UI Automation Tools

Ranorex

Appium

Calabash

Tool Evaluation

Ranorex - Advantages

● Cross platform support

● Test Automation Library for .Net

● Standard programming langauges C# and VB.Net for scripting

● Test development environment (Ranorex Studio) features recorder, debugger, object spy and repository

● Flexible Test Automation Library Interface Test suites with Ranorex results in .EXE files for simple integration with test management, behaviour driven development and continuous integration server tools

● Customizable Test report engine.

How does it work?

RT App(Our Build)

Android

iOS

Windows

Gherkin

BDD Stories

Run Tests(TeamCity Server)

4. Specflow reads bdd(formatted in Gherkin)3. Team city runs Visual

Studio project

+

Visual Studio

Ranorex Library

SpecFlow

33331.BDD Stories are turned into Visual studio projects

Device/Simulator

SVN

2. .Exe is stored in

repository

5. Connects to device through

WiFi

6. Test Scripts runs on RT App.

Ranorex-Disadvantages

● Xamarin related automation Issues

● Support takes more time for Xamarin related issues

● Ranorex agent compatibility with Application is poor and causes crashing as new features are introduced in app

● Instrumented application is slower than original Application

● Some Touch gestures/Drag and drop operation not supported

● In case of crashing/hanging, Automatic launching of closed Application is not supported

● Need to provide long waiting times for object identification.

Appium - Advantages• Active community• No extra code into application• Open source – we can make our own fixes and

ask for pull requests on github• Easier to learn and implement than Calabash• Element inspector in Appium app

Appium - Disadvantages• Over 50 open bugs with iOS• Unable to get hooks on certain elements in

complicated apps(programme detail page).• https://github.com/appium/appium/issues/537• Inconsistent with outcomes(due to no

wait/delay)• Currently cannot drag – known logged bug

Appium - Demo

Calabash - Advantages• Now owned by Xamarin• Wait/sleep functionality• Can swipe• BDD Layer easily configurable

Calabash - Disadvantages• Not tested enough?• No updates in months – maybe due to takeover

from xamarin so may become closed source.• Must be written in Ruby and cucumber - Can

be tricky

Calabash - Demo

Conclusion

Best tool to use is Calabash:● Owned and supported by Xamarin● More stable and reliable, testing is more

consistent.● Easier to setup the BDD layer for QA’s

How does it work?

Xamarin(Our Build)

Android

iOS

WP

CalabashCucumber

Gherkin

Ruby

Run Tests(TeamCity

Server)

2. Cucumber reads BDD(formatted in Gherkin)

1. Team city runsCucumber scripts.

3. From the parsed Gherkin files, Cucumber runs the retrieved Ruby files and methods.

4. Ruby talks to calabash to run commands on the platforms.