Top Appium Plugins and Extensions for Real Device Testing

Quality assurance specialists monitor how their product operates in actual user contexts by testing websites or applications on real devices. For example, real device testing helps quality assurance specialists to assess how an application or web app will function while the device's battery is low. This article will be about Appium extensions and plugins and their connection to real device testing.

Appium's real automation device testing is used to perform tests against either native mobile apps or web apps accessed through a mobile browser. Running your Appium tests on numerous devices using the LambdaTest Real Device Cloud, a cloud-based digital experience testing platform that enables developers and testers to ensure their app functions reliably and consistently across more than 3000+ browsers and OS environments in the real world.

Along with a private option where users can choose a selection of devices that are only available for usage within their businesses or organizations, LambdaTest offers a sizable pool of public devices available to all clients.\

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All about Appium

Dan Cuellar and Jason Huggins created the automated testing tool known as Appium. It is capable of testing hybrid, native, and web applications. It works with many mobile operating systems, including Windows, Android, and iOS.

Developers may create UI tests that run on Android, iOS, and Windows using the same application programming interface, thanks to the cross-platform tool, Appium. (API). As a result, it enables code reuse between test scripts or suites for Android, iOS, and Windows.

Appium, like Selenium, can support a range of programming languages and frameworks for mobile automation real device testing. These include languages like Java, C#, Python, JavaScript, and PHP.

Running app testing automatically is possible with the aid of the Appium framework. The software development kits (SDKs) particular to the mobile device's operating system are used to create native mobile apps.

Mobile web browsers like Chrome and Safari can't visit websites designed for mobile devices. Android and iOS have in-app browsers that may be used to access mobile web applications.

Why is Appium so popular?

There needs to be a way to get around the fact that the mobile industry is growing quite quickly. Companies recognize the importance of mobile automated real device testing as they work to accelerate the delivery of software applications. Many organizations favor Appium over other open-source or free test automation tools. This inclination gives Appium the upper hand in the mobile sector.

In addition to Appium, several other open-source solutions can be used to automate mobile-friendly testing. However, an additional agent that compiles most of the application code is necessary for most tools to communicate with native mobile applications. 

Overview of Appium 

Appium began to mature and significantly increase its capabilities. The launch of Appium's initial version in May 2014 marked a turning point in the project's development. Appium is today's most popular open-source and cross-platform mobile automation framework because of its superiority. In 2014, InfoWorld named Appium the finest open-source desktop and mobile application. In 2014, Appium received the Bossie Award. Black Duck Software is also named Appium the Open Source Rookie of the Year.

To make it simpler for users and outside developers to implement their own Appium drivers, Appium was completely redesigned from the bottom up using a more recent version of the JavaScript programming language. This was done to increase Appium's adaptability.

Is Appium comparable to Selenium?

The finest examples of open-source software that can be used for testing and automation include Selenium and Appium. Selenium offers automated browser testing for various browser and operating system combinations by autonomously directing browser processes. On the other hand, Appium entails testing native, web, and hybrid programs automatically.

Appium is based on Selenium and uses JSONWireProtocol internally to connect to Android and iOS apps using Selenium WebDriver. An HTTP server written in Node.js serves as the foundation of the Appium architecture and is in charge of managing many WebDriver sessions. After that, Appium will wait for instructions from the Appium Server before executing tests on the gadget. It functions similarly to how the Selenium server handles HTTP requests from Selenium client libraries.

Based on the Appium platform is the framework architecture:

The Appium Architecture is composed of three components:

• Appium Client

The Appium client contains scripted automation code built in popular programming languages, including Java, Python, Ruby, and Perl. The automation scripts include all the device and application configuration details. These scripted instructions and configuration details are used for running the test cases.

• Appium Server

The Appium Server uses Node.js, and mobile devices are the ones that execute commands. Installing the Server on your workstation before running the test script is highly recommended.

• End Device

An end device can be a real device physically connected to the Appium Server where the tests are run, an emulator, a simulator, or a combination of these.

Why is Appium the Best Option?

Appium is Device Cloud's best mobile automation testing tool for the following 4 reasons:

Even though Appium has been making waves in business mobility, mobility teams are still looking for ways to automate real device testing properly by leveraging Appium. As a free and open-source solution, Appium is an excellent option for automating mobile, web, native, and hybrid apps on the many platforms they run on.

• Use of standard API 

Appium is widely used since it does not require altering codes or recompiling your program because it uses the standard API in all platforms. This factor contributes to Appium's widespread popularity. Appium makes it easy to develop tests using the same application programming interface (API) on iOS and Android devices. However, different scripts for iOS and Android are still required because the user interface elements present on each device are distinct.

• Use any language compatible with WebDriver.

Appium frees you from being locked into a specific language or framework to develop and run the tests. To build the tests, you can use any WebDriver-compatible language, such as Java, C#, Python, Ruby, PHP, Javascript with Node.js, or Perl with the Selenium WebDriver API.

• Testing Framework

Appium allows mobility teams to use their chosen testing framework. In the past, the only way to write tests was through Javascript, Apple's UI Automation library, or Java, using Google's UI Automator. Tests based on Java could only be written through Google. Appium brought about a fundamental shift in the circumstances.

• Cross-platform

It can run tests on iOS and Android devices simultaneously, making it the most effective cross-platform mobile app test automation tool currently available. Appium employs the JSON wire protocol to facilitate communication between Selenium WebDriver and Android and iOS devices. To automate iOS applications, Appium uses the libraries supplied by Apple and employs the assistance of an instrument program. After version 9.3, the Instruments application programming interface (API) stopped being supported by Apple and was replaced by the XCUITest framework.

Appium Plugins

The first major version update for Appium was released over nine years ago. Since then, Appium has made many new feature releases, and the platform's automation backend architecture has grown tremendously. 

The following major release, Appium 2.0, has been the topic of debate for the previous few years. 

There will be Appium plugins available to help with the countless use cases that necessitate changing the way Appium typically operates. Thanks to these changes, users can now create new plugins.

Using plugins, arbitrary functionality can be added before or after the execution of authentic Appium commands. For instance, the "image" plugin now available for Appium helps compare and identify components based on photos. The plugin also can modify the Appium Server to add and distribute new commands.

Appium plugins can solve the many use cases that require changing Appium's default behavior:

• Including arbitrary functionality that executes before or after the Appium instructions is possible with plugins.
• The Appium Server is altered by plugins to distribute it and provide additional commands.

Appium Extensions:

To improve the user experience across all digital touchpoints, work with teams to design, debug, test, monitor, and optimize omnichannel mobile applications. It does this by offering a centralized, enterprise-level, end-to-end lab and administration gateway of distributed real mobile devices and emulators. Team output is increased as a result.

The entire mobile user experience can be examined by software developers and quality assurance testers using service simulations and network virtualization. These characteristics include security, performance, and functionality.

Appium Extensions monitors production, examines the availability and performance of mobile applications, and stimulates ongoing development and optimization to enable continuous testing.

Conclusion

Appium is a popular mobile application testing framework that may be used for various tasks. The developers create and run the test and choose their preferred programming language using their chosen integrated development environment (IDE). 

Undoubtedly Appium is an excellent tool for real device testing. The extensions and plugins of Appium are used widely for real device testing to help create the best software for the users. Many plugins and extensions of Apium are available to test software in real environments. Appium is a free source tool and poses excellent opportunities for upgradation in the future.