Seamlessly Switching Between Native App and WebView in iOS Mobile Testing with Appium
When you're testing hybrid apps on iOS using Appium, it's essential to know how to interact with both native components (buttons, text fields, etc.) and web components (embedded web pages within the app, displayed in a WebView). Appium provides a way to switch between these contexts, allowing you to test both native and web parts of your app seamlessly.
What is a WebView?
A WebView in a mobile app is a browser-like component that loads and displays web content within the app. For hybrid apps, you need to switch between the native context (where native UI elements exist) and the WebView context (where web content is rendered) to test different functionalities.
Step-by-Step Breakdown:
contexts = self.get_driver().contexts -> retrieves all the available contexts in the app, such as NATIVE_APP and one or more WEBVIEW_x contexts.
Example output: ['NATIVE_APP', 'WEBVIEW_1'].
self.get_driver().switch_to.context(context)
switches the context to the WebView, enabling you to interact with the web content inside the app.
Once inside the WebView, you can interact with elements as if you were testing a web application. Use locators like By.XPATH or By.CSS_SELECTOR to find web elements.
After interacting with the web content, switch back to the native app using :
self.get_driver().switch_to.context("NATIVE_APP")
to resume testing the app's native components.
HINT: Before switching, it's good practice to print the available contexts:
contexts = self.get_driver().contexts
print(f"Available contexts: {contexts}")