Basic Appium Automation: Part 2 — Using Locators (iOS)

How To Use the Accessibility ID, Name, XPath and Class Name Locators in iOS

In Part 1, we covered the available locator types in Appium 2. In this article, let’s look at creating a sample script using a few different locator types.

Key Points

• Using the Accessibility ID, Name, XPath and Class Name Locators in a sample iOS app

• Using the find_element method to locate a single element

• Using thefind_elements method to locate multiple elements with the same locator

Sample App

This article uses Appium’s Sample iOS Test App. This is available on Appium’s Github page as a sample app. Download and save the TestApp.app.zip file (leave it as an app.zip — do not unzip).

This TestApp contains a simple addition calculator, which we will use to try out the AccessibilityID, Name, XPath and Class locator types.

iOS Test App — Accessibility ID, Name, XPath, Class Locators

The Appium capabilities to start up the Appium session are:

app_file = File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "..", "..", "sample-apps", "TestApp.app.zip")
opts = {
  caps: {
    automationName: 'xcuitest',
    platformName: 'ios',
    platformVersion: '17.2', # match your Xcode Simulator's version
    deviceName: 'iPhone 15', # match your Xcode Simulator's version
    app: app_file
  },
  appium_lib: {
    server_url: "http://127.0.0.1:4723"
  },
}

driver = Appium::Driver.new(opts).start_driver

You can copy these into Appium Inspector as well:

The Sample App’s addition calculator component looks like this:

It is made up of four sections:

1. First integer text field

2. Second integer text field

3. “Compute Sum” button

4. Result text (“???” if Computer Sum button hasn’t been pressed yet).

I will do a simple 2 + 3 calculation.

Let’s look at each section one by one and identify some locators.