UI Testing Xcode 7- can't access element within subview

Question

I'm trying to access an element within a subview and I'm finding it impossible to do so.

The hierarchy being:

View Controller:

• View
  • tempView
  • userEnterView
    • zipCodeEntered

I want to access the zipCodeEntered text field. I have an accessibility label on it named "zipCodeEntered".

When I try and record the automation, it only register the superview "userEnterView" and not the actual text field which I can tap into.

I print "app.otherElements[SUPER_VIEW_NAME].debugDescription" to see what elements are in that hierarchy and it prints none.

Any ideas as to why I can not access these elements/how I can access them?

Faline

Can you try setting the accessibilityIdentifer instead? – Brod

Joe: I've read your UI testing blog extensively and it has help me a ton, so I just wanted to thank you for that. I added the accessibilityIdentifier to the zipCodeEntered textField and it still can't find it. Using either app.otherElements["zipCodeEntered"] or app.textFields["zipCodeEntered"]. Added picture of storyboard layout – Faline

Thanks, glad it's been helping! Have you tried accessing the element by it's placeholder text, "Zip Code"? – Brod

Is there a way to access elements by their placeholder text straight from the app? I see app.placeholderValue exists but that just returns a string for the app's placeholder value. – Faline

You can use the same query you are already using. app.textFields["Zip Code"]. – Brod

unfortunately app.textfields["Zip Code"].exists returns false. – Faline

This is where it can get a little odd. I've found UI testing can't identify elements by placeholder text (or label text) if you are you either using or have used accessibility ID or name. Even if you've used it once and blanked it out. You have to go to the storyboard XML and literally manually delete it the accessibility XML for that UI element. I've opened an apple bug and I believe they've accepted it's an open issue. Once the storyboard accessibility XML is no longer there, there is simply no reason why app.textFields["Zip Code"].exists shouldn't work. Let me know if that helps! – Berthoud

I deleted all the accesibility code from the XML and still no joy. I then proceeded to delete the text field and add it again, with just the placeholder "Zip Code", still nothing... Have you noticed this as an issue with elements located within subviews? Thanks for all your help! – Faline

Answer 1

The subviews are not accessible because the parent view is not a container view. From the section Making Your iOS App Accessible from the Accessibility Programming Guide:

From the perspective of accessibility, a custom view is either an individual view or a container view. An individual view does not contain any other views that need to be accessible.

A container view, on the other hand, contains other elements with which users can interact.

To make the subviews accessible the parent view should tell UIAccessibility that it is an accessibility container by returning NO from -isAccessibilityElement and implementing the methods of the UIAccessibilityContainer protocol.

Timid

Thank you! That was exactly the problem. There are two ways of achieving this. 1) uncheck accessibility for all the view elements that I had. 2) programmatically, in the view controller use the specific view outlet to write viewOutletVariable.isAccessibilityElement = false. – Faline

This answer was basically acted as an inhaler for me. – Cummine

UIAccessibilityContainer is only for views that contain non UIKit backed elements. For example drawing text and images manually with drawAtPoint rather than a UILabel or UIImageView. – Habitforming

@Habitforming UIAccessibilityContainer is "methods can be overridden to vend individual elements that are managed by a single UIView.". For example, the iOS dialing interface may be a view that implements UIAccessibilityContainer to allow accessibility to interact individually with the UIButtons it contains, rather than the parent view that contains them. – Timid

This solves the problem. Just set isAccessibilityElement = false on any custom view that is containing other elements. I owe you a beer in this or in another life. – Enthrall

Answer 2

The thing that fixed it for me was to check √ the "Accessibility" box to enabled in Interface Builder.

If not working in IB try setting the the view's isAccessibilityElement property to true.

Hope that helps!

Deserted

Why did this get a downvote? This is literally just the graphical representation of the accepted answer. – Alcaide

Answer 3

I also encountered this problem in my UITableView. My cell has a containerView(UIView) which has subviews(TextView, UIButton...) and a collectionView with its cells.

I tried the accepted answer, but it didn't work.(UI Recorder or manual code didn't recognize my sub-elements). But sometimes I found the UITest suddenly recognized my sub-elements when I triggered something to refresh the table.

So right now I know if UITest can't find my subviews, I invoke tableView.reloadData to refresh the view, and then all the problem is gone.

Anyway, this is just a workaround, I hope Apple can fix it as soon as possible.

Arboriculture

How do you invoke tableView.reloadData in XCUI? – Radiometeorograph

This answer is in no way related to the question, as the code and the screenshot show there is no UITableView involved at all. – Axletree

Even though this is not really related to the original question, I've found this helpful because I was having the same issue - XCUI didn't find any cells inside the table though there were cells on the snapshot at that moment. Reloading the table view helped. I've used github.com/Subito-it/SBTUITestTunnel for this. I hope XCode will fix this soon. – Sadie