disable iOS simulator 'connect hardware keyboard' programmatically

Question

I'm writing XCUITests for view has 2 UITextField and by defualt the simulator has hardware keyboard connected, hence the software one is not being presented.

Is it possible to set some settings (maybe in schema?) to force-disable connecting hardware keyboard by the simulator before test runs.

I went through few links but none seems to be helpful. iOS simulator - disable connect hardware keyboard programmatically

Disable Hardware Keyboard for iOS Simulator using UIAutomation

When i try this on xcode local it works but, XCUItest runs on CI and i configured fastlane file for this called enable keyboard script before Test execution starts. But it throws error

Set: Entry, ":DevicePreferences::ConnectHardwareKeyboard ", Does Not Exist

Any help would be really appreciated

Photocomposition

Answer 1

Went through the same problem. Found a simple solution to add a prescript in the UI tests scheme.

First, this is image of the plist file opened with Xcode. This is located at ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iphonesimulator.plist

Now here is the prescript I added to my ui tests scheme. Read the comments in script for further explanation.

killall Simulator
defaults write com.apple.iphonesimulator ConnectHardwareKeyboard -bool false

How it works First the simulator is killed. Next the "defaults" command writes the key/value into the simulators plist. Now when the tests start, they launch the simulator which takes into account the value we wrote in plist.

Hope it works for you too. :)

Dorcasdorcea

It works if the test is run from XCode but fails if you run from fastlane – Customhouse

Agreed. Fails from fastlane – Armorial

I have no experience with fastlane. I use XcodeServer for running CI tests only. – Dorcasdorcea

Fastlane is supposed to disable the connected hardware keyboard itself. There is an open ticket for this: github.com/fastlane/fastlane/issues/16083. – Freudian

This doesn't seem to work anymore. Its killing the simulator but not affecting the keyboard. Has the key changed? Do you have an updated script? – Lubbi

Answer 2

To disable iOS Simulators Connect Hardware Keyboard setting (Simulator -> Hardware -> Connect Hardware Keyboard), add this sniped in AppDelegate. ref link

#if targetEnvironment(simulator)
// Disable hardware keyboards.
let setHardwareLayout = NSSelectorFromString("setHardwareLayout:")
UITextInputMode.activeInputModes
    // Filter `UIKeyboardInputMode`s.
    .filter({ $0.responds(to: setHardwareLayout) })
    .forEach { $0.perform(setHardwareLayout, with: nil) }
#endif

Lingonberry

This worked for me up until Xcode 14 - looking into alternatives now. – Jeanne

@Jeanne found anything better? just ran into the same issue – Lubbi

@SimonMcLoughlin the only thing we did further was to disable secure text entry during UI tests and it worked pretty well. Then when we upgraded to Ventura and Xcode 14.3.1 we added forceTap from https://mcmap.net/q/203211/-xcode-ui-test-ui-testing-failure-failed-to-scroll-to-visible-by-ax-action-when-tap-on-search-field-quot-cancel-39-button – Jeanne

@Jeanne I don't understand your response, it seems unrelated to the above. What does secure text entry and force tapping have to do with disconnecting the hardware keyboard? – Lubbi

@SimonMcLoughlin - sorry, I understand that fixes a completely different problem. The other things we did to fix this particular issue was to run this every day on our CI: xcrun simctl shutdown all && xcrun simctl erase all Bear in mind we host our own CI, so we ensure their state beforehand. We haven't found a good way of ensuring a dev machine is in the correct state. – Jeanne