Appium Inspector Documentation

Appium Inspector is a GUI assistant tool for the Appium ecosystem. It provides visual inspection of applications under test by providing screenshots and page sources. Key features include:

• Interacting with the application via screenshots.
• Searching for and interacting with UI elements.
• Executing driver actions.
• Recording user actions.

Appium Inspector is a GUI assistant tool that provides visual inspection of applications under test. Key capabilities include:

• Visual Inspection: View application page screenshots alongside the page source.
• Server Configuration: Specify Appium server connection details.
• Interaction: Interact directly with the application screenshot.
• Element Discovery: Search for specific elements and interact with them.
• Command Execution: Run Appium driver commands directly from the GUI.

The Session Builder is the primary interface presented when you first open the Appium Inspector. It serves as the central hub for configuring and starting new automation sessions. The interface is organized into several functional areas:

• Application Settings: Global configuration for the Inspector application.
• Configuration of Server Details: Settings for connecting to the Appium server (e.g., remote host, port).
• Capability Builder tab: The interface used to construct new session capabilities.
• Saved Capability Sets tab: Access to previously stored capability configurations.
• Attaching to Existing Session tab: Tools for connecting the Inspector to a session that is already running.

The Session Inspector is the primary interface displayed when you are actively connected to an Appium session. It serves as the central hub for most Inspector functionalities, allowing you to interact with the application under test.

The interface is organized into several functional areas:

• Header: Contains action buttons and session controls.
• Screenshot panel: Displays the current visual state of the application.
• Source tab: Provides access to the application's element hierarchy (DOM/XML).
• Commands tab: Used for executing specific commands against the session.
• Gestures tab: Allows for the creation and execution of touch/pointer gestures.
• Recorder tab: Enables recording of user interactions to generate scripts.
• Session Information tab: Displays metadata and details about the active session.

The Screenshot panel is located on the left side of the Session Inspector. It displays the current device screen and provides tools for interacting with the UI via element selection or raw coordinates.

Key behaviors:

• Dimensions: Supports all dimensions and orientations. The Inspector automatically scales the screenshot to fit either the full window height or 40% of the window width.
• Multi-display devices: By default, only the primary display is shown. On supported devices, you can switch displays using the Display Switcher button in the header.
• Refreshing: By default, screenshots are static and only update when a manual refresh is requested. To enable automatic, real-time mirroring of the device screen (even when interacting outside the Inspector), you must use MJPEG session capabilities like appium:mjpegServerPort.

Once the plugin is installed and the Appium server is running, you can access the web-based Appium Inspector interface directly through your server. The interface is available at the /inspector endpoint of your Appium server URL.

This plugin provides full feature parity with the standalone Appium Inspector, allowing you to inspect and interact with your application under test via a browser.

Commands and execute methods in the list may display additional metadata provided by the driver or plugin:

• Deprecated Commands: Marked with a yellow-tinted background. Refer to your driver/plugin documentation for details on why they are deprecated.
• Additional Information: Hovering your mouse over a command may reveal extra descriptive information.
• Parameters: Clicking on a command opens a parameters popup. These parameters are categorized as either required or optional.

The Appium Inspector interface is divided into two primary functional areas:

• Session Builder: The initial screen used to define Appium server connection details, capabilities, and session configurations.
• Session Inspector: The interface displayed during an active session. It provides access to the application screenshot, page source, element inspection, and interaction tools.

The Source tab is the default view when starting an Inspector session. It consists of two main connected panels:

1. Application Source panel: Displays the application's XML structure in a tree format.
2. Selected Element panel: Appears only when an element is selected, providing detailed information about that specific element.

You can use the divider line between these two panels to adjust their widths or to collapse/expand them.