Xamarin.UITest: How to select a next element of the current node

Question

Is there any way to select a next element of the current node using Xamarin.UITest.Queries.AppQuery?

Here is a REPL source:

[CalabashRootView > ... > UIView]                                              
  [UILabel]
  [UIButton] label: "arrow prev"
    [UIImageView] id: "arrow-prev.png"
  [iLobby_iOS_Controls_UIAnimatedButtonView]
  [UILabel] label: "Tell us about yourself",  text: "Tell us about yourself"
  [UILabel] label: "FIRST AND LAST NAME",  text: "FIRST AND LAST NAME"
  [UILabel] label: "*",  text: "*"
  [UITextField]
    [UIImageView]
    [_UITextFieldContentView]
    [UIAccessibilityTextFieldElement]
  [UILabel] label: "COMPANY",  text: "COMPANY"
  [UITextField]
    [UIImageView]
    [_UITextFieldContentView]
    [UIAccessibilityTextFieldElement]

The challenge is select UITextField element next to UILabel

I looking for a similar way like xPath do. In my case it would look like:

//UILabel[@text='FIRST AND LAST NAME']/following::UITextField

Any Idea? Our app is written in Xamarin.iOS (no Xamarin.Forms).

Answer 1

Explanation

The best way to identify UI controls with Xamarin.UITest is to assign a unique identifier to each control in the source code of the app.

In Xamarin.iOS, we can assign the AccessibilityIdentifier property in our apps' source code, then reference it using x => x.Marked in Xamarin.UITest.

Setting the AccessibilityIdentifier, Xamarin.iOS

There are a few ways to set the AccessibilityIdentifier in Xamarin.iOS.

Each way accomplishes the same result. Use whichever method works best for your current code base.

For this example, I am setting the AccessibilityIdentifier to FirstAndLastNameLabel for my UILabel.

1. Storyboards, Visual Studio (Mac)

2. Storyboards, Xcode

3. In Code

var firstAndLastNameLabel = new UILabel
{
    AccessibilityIdentifier = "FirstAndLastNameLabel"
};

Referencing Unique Identifier in Xamarin.UITest

After we've created a unique identifier for each UI control, we can then reference it in Xamarin.UITest using x => x.Marked;

readonly System.Func<Xamarin.UITest.Queries.AppQuery, Xamarin.UITest.Queries.AppQuery> firstAndLastNameLabelQuery = x => x.Marked("FirstAndLastNameLabel");

public string GetFirstAndLastNameLabelText()
{
    var label = app.Query(firstAndLastNameLabelQuery)?.FirstOrDefault();
    return label?.Text ?? string.Empty;
}

Additional Information

Using Marked in Xamarin.UITest

https://learn.microsoft.com/appcenter/test-cloud/uitest/#using-marked-to-locate-views

AccessibilityIdentifier API

An identifier can be used to uniquely identify an element in the scripts you write using the UI Automation interfaces

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiaccessibilityidentification/1623132-accessibilityidentifier?language=objc