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Open Source tools to capture UI Elements - Web/Mobile Platform

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This content will help you to choose the appropriate tool for capturing UI elements for any automation.

Web Inspector

By default all the browsers have the developer tools integrated.

a. Built-in Browser tools

Pressing F12 in keyboard launches the developer tool. Here the user can point on any element -> Right click and Click on 'Inspect Element' which launches a pane which highlights the property of the element.

IE Browser ie-dev-tools

Chrome Browser chrome-dev-tools

Firefox Browser firefox-dev-tools

Plugins which comes handy !

d. Web Developer tool 

It's a Chrome/Firefox plugin which can be installed from this location

For Firefox : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/web-developer/ .

Fore Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/web-developer/bfbameneiokkgbdmiekhjnmfkcnldhhm

This includes all-in-one functionality of UI web dev. As displayed in the screen below, it has the ability to display all the parameters of an element.

firefoxweb displayid

 

e. Xpath Helper

Generally for automation we use XPath for navigating to the elements from the root node.

For Chrome browser, Download the plugin from https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/xpath-helper/hgimnogjllphhhkhlmebbmlgjoejdpjl

Press 'Ctrl+Shift+X' to launch the Xpath Helper. Drag the mouse to any element by holding on the 'Shift' key. The below screenshot helps to identify the xpath of the element.

xpathhelpter

f. Css Viewer

Inspect Css using the below plugins

For Firefox download from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cssviewer/

For Chrome, https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cssviewer/ggfgijbpiheegefliciemofobhmofgce

Click on the CSSViewer and Scroll over an element to view its properties.

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Mobile Applications

 

a. Install Android SDK. UIAutomationviewer comes along with SDK.

Open command prompt and navigate to Android SDK\tools. Launch uiautomatorviewer.bat file which will be displayed as below.

 

create21

Click on the Device Screenshot (second icon from left in the above screen)

Once captured, the screen is visible with the UI metadata. Click on number ‘7’. Once selected, the number ‘7’ is highlighted and get the ID value under the resource-id node.

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