Just started investigate the Xamarin Test Cloud.
I want to write a simple test using VS and run this test on iOS simulator, which is running on Mac machine.
I've connected to Xamarin Mac Agent. Agent run on the same Mac machine as the iOS simulator.
I've faced with exception "iOS tests are not supported on Windows" when i'm trying to use something like this:
app = ConfigureApp.iOS.StartApp();
I'm understand that I can't run iOS tests on Windows, but I want to run it on iOS simulator on Mac.
Could someone explain me how can I do this? Is it possible?
And a have another question. As a said I've just started with the xamarin and tests. I'm not shure that I undertand difference between Xamarin Test Cloud and Xamarin UI Test. Could someone explain that?
It isn't possible at this time to launch iOS tests on the simulator (running on your Mac) from Visual Studio - you'd have to start the tests from Xamarin Studio on the Mac itself to be able to run the tests in the simulator or on a device.
UITest is the Automated UI Acceptance Testing framework based on Calabash that allows programmers to write and execute tests in C# - more info can be found at this link.
Test Cloud is a service that allows you to run tests written with UITest (or Calabash) on over 2,000 devices that we host ourselves (so you can test against various different OS versions / types of hardware). - more info can be found at this link.
Related
I'm new to flutter, after native coding Android and ios, in Android Studio and XCode.
In flutter, I'm writing the code in Android Studio, and testing from there. This all works well for android devices. When I test on ios devices, if I run the app from android studio onto my iphone, it takes age to build. If however, I open the runner project in xcode, and run it from there, it works fine. What I am asking is, does it make any difference if I test my ios device by running the project from xcode or not?
Thanks for the basic question, I'm new to flutter!
I find it odd that it builds so much more quickly directly from Xcode, as all the other two IDEs are doing are building with Xcode via terminal commands, but to answer your question, the output to the device/emulator will be the same either way.
Are there any possible solutions available for testing iOS application using Appium on Windows machine? Also I have to reuse already created scripts for testing. As I've developed Ruby test scripts with me, which I should be reusing for iOS testing from my windows machine.
I per my exploration, iOS testing has it's dependency on XCode, so you need Mac machine. Though there are some possible ways which I'm listing below with it's limitations, but they aren't applicable solution for me.
Explored Solutions:
1. Appium Studio:
Appium Studio Community version(Free) or Enterprise version(Paid) allows you to test the iOS as well as android application independent of the hardware or software. ref: Appium Studio Docs
But because of following Limitations I can't use Appium Studio:
You can't import already created scripts in community edition. (I don't know about enterprise edition.)
If you want to use eclipse for the editing the scripts, then you need an eclipse-plugin that bridges Appium Studio and Eclipse. But this plugin is paid one.
2. Remote Server Functionality:
This is a good option, but you need to have at least on Mac machine, which I'm not having. How?
Are there any open source alternatives available of Appium Studio ?
Are there any other work arounds possible? I'm new to appium, any help would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.
I found this site and it does appear to be possible to run iOS simulators on a windows machine. As far as I can tell, Appium studio is able to start one of these simulators or it looks like you can use remote access.
https://docs.experitest.com/display/ES/Manual+Testing+Self-Training
If we can install one of the iOS simulators for windows and get that working then we can use Appium's desktop inspector. It's free and open source. It offers the same element detection feature of Appium studio.
If we want to run the tests on a real device then we can use a cloud provider like Appium studio, AWS Device Farm, or Sauce Labs
Hope that helps
James
I'm aware that a Mac or a Mac service e.g. MacInCloud.com is necessary for building and submitting iOS apps.
My question is about the actual workflow of building an app on Windows using Xamarin on Visual Studio 2017.
We need to write code, test and debug throughout development cycle. How does this work with Xamarin running on Windows? How would I actually see what my mobile app looks like or behaves during the actual development cycle?
While developing my web apps in Visual Studio, there are many trips back and forth to the browsers and back to VS in order for me to see the results of my code. How does this work with Xamarin running on Windows? Is Xamarin Live Player the only option for development cycle? Is there a solution through MacInCloud or similar services so that tethering a device to dev machine is not necessary?
I'm just trying to understand how a healthy development cycle is created for Xamarin developers on Windows.
I will answer your question in few section: Coding, Debug, Test
Coding
You will be using Visual Studio to write your codes. iOS and Android code will be written in C#. You will get access to UI Designer for both iOS and Android to edit the layout files and storyboard/xibs. For 3rd party library, there is NuGet to serve your needs.
Debug
You can use Xamarin Live Player without connection to a Mac/MacInCloud for basic preview. However, some features of iOS is not available in Xamarin Live Player (e.g. xibs files not supported...).
If you setup with connection to a Mac, you will be able to see a list of Simulator that available in the Mac you connected to. By default, if you debug it, the simulator will still show up in the Mac. Then you will need to VMWare or remote into the Mac to check the simulator output. If you have Visual Studio Enterprise license, you can get access to a Remote iOS Simulator feature. You will need to turn the option ON. After that, you will able to see a remote iOS Simulator showing in your Windows machine without the needs to remote into Mac machine anymore. For debugging in actual iOS devices, you will still need to plug your device into the Mac. Previously (more than 1 years ago), Xamarin announce that they are working on "iOS USB remoting" to allow you to plug in iOS device into Windows machine and debug on it. But it is not release until now.
For Android, you can get access to Android Emulator Manager to add emulator to debug or you can deploy apps to physical phone just like what you can do with Android Studio.
Test
I will be referring to Xamarin.UITest for this part. You will be able to write UITest code in C# inside Visual Studio. Xamarin have product "Xamarin Test Cloud" to allow you to upload test code and binary and then run your test in cloud periodically. If you want to run the test locally in your machine, you will only able to run Android UITest in windows machine. To run iOS UITest locally, you will only able to run it in Mac machine. Using a Mac, you can also run Android UITest.
You can use a simulator/emulator instead of a device. For iOS, the simulator would run on the Mac Build Host that you are connected to. You can select the option for "Remote iOS simulator" in Visual Studio -> Xamarin.iOS options and you'll be able to interact with the simulator without having to RDP/VNC/look at the mac. For android, you can just run an emulator in Window and interact with it like that. Using your web apps comparison, you would use a simulator/emulator instead of browser but, for the most part, the process would be similar.
I have been developing a Xamarin MVVM app targeted at iOS and Android. I initially did the iOS development on Windows with VS 2022 and an iPhone attached via USB. I knew that I was going to have to eventually move to the Mac for final provisioning but I ended up taking that painful step earlier than planned because certain Xamarin features were just not working on Windows. First I could not get my app icon to be anything other than the Xamarin default and then Xamarin.Essentials.FilePicker would not select a file:
https://github.com/xamarin/Essentials/issues/1710
So after a week of struggling I finally got my project building and deploying on the Mac. However, I am not nearly as comfortable working on the Mac as I am on Windows where I have all my familiar development tools. So then the question was how to share the project files between the PC and the Mac so that I could edit and compile on the PC and then move to the Mac for final testing.
At first I tried iCloud but I could never get the files to sync reliably between the shared folder on the PC and the Mac. I am used to Dropbox and OneDrive, which work as expected. iCloud not so much.
So what I have been doing is committing and pushing the changes to github and then pulling the changes into the project on the Mac. It is quick and has the added benefit of version control using an offsite server. I am happy with this workflow and publishing the app on the Apple Store should be an easy task when that time comes.
Update:
This process is still working for me. I have taken the additional step of doing the release configuration on VS Mac and publishing my app to App Store Connect. That experience was convoluted and frustrating but it now works and I have people testing my app via TestFlight.
One hiccup is that when selecting Automatic iOS Bundle Signing in the project properties on VS Windows, this change gets pushed to the Mac side and causes a build error under Debug until I select the Automatic provisioning profile on the Mac. Somehow it gets set to the Wildcard profile on the Windows side.
I want to deploy my first iOS App created with Xamarin Forms to the AppStore or at least to a single device. I have an Apple Developer Account and performed this task several times before using xCode and native iOS Apps.
But as a Windows guy I hoped to get this done for Xamarin using my VST for Windows.
But all guides and tutorials I found are only explaining how I can deploy iOS Apps to the store and to devices using VST for Mac ... Is this the only way? How do I get the code to the Mac? Can I use the TFS Source Control? Do I have to commit every little change to TFS, check it out at the Mac, rebuild the whole app there and deploy it from the Mac?
Or are there ways and workflows that work with Windows only having the Mac 'in the background' via network?
Take a look at https://mobile.azure.com (the best solution for continuous app development: analytics, crash reports, iOS/Android/UWP builds + deploy)
I'll address the second part of your question - the ability to deploy to a single device. I'm assuming that the single device is your own device and you want to deploy via compilation. This can certainly be done from your Windows machine but due to apple licensing requirements, you will need your Mac available to compile and deploy to your phone. Your iPhone/iPad will need to be plugged into your Mac's USB.
The guides listed on the Xamarin website outline how to set up the mac build host. https://developer.xamarin.com/guides/ios/getting_started/installation/windows/connecting-to-mac/ In short, you need some prerequisites (Remote Sharing turned on, XCode installed, etc).
Once you've connected Visual Studio to your Mac, set the iOS project as the startup project, change the config from Debug to iPhone, and press F5 to compile and deploy to your device.
When in doubt, select iPhoneSimulator instead of iPhone. The simulator isn't subjected to provisioning and signing profiles which can be daunting to setup. If you can get the simulator working, you've solved the software and connectivity prerequisites.
There's a lot to configure, but it does work. This is my primary setup for Xamarin.Forms development.
My idea is to use macincloud to build xamarin project. And I'd like to debug it also.
On xamarin's site it's written that "Xamarin.iOS applications can be debugged with the built-in debugger in Xamarin Studio or Visual Studio." But it's still not clear if the device, for example iPad can be connected to Windows machine? Or It has to be connected to Mac only?
Device has to be connected to the Mac. If we are connecting to a mac remotely, we can use a Simulator and and view the result using a RDP client like TeamViewer. I'm not sure if that is possible with MainCloud. You can also go for Xamarin Test Cloud if that is feasible for you.
No, it's not possible to deploy to device and debug with MacinCloud. You can however launch a simulator and debug your app inside the emulator.
If you want to deploy to your ipad you can use publish your app with TestFlight service and install TestFlight builds on your iPad.
See more details at Developing iOS Apps in Visual Studio with MacinCloud
There are two possible ways how to do it. First one is more proper but it's in preview version - Microsoft introduced Xamarin Live Player.
Second way is to have your own virtual machine of macOS on Windows machine. Here is the tutorial how to do it.