Cryptic UIAutomation Error of the Day

If you see an error when running automation from the command line like :

2015-05-20 20:38:55 +0000 Fail: An error occurred while trying to run the script.

Remedy : Try going into the phone's Settings then touch "Developer" settings and turn on "Enable UI Automation"

 Last observed with iOS 8.3 iPhone 6 hardware.

1. Settings

 















2. Developer

Xcode Tips - Setting Font and Color Preferences

I've seen folks not know what to do when wanting to change the font size for the Xcode editor. Here are the instructions from the horse's mouth. Also notice there is a Presentation mode available.

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/recipes/xcode_help-fonts_and_colors_preferences_help/Recipe.html

OS X Wallpapers and Background Color

I want to share something interesting about how you set your desktop background on OS X. I like to display my desktop background as 'Fit to Screen'. This often will leave a solid color background around the wallpaper. I found that the Color Picker that pops up when you click on the background color box allows for picking a color from the wallpaper itself.

You need to select the magnifying glass to the left of the search bar. Then the cursor will change to a magnifying glass. Simply find a spot on the screen with an interesting color and click. This will set the background to that color. I like to get creative with matching a pleasing background color to the specific wallpaper.

Mobile UI Design

This morning, I searched on the name for this month's Appy Hour host. Blink Interactive has what looks like a useful Design Library for mobile apps. I samples a few examples of design critique and it looks like it may be helpful when I write my own apps.

I am a software developer and not a designer, so I need to find ways to ensure I have a decent design while writing my first apps for iOS.

UIAutomation - Log Title and Message of an Alert

The post on Juelua Lu's blog illustrates how to display both the title and body of an alert.

http://juehualu.blogspot.com/2012/07/iphone-uiautomation-javascript-alert.html

Learning UIAutomation

I am in the midst of writing automation for an iOS project. One of the tools I may select is bundled with Apple's Instrumentation software, UIAutomation. As I search and read the web for information about iOS automation and general mobile test topics, I find it difficult to organize the information in a coherent way. This blog post and other will be my attempt to being some order to my research.

Working with UIAutomation
http://alexvollmer.com/posts/2010/07/03/working-with-uiautomation/

An oft searched for quote from Alex Vollmer's posting on Working with UIAutomation is "First, log the element tree (via UIATarget.logElementTree()) liberally and often."

As I get used to writing Javascript again, I find myself missing the IntelliJ IDE I used when writing Java based selenium web automation. It had been very helpful to use its Intellisense type tools...

UIAElement Class Reference
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/ToolsLanguages/Reference/UIAElementClassReference/UIAElement/UIAElement.html

iOS Automated Tests with UIAutomation
http://blog.manbolo.com/2012/04/08/ios-automated-tests-with-uiautomation

Its dated April 8, 2012. I have not read through it much, but doesn't hurt to have another general reference handy.

http://www.juddsolutions.com/downloads/UnitAndFunctionalTestingForiOSPlatform.pdf

Online JavaScript Interpreter
I am pretty sure, but could be wrong, that there is no console based javascript interpreter outside of a browser. I want to exercise javascript as a functional language rater than anything ties to a browser. One tool I ran across is an interactive interpreter that runs in a browser. Maybe this is something useful.

Of particular interest to me is that I can save the page as a static page to run when disconnected from the internet or when and if the page moves or is removed from the web.

http://math.chapman.edu/~jipsen/js/

UI Automation JavaScript Reference
http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/DeveloperTools/Reference/UIAutomationRef/UIAutomationRef.pdf

gumbypp's iPhone device testing page
http://iphone.gumbypp.com/provisioning.html

A fantastic mind map for iOS testing. I would love to modify this for my own project as a good top level "test plan"
http://www.ministryoftesting.com/2012/09/ios-testing-mindmap-checklist/
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8033/7916949920_37dc872d36_o.png

More
http://www.ministryoftesting.com/resources/mobile-testing/

Really Good Article...

http://vokalinteractive.com/2011/12/02/automated-testing-in-ios/

A forward-thinking scripter could use predicates to ensure the script works even as your interface is reorganized in the future.


http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7308058/best-resources-for-uiautomation-testing-for-ios-applications

http://agilewarrior.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/getting-started-with-frank/

Test Studio from Telerik
http://www.telerik.com/automated-testing-tools/support/documentation/mobile-testing/overview.aspx

Pivotal Labs

http://pivotallabs.com/iphone-ui-automation-tests-a-decent-start/
http://pivotallabs.com/iphone-ui-automation-tests-with-jasmine/

http://juddsolutions.blogspot.com/2010/06/your-phone-is-so-much-more-than-phone.html

http://www.testingexcellence.com/does-automating-your-manual-tests-give-you-good-automated-tests/
http://blog.smartbear.com/automated-testing/divide-your-automated-testing-efforts/

UI Automation test runner - Bwoken
http://bendyworks.github.io/bwoken/

iOS UI Automation
http://randomzone.in/2013/04/11/introduction-to-ios-ui-automation/

UI Automation + tuneup.js

•     It is the Apple’s inbuilt Automation testing framework.
•     It is highly stable and also reliable testing framework.
•     It uses javascript to automate the testcases.
•     Automation can also be performed in the specified devices
•     It can also be accessible from command line so that we can also integrate this with Hudson
•     Considering its salient features,simplicity UIAutomation is preferred for automating the test cases over other testing frameworks

Bwoken – iOS UIAutomation testing in CoffeeScript
http://thechangelog.com/bwoken-ios-uiautomation-testing-in-coffeescript/

iOS automation testing: the new baseline skill for ensuring quality

http://aalittle.com/iOS-automation

VIDEO
Introduction to UIAutomation Testing on iOS (Video/Slides)
https://www.cocoacontrols.com/posts/2012/11/13/introduction-to-uiautomation-testing-on-ios-video-slides

Must be a Typo - 25 Years Experience Required

I just got mail describing an SDET position in the Seattle area. Here is a snippet :

Must have At least 35 years experience in testing or development of databasedriven web applications or other enterprise software Solid Java or Groovy programming and testing experience...

I'm pretty sure web applications are a bit newer than 35 years :-)