Finding element by name on android in Appium 1.6.3

[willosser]

We are trying to move from Appium 1.4.13 to 1.6.3 on Android

One of the biggest problems we are having is finding elements. :uiautomator is no longer a supported method by which to search (even though the code is there deeper in the stack). :name is no longer supported. I'd rather not convert everything to xpath, but I don't see any alternative yet.

[willosser]

Here is what I came up with using xpath:

def find_element_by_name(text)
  driver.find_element(:xpath, "//*[@content-desc='#{text}']|//*[@text='#{text}']")
end

I am trying to preserve the previous behavior, so this finds matching text or content description. I've also created my own methods, find_element_by_text and find_element_by_desc. My xpath is not the strongest, so I'm happy to take any suggestions for improvement.

scroll_to still doesn't work reliably. It works inside my app, but not on an Android Settings page. There have been a number of questions about getting scroll_to to work along with suggestions as to how. I'll post my solution in another thread for those interested. I apologize in advance to all of you who aren't using Ruby.

[Aleksei]

we do not have problem with move with:

// IOS
// replace of srollTo
        JavascriptExecutor js = (JavascriptExecutor) driver;
        HashMap scrollObject = new HashMap<>();
        scrollObject.put("predicateString", "value == '" + text + "'");
        js.executeScript("mobile: scroll", scrollObject);

// replace of search by name. instead "value" attribute may use any needed.
        WebElement el = ((IOSDriver) driver).findElementByIosNsPredicate("value = '" + text + "'");
        return tapElement((MobileElement) el);


// Android
// scroll and tap
tapElement(driver.findElement(MobileBy
                .AndroidUIAutomator("new UiScrollable(new UiSelector()).scrollIntoView("
                        + "new UiSelector().text(\""+descr+"\"));")));
// to search by content-description property
// "new UiSelector().text(\""+descr+"\"));"))); -> "new UiSelector().description(\""+descr+"\"));")));

latest beta 1.6.4 appium and java 5.X beta client

[willosser]

Now that's strange. I had been able to use find_element(:uiautomator, ui_selector_string) in appium 1.4.13, but it doesn't work now. I'll keep digging

[narendarsingam]

use driver.findElement(MobileBy.accessibilityID("text/contentDesc"))

[willosser]

An Appium developer suggested using find_element_by_appium(:uiautomator, ...). I have not yet tried it (I was working on my workaround), but he suggested I could replace all calls to find_element to find_element_by_appium.

See https://github.com/appium/ruby_lib/issues/527#issuecomment-291687471 for more details