Successful Windows Desktop App Test Automation with Appium

The Continuous Testing Process of TestWise, a Desktop App

Over the past 15 years, I primally worked on web test automation. At the software testing conferences, a common question from the audience was “How do you develop automated tests for desktop apps?”. My answer: “I haven’t yet seen one successful and sustainable solution for desktop apps”. From today, I can say: “I found a solution” (the solution is Appium with WinAppDriver + RSpec, sample tests provided below).

I have done some research on automated testing Desktop Apps using AutoIT3 and others since 2008, I even created a free open-source framework RFormSpec. I had some degrees of success with RFormSpec on two projects, but I knew that the underlying framework won’t scale.

Last year, I saw an announcement from Microsoft: “We recommend using Selenium for testing web apps and Appium with WinAppDriver for testing desktop and UWP apps.” So I started:

• learning and researching Appium and WinAppDriver
• applying the same design techniques in my book “Practical Web Test Automation”, such as reusable help functions and the page object pattern.
• adding Appium support in TestWise IDE
• developing automated GUI…