Android Espresso How do I perform touch events

Question

How can I test a view with simple touch events such as ACTION_DOWN and ACTION_MOVE?

Answer 1

You can easily send touch events. Use this view action:

public static ViewAction touchDownAndUp(final float x, final float y) {
    return new ViewAction() {
        @Override
        public Matcher<View> getConstraints() {
            return isDisplayed();
        }

        @Override
        public String getDescription() {
            return "Send touch events.";
        }

        @Override
        public void perform(UiController uiController, final View view) {
            // Get view absolute position
            int[] location = new int[2];
            view.getLocationOnScreen(location);

            // Offset coordinates by view position
            float[] coordinates = new float[] { x + location[0], y + location[1] };
            float[] precision = new float[] { 1f, 1f };

            // Send down event, pause, and send up
            MotionEvent down = MotionEvents.sendDown(uiController, coordinates, precision).down;
            uiController.loopMainThreadForAtLeast(200);
            MotionEvents.sendUp(uiController, down, coordinates);
        }
    };
}

And invoke it with:

onView(withId(R.id.my_view)).perform(touchDownAndUp(x, y));

Answer 2

There's no direct way no Espresso matchers like move(Gravity.LEFT, 40) methods.

For some purposes like ACTION_DOWN you can use swiping methods like swipeDown()

Check Espresso.ViewActions Reference: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/test/espresso/action/ViewActions.html

For some you would need to modify existing methods like here: Drag & Drop Espresso

Also try to mix Espresso with other UI instrumentation frameworks like Robotium which already has some great matchers and function which Espresso doesn't have like touch() method or try another Google's framework called uiatomator.

Check: http://qathread.blogspot.com/2015/05/espresso-uiautomator-perfect-tandem.html

Hope it will help