Android Test Automation using Unified Functional Testing
M-eux Test is the only tool that seamlessly extends Unified Functional Testing (UFT) and QuickTest Professional (QTP) from Hewlett Packard to test mobile applications. The underlying technology of UFT/QTP is re-used for test automation of mobile applications. By loading the M-eux Test add-in, the QAengineer can use all the functionalities of UFT/QTP to test mobile applications, including recording, object repository, active screen, and exception handling. No information is stored outside QTP/UFT so that the integrations of UFT/QTP with HP’s Business Process Testing (BPT), ALM, Performance Center and Business Availability Center (BAC) can be applied for mobile apps.
M-eux test can access the attributes of the user interface elements as they are defined in the mobile operating system. This is an essential technique that has been used by test automation tools on the PC for many years. M-eux Test brings this functionality to the mobile world.
In the enclosed figure, you have a window of the Twitter Android application. The tool can access the definition of the edit field and thus test/verify that the edit field is enabled, that the value is empty and that the hint text is set to “What’s happening”. Without this technique, the tool would not be able to distinguish between the real text and the hint text displayed in the edit field. Using M-eux Test you can access all these attributes and create simple scripts that are at the same time very powerful and reusable.
It is the only technique to deal with the high dynamic interfaces of the mobile applications. Windows of mobile applications are not classic windows. They interact with the user using swipes, gestures, expanded spinner elements, highly interactive lists and many other techniques.
The seamless integration into UFT/QTP makes that the QA engineer can reuse best practices from the PC world: Descriptive Programming, Exception Handling, Object Reconfiguration, QTP frameworks (Linear framework, Functional Decomposition Framework, Keyword-Driven Framework, Data-Driven Framework, Hybrid Framework), Test Reporting, etc.
The tool has proven its value in testing mobile applications handling dynamic data or mobile applications that are localized.
The tool contains also utility functions in order to complete the support for testing mobile applications. For example: incoming phone calls can be intercepted. SMS, e-mail messages can be sent from the background. Diagnostic functions are available showing for example the memory allocation, the number of processes running on the device and many other functions related to the hardware and software configuration of the device.