that extends ExploreByTouchHelper.
  2. Associate an instance of your new class with a specific custom UI element by calling setAccessibilityDelegate().

For additional guidance on adding accessibility features to custom view elements, see Building Accessible Custom Views. To learn more about general best practices for accessibility on Android, see Making Apps More Accessible.

Create a UI Automator test class

Your UI Automator test class should be written the same way as a JUnit 4 test class. To learn more about creating JUnit 4 test classes and using JUnit 4 assertions and annotations, see Create an Instrumented Unit Test Class.

Add the @RunWith(AndroidJUnit4.class) annotation at the beginning of your test class definition. You also need to specify the AndroidJUnitRunner class, provided in AndroidX Test, as your default test runner. This step is described in more detail in Run UI Automator tests on a device or emulator.

Implement the following programming model in your UI Automator test class:

  1. Get a UiDevice object to access the device you want to test, by calling the getInstance() method and passing it an Instrumentation object as the argument.
  2. Get a UiObject object to access a UI component that is displayed on the device (for example, the current view in the foreground), by calling the findObject() method.
  3. Simulate a specific user interaction to perform on that UI component, by calling a UiObject method; for example, call performMultiPointerGesture() to simulate a multi-touch gesture, and setText() to edit a text field. You can call on the APIs in steps 2 and 3 repeatedly as necessary to test more complex user interactions that involve multiple UI components or sequences of user actions.
  4. Check that the UI reflects the expected state or behavior, after these user interactions are performed.

These steps are covered in more detail in the sections below.

Access UI components

The UiDevice object is the primary way you access and manipulate the state of the device. In your tests, you can call UiDevice methods to check for the state of various properties, such as current orientation or display size. Your test can use the UiDevice object to perform device-level actions, such as forcing the device into a specific rotation, pressing D-pad hardware buttons, and pressing the Home and Menu buttons.

It’s good practice to start your test from the Home screen of the device. From the Home screen (or some other starting location you’ve chosen in the device), you can call the methods provided by the UI Automator API to select and interact with specific UI elements.

The following code snippet shows how your test might get an instance of UiDevice and simulate a Home button press:

Kotlin

import org.junit.Before
import androidx.test.runner.AndroidJUnit4
import androidx.test.uiautomator.UiDevice
import androidx.test.uiautomator.By
import androidx.test.uiautomator.Until
...

private const val BASIC_SAMPLE_PACKAGE = "com.example.android.testing.uiautomator.BasicSample"
private const val LAUNCH_TIMEOUT = 5000L
private const val STRING_TO_BE_TYPED = "UiAutomator"

@RunWith(AndroidJUnit4::class)
@SdkSuppress(minSdkVersion = 18)
class ChangeTextBehaviorTest2 {

    private lateinit var device: UiDevice

    @Before
    fun startMainActivityFromHomeScreen() {
        // Initialize UiDevice instance
        device = UiDevice.getInstance(InstrumentationRegistry.getInstrumentation())

        // Start from the home screen
        device.pressHome()

        // Wait for launcher
        val launcherPackage: String = device.launcherPackageName
        assertThat(launcherPackage, notNullValue())
        device.wait(
                Until.hasObject(By.pkg(launcherPackage).depth(0)),
                LAUNCH_TIMEOUT
        )

        // Launch the app
        val context = ApplicationProvider.getApplicationContext<Context>()
        val intent = context.packageManager.getLaunchIntentForPackage(
                BASIC_SAMPLE_PACKAGE).apply {
            // Clear out any previous instances
            addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK)
        }
        context.startActivity(intent)

        // Wait for the app to appear
        device.wait(
                Until.hasObject(By.pkg(BASIC_SAMPLE_PACKAGE).depth(0)),
                LAUNCH_TIMEOUT
        )
    }

}

Java

import org.junit.Before;
import androidx.test.runner.AndroidJUnit4;
import androidx.test.uiautomator.UiDevice;
import androidx.test.uiautomator.By;
import androidx.test.uiautomator.Until;
...

@RunWith(AndroidJUnit4.class)
@SdkSuppress(minSdkVersion = 18)
public class ChangeTextBehaviorTest {

    private static final String BASIC_SAMPLE_PACKAGE
            = "com.example.android.testing.uiautomator.BasicSample";
    private static final int LAUNCH_TIMEOUT = 5000;
    private static final String STRING_TO_BE_TYPED = "UiAutomator";
    private UiDevice device;

    @Before
    public void startMainActivityFromHomeScreen() {
        // Initialize UiDevice instance
        device = UiDevice.getInstance(InstrumentationRegistry.getInstrumentation());

        // Start from the home screen
        device.pressHome();

        // Wait for launcher
        final String launcherPackage = device.getLauncherPackageName();
        assertThat(launcherPackage, notNullValue());
        device.wait(Until.hasObject(By.pkg(launcherPackage).depth(0)),
                LAUNCH_TIMEOUT);

        // Launch the app
        Context context = ApplicationProvider.getApplicationContext();
        final Intent intent = context.getPackageManager()
                .getLaunchIntentForPackage(BASIC_SAMPLE_PACKAGE);
        // Clear out any previous instances
        intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK);
        context.startActivity(intent);

        // Wait for the app to appear
        device.wait(Until.hasObject(By.pkg(BASIC_SAMPLE_PACKAGE).depth(0)),
                LAUNCH_TIMEOUT);
    }
}

In the example, the @SdkSuppress(minSdkVersion = 18) statement helps to ensure that tests will only run on devices with Android 4.3 (API level 18) or higher, as required by the UI Automator framework.

Use the findObject() method to retrieve a UiObject which represents a view that matches a given selector criteria. You can reuse the UiObject instances that you have created in other parts of your app testing, as needed. Note that the UI Automator test framework searches the current display for a match every time your test uses a UiObject instance to click on a UI element or query a property.

The following snippet shows how your test might construct UiObject instances that represent a Cancel button and a OK button in an app.

Kotlin

val cancelButton: UiObject = device.findObject(
        UiSelector().text("Cancel").className("android.widget.Button")
)
val okButton: UiObject = device.findObject(
        UiSelector().text("OK").className("android.widget.Button")
)

// Simulate a user-click on the OK button, if found.
if (okButton.exists() && okButton.isEnabled) {
    okButton.click()
}

Java

UiObject cancelButton = device.findObject(new UiSelector()
        .text("Cancel")
        .className("android.widget.Button"));
UiObject okButton = device.findObject(new UiSelector()
        .text("OK")
        .className("android.widget.Button"));

// Simulate a user-click on the OK button, if found.
if(okButton.exists() && okButton.isEnabled()) {
    okButton.click();
}

Specify a selector

If you want to access a specific UI component in an app, use the UiSelector class. This class represents a query for specific elements in the currently displayed UI.

If more than one matching element is found, the first matching element in the layout hierarchy is returned as the target UiObject. When constructing a UiSelector, you can chain together multiple properties to refine your search. If no matching UI element is found, a UiAutomatorObjectNotFoundException is thrown.

You can use the childSelector() method to nest multiple UiSelector instances. For example, the following code example shows how your test might specify a search to find the first ListView in the currently displayed UI, then search within that ListView to find a UI element with the text property Apps.

Kotlin

val appItem: UiObject = device.findObject(
        UiSelector().className("android.widget.ListView")
                .instance(0)
                .childSelector(
                        UiSelector().text("Apps")
                )
)

Java

UiObject appItem = device.findObject(new UiSelector()
        .className("android.widget.ListView")
        .instance(0)
        .childSelector(new UiSelector()
        .text("Apps")));

As a best practice, when specifying a selector, you should use a Resource ID (if one is assigned to a UI element) instead of a text element or content-descriptor. Not all elements have a text element (for example, icons in a toolbar). Text selectors are brittle and can lead to test failures if there are minor changes to the UI. They may also not scale across different languages; your text selectors may not match translated strings.

It can be useful to specify the object state in your selector criteria. For example, if you want to select a list of all checked elements so that you can uncheck them, call the checked() method with the argument set to true.

Perform actions

Once your test has obtained a UiObject object, you can call the methods in the UiObject class to perform user interactions on the UI component represented by that object. You can specify such actions as:

The UI Automator testing framework allows you to send an Intent or launch an Activity without using shell commands, by getting a Context object through getContext().

The following snippet shows how your test can use an Intent to launch the app under test. This approach is useful when you are only interested in testing the calculator app, and don't care about the launcher.

Kotlin

fun setUp() {
    ...

    // Launch a simple calculator app
    val context = getInstrumentation().context
    val intent = context.packageManager.getLaunchIntentForPackage(CALC_PACKAGE).apply {
        addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK)
    }
    // Clear out any previous instances
    context.startActivity(intent)
    device.wait(Until.hasObject(By.pkg(CALC_PACKAGE).depth(0)), TIMEOUT)
}

Java

public void setUp() {
    ...

    // Launch a simple calculator app
    Context context = getInstrumentation().getContext();
    Intent intent = context.getPackageManager()
            .getLaunchIntentForPackage(CALC_PACKAGE);
    intent.addFlags(Intent.FLAG_ACTIVITY_CLEAR_TASK);

    // Clear out any previous instances
    context.startActivity(intent);
    device.wait(Until.hasObject(By.pkg(CALC_PACKAGE).depth(0)), TIMEOUT);
}

Perform actions on collections

Use the UiCollection class if you want to simulate user interactions on a collection of items (for example, songs in a music album or a list of emails in an Inbox). To create a UiCollection object, specify a UiSelector that searches for a UI container or a wrapper of other child UI elements, such as a layout view that contains child UI elements.

The following code snippet shows how your test might construct a UiCollection to represent a video album that is displayed within a FrameLayout:

Kotlin

val videos = UiCollection(UiSelector().className("android.widget.FrameLayout"))

// Retrieve the number of videos in this collection:
val count = videos.getChildCount(
        UiSelector().className("android.widget.LinearLayout")
)

// Find a specific video and simulate a user-click on it
val video: UiObject = videos.getChildByText(
        UiSelector().className("android.widget.LinearLayout"),
        "Cute Baby Laughing"
)
video.click()

// Simulate selecting a checkbox that is associated with the video
val checkBox: UiObject = video.getChild(
        UiSelector().className("android.widget.Checkbox")
)
if (!checkBox.isSelected) checkBox.click()

Java

UiCollection videos = new UiCollection(new UiSelector()
        .className("android.widget.FrameLayout"));

// Retrieve the number of videos in this collection:
int count = videos.getChildCount(new UiSelector()
        .className("android.widget.LinearLayout"));

// Find a specific video and simulate a user-click on it
UiObject video = videos.getChildByText(new UiSelector()
        .className("android.widget.LinearLayout"), "Cute Baby Laughing");
video.click();

// Simulate selecting a checkbox that is associated with the video
UiObject checkBox = video.getChild(new UiSelector()
        .className("android.widget.Checkbox"));
if(!checkBox.isSelected()) checkbox.click();

Perform actions on scrollable views

Use the UiScrollable class to simulate vertical or horizontal scrolling across a display. This technique is helpful when a UI element is positioned off-screen and you need to scroll to bring it into view.

The following code snippet shows how to simulate scrolling down the Settings menu and clicking on an About tablet option:

Kotlin

val settingsItem = UiScrollable(UiSelector().className("android.widget.ListView"))
val about: UiObject = settingsItem.getChildByText(
        UiSelector().className("android.widget.LinearLayout"),
        "About tablet"
)
about.click()

Java

UiScrollable settingsItem = new UiScrollable(new UiSelector()
        .className("android.widget.ListView"));
UiObject about = settingsItem.getChildByText(new UiSelector()
        .className("android.widget.LinearLayout"), "About tablet");
about.click();

Verify results

The InstrumentationTestCase extends TestCase, so you can use standard JUnit Assert methods to test that UI components in the app return the expected results.

The following snippet shows how your test can locate several buttons in a calculator app, click on them in order, then verify that the correct result is displayed.

Kotlin

private const val CALC_PACKAGE = "com.myexample.calc"

fun testTwoPlusThreeEqualsFive() {
    // Enter an equation: 2 + 3 = ?
    device.findObject(UiSelector().packageName(CALC_PACKAGE).resourceId("two")).click()
    device.findObject(UiSelector().packageName(CALC_PACKAGE).resourceId("plus")).click()
    device.findObject(UiSelector().packageName(CALC_PACKAGE).resourceId("three")).click()
    device.findObject(UiSelector().packageName(CALC_PACKAGE).resourceId("equals")).click()

    // Verify the result = 5
    val result: UiObject2 = device.findObject(By.res(CALC_PACKAGE, "result"))
    assertEquals("5", result.text)
}

Java

private static final String CALC_PACKAGE = "com.myexample.calc";

public void testTwoPlusThreeEqualsFive() {
    // Enter an equation: 2 + 3 = ?
    device.findObject(new UiSelector()
            .packageName(CALC_PACKAGE).resourceId("two")).click();
    device.findObject(new UiSelector()
            .packageName(CALC_PACKAGE).resourceId("plus")).click();
    device.findObject(new UiSelector()
            .packageName(CALC_PACKAGE).resourceId("three")).click();
    device.findObject(new UiSelector()
            .packageName(CALC_PACKAGE).resourceId("equals")).click();

    // Verify the result = 5
    UiObject result = device.findObject(By.res(CALC_PACKAGE, "result"));
    assertEquals("5", result.getText());
}

Run UI Automator tests on a device or emulator

You can run UI Automator tests from Android Studio or from the command-line. Make sure to specify AndroidJUnitRunner as the default instrumentation runner in your project.

Additional resources

For more information about using UI Automator in Android tests, consult the following resources.

Samples

Codelabs