A few newbie questions about potentially using Appium

Hi all,

Currently I have a simple experimental test setup with Sikuli (image recognition testing software). My first trials with Sikuli were generally promising, running on windows. However, Sikuli has some obvious limitations (eg parallel testing), so I was looking into alternative methods of native app testing. Here’s a typical test case that I can currently satisfy with Sikuli:

  1. Download a native windows app within the windows session
  2. Install the app using the install wizard
  3. Use the app
  4. Press a button within the app which would launch a webpage to take payment details
  5. Interact with the webpage
  6. Return to the app and continue app usage.
  7. Uninstall the app from windows (and optionally check remnants from windows were removed)

I need to run that kind of test case, but for native windows, iOS and Android apps. Concurrently. And probably via an emulator for iOS and Android running within the windows session.

Questions:
a) Will appium comfortably facilitate most of the above test case requirements? (combined app+web+app usage?)
b) Could I write the appium tests in php, making use of facebook’s php webdriver which I currently use for web-only testing?
c) How do you derive the locators to click on for a windows/iOS/Android app? (I use firefox plugins to quickly obtain css & xpath locators for elements in lengthy webdriver tests)

Many thanks!

1 for iOS you need MAC OS
2 php not best solution. most powerful is java-client
3 combine WEB, Client and even DB/API call - does not a problem (we do it :slight_smile:)
4 to see test example look at - https://github.com/appium/php-client/tree/master/test/functional for PHP