Driving out of app areas

[rajdeepv]

There are cases where we have to drive out of app areas. Example:
AppUnderTest (has an upload photo button which opens Android Gallery)=> Select photos => Back to AppUnderTest
AppUnderTest => Open GooglePlay payment flow => Pay using GooglePlay => Back to AppUnderTest

espresso-driver already has InteractionHelper with UiDevice and therefore there is a possibility of driving out of app areas. It can possibly be a simple mobile command to which we give uiautomator2 script to execute (similar to https://github.com/appium/appium-uiautomator2-server/blob/ce4b766cf702e9d0b8b2304b06a8fd00aaff8fd6/app/src/main/java/io/appium/uiautomator2/utils/UiAutomatorParser.java)

[dpgraham]

Yeah this is a limitation of Espresso. Espresso only tests the 'app-under-test', which has pro's and con's. UiAutomator2 can test external apps.

I think what we should be doing is merging our UiAutomator2 driver into Espresso and having the ability to change native contexts.

[rajdeepv]

It definitely makes sense to merge both given they have mutually exclusive powers. Is it a plan in near future?

[dpgraham]

Not sure how soon we'll get to it. Depends on if we can have somebody work on it.

[rajdeepv]

@dpgraham as a stop-gap, do you think its a good idea to add a mobile command which can evaluate a uiautomator2 script to workaround this problem? I can try doing that

[dpgraham]

@rajdeepv Yeah if you wanted to work on that, I'm fine with that.

[KazuCocoa]

Lovely. > #359 (comment)
I also got feedback about it by friends of mine, but I have no time to work for it hard so far...

[rajdeepv]

@dpgraham @KazuCocoa, What I meant was not a fully fledged script parser, but just a workaround which helps me in very rare cases when I want to click or get the text/contentDescription etc from out of app areas. I already use the simple workaround from my fork for my personal projects. Not sure if it is good enough for upstream.

[mykola-mokhnach]

@rajdeepv create a PR. We'll be happy to review as always.