Appium 2 is the latest version of the mobile automation framework, Appium. This new version brings several improvements, features, and enhanced performance. This guide will walk you through the process of upgrading from Appium 1 to Appium 2, highlighting the benefits and demonstrating with code examples to demonstrate the advantages of upgrading.
In contrast to Appium 1, Appium 2 does not come with iOS and Android support by default. Instead, you now need to install the required drivers (and optional plugins), to activate the necessary functionality for your automated tests.
You can find out more by reading the official Appium 2 Changelog.
What has changed with Appium 2?
URL Changes
With Appium 1, the URL you needed to use in your tests was http://localhost:4723/wd/hub. The new URL with Appium 2 has been changed to http://localhost:4723/, which means the wd/hub part is no longer required. If you still want to use the Appium 1 URL, you can use this command:
appium --base-path=/wd/hubProtocol Changes
With Appium 1.x, both MJSONWP (Mobile JSON Wire Protocol) and the W3C WebDriver protocol were supported. Starting with Appium 2, only the W3C WebDriver protocol is supported.
Protocol Changes
With Appium 1.x, both MJSONWP (Mobile JSON Wire Protocol) and the W3C WebDriver protocol were supported. Starting with Appium 2, only the W3C WebDriver protocol is supported.
Driver installation required
With Appium 1, all drivers were installed as soon as you downloaded and installed Appium. This has changed with Appium 2, you now need to install the necessary drivers for your automated tests to work. The most popular drivers are listed below:
- UIAutomator2 Driver for Android testing. To install, use this command:
appium driver install uiautomator2 - XCUITest Driver for iOS testing. To install, use this command:
appium driver install xcuitest
We recommend to periodically check if there are any updates to these drivers, which may include fixes and optimizations for you tests. To check for Appium Driver updates, please use this command:
appium driver list --updatesCapabilities
Before Appium 2, you could specify whichever capabilities you wanted. Since Appium 2, only browserName and platformName can be specified without a vendor prefix. All other capabilities need to be prefixed with a string and colon, with for example appium: or tb:.
You can specify additional Appium options, such as:
appium:appappium:deviceName
Image Comparison Changes
Appium 1 supported various image comparison commands. Since Appium 2, the choice was made to move this feature into an Appium Plugin.
Plugins are components which can be added to Appium 2, that offer additional features. To install the image comparison library (used for visual testing), you can use this command with Appium 2.x:
appium plugin install imagesExecute Driver Script: WebDriverIO
Execute Driver Script is a feature that allows you to run a WebdriverIO script and have it executed entirely on the server, instead of sending each command individually from the client. Since Appium 2.x, this functionality has been moved to a plugin, which can be installed:
appium plugin install execute-driverExternal Files deprecated: --nodeconfig, --default-capabilities, --allow-insecure and --deny-insecure
These options can be specified as strings when entering commands through the command line. For --nodeconfig, you should use a JSON string, and for --allow-insecure and --deny-insecure, use comma-separated lists of strings. It's essential to remember that arguments provided via the command line might require quoting or escaping to work correctly.
However, it is now recommended to provide these options through a configuration file.
To do this, if you are using a JSON Appium config file, you can simply copy and paste the contents of your nodeconfig JSON file into the value of the server.nodeconfig property.
For --allow-insecure and --deny-insecure files that were previously in CSV-like format, you can now use them as the values of the server.allow-insecure and server.deny-insecure properties in the Appium config files, respectively. Both properties should contain arrays of strings.
Appium Desktop is now called Appium Inspector
Appium Desktop's inspector functionality has been separated into a dedicated application called Appium Inspector. This new app is fully compatible with standalone Appium 2.x servers and can also function with later versions of Appium 1.x servers. However, it's important to note that Appium Desktop itself has been deprecated and is not compatible with Appium 2.x.
Appium Inspector offers a browser version as well, accessible at https://inspector.appiumpro.com. If you intend to use the browser version with a local Appium server, you must first initiate the server with the --allow-cors flag to ensure seamless functionality.
What does an example Appium 2.x Test look like?
An Appium 2 test looks very similar to an Appium 1 test, with the necessary changes required. In case you want to run on TestingBot, you specifically need to take the capabilities into consideration.
Please see the example below for an example Appium 2 test, written in Python.
from appium import webdriver
from appium.webdriver.common.mobileby import MobileBy
from selenium.webdriver.support.ui import WebDriverWait
from selenium.webdriver.support import expected_conditions as EC
import time
capabilities = {
"platformName": "iOS",
"appium:deviceName": "iPhone XR",
"appium:version": "16.3"
"appium:app": "https://testingbot.com/appium/sample.ipa",
"appium:realDevice": True
}
driver = webdriver.Remote("https://key:secret@hub.testingbot.com/wd/hub", capabilities)
inputA = WebDriverWait(driver, 30).until(
EC.element_to_be_clickable((MobileBy.ACCESSIBILITY_ID, "inputA"))
)
inputA.send_keys("10")
inputB = WebDriverWait(driver, 30).until(
EC.element_to_be_clickable((MobileBy.ACCESSIBILITY_ID, "inputB"))
)
inputB.send_keys("5")
driver.quit()Using TestingBot to run automated tests with Appium 2.x
TestingBot offers a grid of both physical mobile devices, iOS simulators and Android emulators.
To run an Appium 2 test on TestingBot, please see our Appium Documentation with various code examples.
We also recommend reading our Appium 2 documentation, for some more information on how to run Appium 2 tests in the cloud.
