Espresso testing disable animation

Question

@Test
    public void test3_PaySuccessful(){
        init();

    ViewInteraction amountEditText = onView(
            allOf(withId(R.id.et_amount), isDisplayed()));
    amountEditText.perform(replaceText("SGD 0.010"), closeSoftKeyboard());

    //, withText("Proceed")
    ViewInteraction appCompatButton = onView(
            allOf(withId(R.id.btn_confirm), isDisplayed()));
    appCompatButton.perform(click());

    //, withText("Pay")
    ViewInteraction appCompatButton2 = onView(
            allOf(withId(R.id.btn_confirm), isDisplayed()));
    appCompatButton2.perform(click());

    //dialog
    ViewInteraction appCompatButton3 = onView(
            allOf(withId(R.id.confirm_button), withText("Confirm"), isDisplayed()));
    appCompatButton3.perform(click());

    //have to disable animation in order to pass this.
    intended(CoreMatchers.allOf(hasComponent(PaymentSelectionActivity2.class.getName())));

}

I encountered an issue on doing Espresso testing with a view involving animation, I know Espresso cannot deal with animation, so i did below. - disable my test device Window animation, transition animation and animator duration scale all set to OFF (this does not work) - then i tried to add a flag in my code eg. espresso_testing = true. if true, my code will skip calling all startAnimation() function call. ---> this is working. However, there is a requirement that I cannot change code on my app while writing espresso test case. Included a test case above.

Is there any other way to do this? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Make sure to keep your plugin updated:

buildscript {
  repositories {
    google()
    gradlePluginPortal()
  }

  dependencies {
    classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.3.0'
  }
}

Use the new flag in testOptions called animationsDisabled:

android {

  ...

  testOptions {
    animationsDisabled = true
  }
}

Source: https://google.github.io/android-gradle-dsl/current/com.android.build.gradle.internal.dsl.TestOptions.html#com.android.build.gradle.internal.dsl.TestOptions:animationsDisabled

You can try turning off animations on your device/emulator manually:

To avoid flakiness, we highly recommend that you turn off system animations on the virtual or physical devices used for testing. On your device, under Settings > Developer options, disable the following 3 settings:

Window animation scale Transition animation scale Animator duration scale

Source: https://developer.android.com/training/testing/espresso/setup#set-up-environment

You can try using adb via command line:

# Turn off animations
adb shell settings put global window_animation_scale 0 &
adb shell settings put global transition_animation_scale 0 &
adb shell settings put global animator_duration_scale 0 &

Source: https://github.com/jaredsburrows/android-gif-example/blob/master/.travis.yml#L34

You can try LinkedIn's TestButler:

TestButler.verifyAnimationsDisabled(InstrumentationRegistry.getTargetContext());

Source: https://github.com/linkedin/test-butler/blob/master/test-butler-demo/src/androidTest/java/com/linkedin/android/testbutler/demo/AnimationDisablerTest.java#L26

You can try creating a TestRule and Gradle task for your espresso tests:

Source: https://product.reverb.com/disabling-animations-in-espresso-for-android-testing-de17f7cf236f