1. Install UIAutomatorViewer

• Install Android Studio if you don’t have it

• Open Android Studio

• Click on More Actions > SDK Manager (or Tools > SDK Manager if a project is open)

• Click on the SDK tools tab, uncheck option "Hide Obsolete Packages"

• Check option “Android SDK Tools” and install version 26.1.1

• UIAutomatorViewer is now installed in Android SDK directory

• Add UIAutomatorViewer to your path:

  • On Linux: add the line export PATH=$HOME/Android/Sdk/tools/bin:$PATH in the .bashrc file and run the command "source ~/.bashrc"

  • On Mac: add the line export PATH=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk/tools/bin:$PATH in the .bash_profile file and run the command "source ~/.bash_profile"

  • On Windows: Windows start menu > Settings > System > About > Advanced settings > Environment variables > Path > Modify > Add the path C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\tools\bin. Replace username by the name of the user.

2. Launch UIAutomatorViewer

Check your java version with the following command:

java -version

2.1. Launch UIAutomatorViewer without installing Java 1.8

To avoid installing a different version of Java, you could set environment variables for your PC profile:

After adding the variables, you can open a new terminal (this is important to open a new terminal to take into account the variables you have just set) and use the following command to open UIAutomatorViewer :

On Linux :

java -Xmx1600M -Dcom.android.uiautomator.bindir="$ANDROID_HOME/tools" -cp "$ANDROID_HOME/tools/lib/x86_64/swt.jar":"$ANDROID_HOME/tools/lib/*" com.android.uiautomator.UiAutomatorViewer  

On Windows :

java -Xmx1600M -Dcom.android.uiautomator.bindir="%ANDROID_HOME%\tools" -cp "%ANDROID_HOME%\tools\lib\x86_64\swt.jar";"%ANDROID_HOME%\tools\lib\*" com.android.uiautomator.UiAutomatorViewer

• The following program appears :

2.2. Launch UIAutomatorViewer with Java 1.8

Install Java 1.8:

• On Linux, run the following commands:

# Install java 8
sudo apt-get install openjdk-8-jdk
# Check java version
java -version
# Update the java default version use by your system (if you have several)
sudo update-alternatives --config java

• On Mac with Intel chip, run the command below, add the line export PATH=/usr/local/opt/openjdk@8/bin:$PATH in the .bash_profile file and run the command "source ~/.bash_profile":

brew install openjdk@8

• On Mac with Mac chip, run the commands below, add the line export PATH=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/temurin-8.jdk/Contents/Home/bin:$PATH in the .bash_profile file and run the command "source ~/.bash_profile"

brew tap homebrew/cask-versions
brew install --cask temurin8

• On Windows, install Java 1.8 by getting it on the Oracle website. You need to create an account.

Launch UIAutomatorViewer:

• On Linux and Mac, run the following command:

uiautomatorviewer

• On Windows, run the following command:

uiautomatorviewer.bat

The following program appears :

3. Use UIAutomatorviewer

When UIAutomatorViewer is opened, you can

• Plug your usb on your smartphone

• Click on button “Device screenshot”

• A screen capture and a dump of view hierarchy appears on the screen

• On screenshot (left), you can select the element for which you want to retrieve information and find it on the right:

• In this case, the tab “Actu” have the field ‘text’ set with ‘Actu’. So in GDSL we can search the text Actu to find this tab (if there is no other element with the same text in the screen).

• Each element of a view can be retrieve by field ‘text’, ‘resource-id’, ‘class’ or ‘content-desc’. GDSL commands are made to find an element by searching on this field

  • clickById,exampleid : click on an element which have exampleid in resource-id field

  • waitUntilText,Actu : Wait an element which have ‘Actu’ in text field