What is APPIUM Inspector?

The Appium Inspector is a GUI-based inspector that provides us with a unified interface for the inspection and interaction with various elements on different mobile platforms like Android and iOS etc. The main reason for using the Appium Inspector is that it provides us the capability to do cross-platform testing, which then simplifies the various testing processes for an app that runs on multiple platforms.

Why Choose Appium Inspector?

The Appium inspector is known as a useful tool because it provides a GUI interface for the automation of tasks and the testing of elements for mobile applications.

The Appium Inspector can be more useful as compared to others because it has great features that enable the engineers to perform automation tasks on it to inspect the DOM (document object model) of both iOS as well as Android in one ecosystem, which helps them manage applications faster.

What is Appium Inspector?

Benefits of Using Appium

Let’s look at some of the benefits the Appium inspector provides in order to understand, how it functions as well as why we should choose the Appium inspector instead of some other software.

1. Interaction with Elements: Appium Inspector is very useful when we have to interact with the elements within an application’s user interface.
2. Visual Representation: It provides us a visual representation of the various elements of the app such as images text fields or buttons etc, which makes it more easier to select certain elements.
3. Automation Scripting: We can also use this inspector to write automation scripts for testing our mobile application.
4. XPath Expressions: This inspector also provides us with the ability to generate expressions for various elements using the XPath expressions.

Drawbacks of Using Appium

Now that we have talked about the various benefits of using this inspector, let’s also discover some of the drawbacks that are available if you are planning to use the Appium inspector:

1. Limited Support for Non-Native Apps: One of the major concerns of using this inspector is renewed at support for non-native apps, which can result in certain challenges for mobile applications.
2. Occasional Instability: This is the spectral band cause some occasional instability as well as performance issues which can impact the reliability of the test execution that we perform.
3. Limited Integration with Third-Party Tools: It has limited integration with the third party tools, which can destroy the overall testing workflow that we are trying to perform.

Applications of Appium

Now, that we have seen the benefits as well as the drawbacks of using Appium inspector, let’s also look at some of the applications of the inspector and understand if it suits your needs, so that you can use it in development cycle:

1. Automated Test Scripts: Appium Inspector is widely used for creating various automated test scripts which can be used to measure the performance and various functionalities of any mobile application.
2. Cross-Platform Testing: Appium Inspector offers cross platform testing that can be run on Android as well as iOS devices.
3. Debugging Environment: It also provides us a debugging environment, which can help the developers to identify and fix the issues while being in the testing phase.
4. Parallel Execution: Business sector also allows parallel execution of tests on multiple devices, which can help in optimizing the testing efficiency.
5. Element Inspection: Appium Inspector enables us to easily inspect and identify any elements in the mobile app which can help in the development of various test scripts that we want.

What are Some Appium Inspector Capabilities for Android?

Let’s first understand what our capabilities in the Appium inspector these capabilities are a set of options known as configuration options which we can use in order to customize, how this inspector interacts with various apps during the phase of automation as well as the testing process and these capabilities can help us to specify settings as well as device or app for the inspection.

Let’s look at some of the common Appium Inspector typically which are available in the Android:

1. noReset: This capability helps us to prevent the app from getting resetted on the device.
2. udid: This capability has a unique device identifier of any physical android device, which helps us whenever multiple devices are connected.
3. app: This contains the URL or the path to any APK that we want to inspect.
4. deviceName: This function or capability is used to specify the name of a device, that you want to inspect.
5. platformVersion: It is used to specify the operating system version of the Android while running it on the emulator as well as device.
6. platformName: This inspector capability is used in order to specify the platform that is being used.
7. fullReset: As the name suggests, this functionality completely resets the app beforehand when the session has not even started.
8. appPackage: It contains the packaging name of any app that we want to inspect.

Conclusion

The Appium inspector is Whitney used and after required, when we want to have a very fast as well as very reliable testing across multiple platforms, versions or devices. This inspector provides us with flexibility, efficiency as well as it is more cost saving to use as compared to other testing methods, which also helps us to interact with the team faster and deliver more experienced user experience. It allows us to integrate our tests with testing frameworks such as JUnit, etc, which also helps in the efficient test management.