Appium how to do scrolling.

In this post, I will show you how to do scrolling in Appium. Appium provides the TouchAction API for gesture implementation.

1. Create an Appium driver:

First, let's create an Appium driver. The general configuration looks like as below:

import io.appium.java_client.android.AndroidDriver;
import org.junit.After;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.DesiredCapabilities;
import org.openqa.selenium.support.ui.WebDriverWait;

import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;

public class AppiumTest {

    private static AndroidDriver driver;
    private static WebDriverWait wait;

    @Before
    public static void setUp() throws MalformedURLException {
        DesiredCapabilities cap = new DesiredCapabilities();
        cap.setCapability("platformName", "Android");
        cap.setCapability("deviceName", "your device name");
        cap.setCapability("appPackage", "appPackage");
        cap.setCapability("appActivity", "appActivity");
        cap.setCapability("automationName", "UiAutomator1");
        cap.setCapability("autoGrantPermissions", true);
        cap.setCapability("autoAcceptAlerts", "true");
        driver = new AndroidDriver(new URL("http://127.0.0.1:4723/wd/hub"), cap);
        wait = new WebDriverWait(driver,60);
    }
    
    @After
    public static void tearDown(){
        driver.quit();
    }

}

This is a sample config to create an Appium driver which we will use later.

2. Scrolling:

//AppiumTest.java
private static void scroll(int scrollStart, int scrollEnd) {
        new TouchAction(driver)
                .press(point(0, scrollStart))
                .waitAction(WaitOptions.waitOptions(Duration.ofSeconds(10)))
                .moveTo(point(0, scrollEnd))
                .release().perform();
    }

Here, we are dealing with scrolling, so we are adjusting the value for the y-axis. The press() method allows you to press on the position x, y coordinates. You can use some offset value for x coordinate instead of 0 x-offset value. The waitAction() method will wait until the duration provided. The moveTo() method allows moving current touch action to a new position specified. The release() method removes the touch. Next, we will adjust the scrollStart and scrollEnd arguments to move down and up.

3. Scrolling Down:

//AppiumTest.java
public static void scrollDown() {
        MobileElement element = (MobileElement) driver.findElement(By.id("resourceId"));
        if (element == null){
            return;
        }
        int numberOfTimes = 10;
        Dimension dimension = driver.manage().window().getSize();
        int windowsHeight = dimension.getHeight();
        int scrollStart = (int) (windowsHeight * 0.5);
        int scrollEnd = (int) (windowsHeight * 0.3);
        int elementLocationOffset = windowsHeight-500;
        for (int i = 0; i < numberOfTimes; i++) {
            int elementLocationY = element.getLocation().y;
            if (elementLocationY < elementLocationOffset){
                i = numberOfTimes;
                System.out.println("Element available.");
            }else {
                scroll(scrollStart, scrollEnd);
                System.out.println("Element not available. Scrolling...");
            }
        }
    }

In the above scrolling down example, we are trying to scroll down until the element is visible on the screen. Here, we are getting the dimension of the screen window; as we are scrolling so, we use windows height to manipulate the position to scroll.

For e.g, if windows height is 1000 scrollStart will be 500 and scrollEnd will be 300 which means while calling scroll() method it will press to the position (x,y) (0, 500) and move to (x,y)(0, 300) which results in scrolling downward. We are looping so that it will scroll down until the element will arrive to the elementLocationOffset position where the element will be visible on the screen.

For testing element availability, if the above approach doesn't work you can try finding the element as below:

for (int i = 0; i < numberOfTimes; i++) {
            List elements = driver.findElements(By.id("resourceId"));
            if (elements.size() > 0){
                i = numberOfTimes;
                System.out.println("Element available.");
            }else {
                scroll(scrollStart, scrollEnd);
                System.out.println("Element not available. Scrolling...");
            }
        }

4. Scrolling Up:

If you want to scroll Up then you need to adjust the coordinates as below:

 int scrollStart = (int) (windowsHeight * 0.3);
 int scrollEnd = (int) (windowsHeight * 0.7);
 

For e.g: if the window's height is 1000 then scrollStart will be 300 and scrollEnd will be 700 which means while calling scroll() method it will press to the position (x,y) (0, 300) and move to (x,y)(0, 700) which results in scrolling upward. Adjust the value that suits you.

The overall Implementation looks like below:

package appium;

import io.appium.java_client.MobileElement;
import io.appium.java_client.TouchAction;
import io.appium.java_client.android.AndroidDriver;
import io.appium.java_client.touch.WaitOptions;
import org.junit.After;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.Dimension;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.DesiredCapabilities;

import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.time.Duration;

import static io.appium.java_client.touch.offset.PointOption.point;


public class AppiumTest {

    private static AndroidDriver driver;
    

    @Before
    public static void setUp() throws MalformedURLException {
        DesiredCapabilities cap = new DesiredCapabilities();
        cap.setCapability("platformName", "Android");
        cap.setCapability("deviceName", "your device");
        cap.setCapability("appPackage", "appPackage");
        cap.setCapability("appActivity", "appActivity");
        cap.setCapability("automationName", "UiAutomator1");
        cap.setCapability("autoGrantPermissions", true);
        cap.setCapability("autoAcceptAlerts", "true");
        driver = new AndroidDriver(new URL("http://127.0.0.1:4723/wd/hub"), cap);
    }


    public static void scrollDown() {
        MobileElement element = (MobileElement) driver.findElement(By.id("resourceId"));
        if (element == null){
            return;
        }
        int numberOfTimes = 10;
        Dimension dimension = driver.manage().window().getSize();
        int windowsHeight = dimension.getHeight();
        int scrollStart = (int) (windowsHeight * 0.5);
        int scrollEnd = (int) (windowsHeight * 0.3);
        int elementLocationOffset = windowsHeight-500;
        for (int i = 0; i < numberOfTimes; i++) {
            int elementLocationY = element.getLocation().y;
            if (elementLocationY < elementLocationOffset){
                i = numberOfTimes;
                System.out.println("Element available.");
            }else {
                scroll(scrollStart, scrollEnd);
                System.out.println("Element not available. Scrolling...");
            }
        }
    }

    private static void scroll(int scrollStart, int scrollEnd) {
        new TouchAction(driver)
                .press(point(0, scrollStart))
                .waitAction(WaitOptions.waitOptions(Duration.ofSeconds(1)))
                .moveTo(point(0, scrollEnd))
                .release().perform();
    }

    @After
    public static void tearDown(){
        driver.quit();
    }

}