Start an activity using a specific intent

[ytonthat]

I would like to be able to specify an intent when starting an activity upon launching an Android app

The information that I would like to set in the intent is:

• Action
• Category
• Extras (string data as a key-value pair)

I would also like to be allowed to set this information in the implementation of test methods as desired capabilities

[jlipps]

Can you give me an example of what you'd like to do? Seems like a useful feature.

[ytonthat]

The application is an Android app. As you probably know, the emulator is quite slow. We already have methods for testing navigation and wish bypass it as much as possible in other tests. We believe this will save a lot of time when confronted with hundreds of tests to run.

To bypass navigation, we want to start the activity under test when creating the remote web driver and use an intent to pass user credentials in order to avoid logging in with the UI.

[ytonthat]

Please let me know if you can think of an alternative to intents :)

[jlipps]

I get the use case, it's more that I was looking for a specific example so I can make sure the interface is designed correctly.

I.e., what would you be doing with adb to get to the intent you want pre- or mid-test

[ytonthat]

I have a service with members that allow me to navigate to specific screens mid-test. If the service had access to adb, it would execute the following command to bypass the log on screen:

adb shell am start -n |activity_name| -a |action_name| --es server |server_string_value| --es username |username_string_value| --es password |password_string_value| --ez usesecurecomm |usesecurecomm_boolean_value|

The extras are the values the app needs to perform a log on before rendering the user interface

I was thinking that Appium could expose an additional mobile method to start a new activity

Sorry for the late reply!

[paymand]

@ytonthat: All you need to do is to append the <INTENT> argument to the app-activity cap:

caps["app-activity"] = "app.apk <INTENT>"

I'm using this approach to start the app with an intent :)

[jlipps]

Ha, this was not an intentional feature

[jlipps]

let's go ahead and add a appIntent capability that gets added to the app launch command appropriately when we start the app

[moizjv]

@paymand can you please elaborate on <INTENT> may be with an example that would help in designing a better interface.

[Jonahss]

this might help
https://gist.github.com/qube81/1148734

[lock]

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