Settings API

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Settings are a new concept introduced by appium. They are currently not a part of the Mobile JSON Wire Protocol, or the Webdriver spec.

Settings are a way to specify the behavior of the appium server.

Settings are: – Mutable, they can be changed during a session – Only relevant during the session they are applied. They are reset for each new session. – Control the way the appium server behaves during test automation. They do not apply to controlling the app or device under test.

An example of a setting would be ignoreUnimportantViews for Android. Android can be set to ignore elements in the View Hierarchy which it deems irrelevant. Setting this can cause tests to run faster. A user who wants to access the ignored elements however, would want to disable ignoreUnimportantViews, and reenable it afterwards.

Another example of a use-case for settings would be telling appium to ignore elements which are not visible.

Settings are implemented via the following API endpoints:

POST /session/:sessionId/appium/settings

Expects a JSON hash of settings, where keys correspond to setting names, and values to the value of the setting.

{

settings: {

ignoreUnimportantViews : true

}

}

GET /session/:sessionId/appium/settings

Returns a JSON hash of all the currently specified settings.

{

ignoreUnimportantViews : true

}

Note that the actual commands you would use in your test script differ based on the language..

General Supported Settings

Name	Description	Values
shouldUseCompactResponses	Returns compact (standards-compliant) & faster responses in find element/s. Defaults to true	false or true
elementResponseAttributes	The comma-separated list of fields to return with each element. It works only shouldUseCompactResponses is false. Defaults to “type,label” in iOS, “” in Android.	e.g., “name,text,rect,attribute/name,attribute/value”

 

Image Elements also has image elements specific settings.

Android Only

Name	Description	Values
ignoreUnimportantViews	Boolean which sets whether Android devices should use setCompressedLayoutHeirarchy() which ignores all views which are marked IMPORTANT_FOR_ACCESSIBILITY_NO or IMPORTANT_FOR_ACCESSIBILITY_AUTO (and have been deemed not important by the system), in an attempt to make things less confusing or faster. false by default.	false or true

UiAutomator2

Name	Description	Values
allowInvisibleElements	Boolean which set whether Android device should show all elements, visible and invisible. false by default.	false or true
enableNotificationListener	Boolean which sets whether the Android device should enable or disable the NotificationListener. true by default.	false or true
actionAcknowledgmentTimeout	Int (milliseconds) which is the same as setActionAcknowledgmentTimeout. If a negative value is given, it would set to default(3 * 1000 milliseconds). Handled by UiAutomator Configurator in Android API 18 and above.	e.g., 5000
keyInjectionDelay	Int (milliseconds) which is the same as setKeyInjectionDelay. If a negative value is given, it would set to default(0 milliseconds). Handled by UiAutomator Configurator in Android API 18 and above.	e.g., 5000
scrollAcknowledgmentTimeout	Int (milliseconds) which is the same as setScrollAcknowledgmentTimeout. If a negative value is given, it would set to default(200 milliseconds). Handled by UiAutomator Configurator in Android API 18 and above.	e.g., 300
waitForIdleTimeout	Int (milliseconds) which is the same as setWaitForIdleTimeout. If a negative value is given, it would set to default(10 * 1000 milliseconds). Handled by UiAutomator Configurator in Android API 18 and above.	e.g., 10000
waitForSelectorTimeout	Int (milliseconds) which is the same as setWaitForSelectorTimeout. If a negative value is given, it would set to default(10 * 1000 milliseconds). Handled by UiAutomator Configurator in Android API 18 and above.	e.g., 10000
normalizeTagNames	Translate all class names used as XML tags to the limited set of ASCII characters supported by Apache Harmony library. Used by default in Android to avoid possible XML parsing exceptions caused by XPath lookup. The translation is based on junidecode. This prevents this error case. Defaults to false.	false or true
shutdownOnPowerDisconnect	Shutdown the server through the broadcast receiver on ACTION_POWER_DISCONNECTED. Defaults to true	false or true

iOS Only

XCUITest

Name	Description	Values
mjpegServerScreenshotQuality	The quality of the screenshots generated by the screenshots broadcaster, expressed as a value from 0 to 100. The value 0 represents the maximum compression (or lowest quality) while the value 100 represents the least compression (or best quality). The default value is 25.	e.g., 10
mjpegServerFramerate	The framerate at which the background screenshots broadcaster should broadcast screenshots in range 1..60. The default value is 10 (Frames Per Second). Setting zero value will cause the framerate to be at its maximum possible value.	e.g., 60
screenshotQuality	Changes the quality of phone display screenshots following xctest/xctimagequality. Default value is 1. Read screenshotQuality in appium-xcuitest-driver	e.g. 0, 1, 2
mjpegScalingFactor	Changes the scale of screenshots. Defaults to 100, no scaling. Integer between 1 and 100 are available.	e.g. 1, 50, 100

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