Add support for dismissing system alerts

[joemasilotti]

This is a first pass at dismissing system alerts (eg. location services and access to photos). It works by linking to the private UIAutomation framework and then calling down the UIAElement chain to grab the alert. It then taps the last button which should be the Allow one.

Also of note is how the private headers are pulled in. In its current state all the knowledge lives in KIFSystemAlertHandler.m and only exposes the required methods. Take a peek at the full header dump and the inspiration for this if you are interested in seeing the full list. There is also the option of pulling one of those in as a Cocoapod and keeping all the knowledge contained there.

This could be a solution for PR #507 running on CI but I want to first make sure this is an acceptable approach before continuing. If so, please let me know and I will continue with adding support for iOS 7.X and not failing the test if the alert never shows up.

While this will not yet allow interaction with external views (eg. ABPeoplePickerNavigationController), it does mark a huge step forward for KIF being able to interact with elements outside of the standard accessibility hierarchy.

[joemasilotti]

Now with iOS 7 support the build on CI is passing!

[phatmann]

This is absolutely fantastic! Amazing work.

Now that you have cracked open the automation server, KIF might be able to do all kinds of new tricks with other system dialogs.

[joemasilotti]

👍

Just a heads up that there is definitely some polish that could be done. For example:

1. Running -linkAutomationFramework via KIFTestActor's -runBlock:complete:timeout:
2. Not failing if the alert never shows up
3. Waiting for the alert to dismiss via the same approach as 1.

Would you like me to open new issues for each of these or just keep them tracked here?

[phatmann]

How about just opening one issue that covers the three points you raised above?

[joemasilotti]

I added the three points to issue #512.

[rsaunders100]

This is really amazing, well done! I didn't know it was possible to do - clever tick using UIAutomation.

Am I right In thinking this will only work on the simulator?

[maxwellE]

I am having issues using - (void)acknowledgeSystemAlert with an iPhone 6 Plus simulator. Was this working for you locally?

[joemasilotti]

@maxwellE What issues, exactly, are you running in to?

[OliverPearmain]

Further developments with my issue, if I run our tests with the 7.1 simulator instead of the desired 8.1 simulator then the tests succeeded and are unaffected by the simulator locking up.

[maxwellE]

On an iPhone 6 Plus the acknowledge method just locks up the simulator and hangs forever.

On Dec 9, 2014, at 8:00 AM, Jamie Forrest <notifications@github.commailto:notifications@github.com> wrote:

@maxwellEhttps://github.com/maxwellE What issues, exactly, are you running in to?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//pull/510#issuecomment-66305672.

[joshrlesch]

Will this work for the camera alert? When the Camera alert opens, the kif test just sits there and doesnt move onto the [tester acknowledgeSystemAlert]; step.

I have a step that wants to access the camera and after clicking that the alert pops up. How do I call the kif step to close the alert if it doesn't move on?

[tester tapViewWithAccessibilityLabel:@"Turn on Camera"];
[tester acknowledgeSystemAlert];

[joemasilotti]

@maxwellE and @OliverPearmain - I took a look at this last night and have a few updates. PR #520 restores on device testing by not linking against the UIAutomation framework when running on a physical device.

Unfortunately this does not address the issues you are seeing. If you clone master and run the included test suite does the simulator still hang? If so then we have some more digging to do. If not, can you provide sample code that reproduces your issue?

[alexmanzer]

One question to this feature: Will this handling of system alertviews also tap automatically on "iOS update available"-alertviews like this:

[fcy]

I'd love to have a way to dismiss the update alert. Thanks for this awesome use of UIAutomation!

[iMaximus]

It not work on IOS 8.4 for location alert :(

[phatmann]

@iMaximus can you file a new issue with more details? Thanks!

[iMaximus]

Sorry, my bad. I thought that not work method [tester acknowledgeSystemAlert]; for location alert on simulator iphone 6 (8.4) but all work correctly.

[phatmann]

@Tom-Wolters Which method?

[0xTomTom]

@phatmann I apologize - The method ('acknowledgeSystemAlert()') is working as intended! I removed my comment.

[maryamaffinityclick]

Im using KIF in swift , I cannot have the method acknowledgeSystemAlert(), how can I call this method ??

[justinseanmartin]

It is available on -[KIFUIViewTestActor acknowledgeSystemAlert] (and KIFUITestActor as well). You should be able to call it just like you call any other action on tester or viewTester in Swift.

[maryamaffinityclick]

right , My target was device so I wasn't able to see the function!
did you find any solution for devices ?

[justinseanmartin]

Gotcha, we do all of our testing on iOS Simulators, so we don't have this issue.

I believe we can't load the UIAutomation.framework on devices in order to interact with system alerts unless you have a jailbroken device, at which point it should be theoretically possible (though I haven't tried). Rather than relying on these methods to interact with system alerts, you should be able to swizzle some methods to stub the behavior that ends up popping the system alerts.

I posted in #979 with our workaround for how to suppress the CLocationManager alerts. We do something similar for the photo picker as well.

[maryamaffinityclick]

You are totally right!
Although I am thinking of having a single UITest class which will only interact with permission dialogs and run before KIF UnitTests to prepare the app. cause I don't wanna stub the behaviour I want to actually access the photos or location.
I dont know how it will work in practice but theoretically would works fine and it will run just once on fresh install .

[mikelupo]

For those damn update pop ups we run our WiFi connections through a proxy and blacklist the apple sites. We use privoxy.

[justinseanmartin]

Regarding not wanting to stub the behavior of accessing the photos or location, at least philosophically for me, it isn't testing behavior that is within your control.

As long as you're conforming to the same API contract that is exposed by Apple's API, it shouldn't be necessary to actually test the iOS system behavior IMO.

[hejun-lyne]

Hi, I found that applicationState is always UIApplicationStateInactive after called acknowledgeSystemAlert, and UIApplicationDidBecomeActiveNotification | UIApplicationWillResignActiveNotification will never received. @joemasilotti