What is Ionic?

Ionic Framework is a free, open-source framework for developing native mobile applications using web development frameworks like Angular, React, and (coming soon!) Vue. Mobile applications developed in Ionic Framework run in a browser during development. Because of this, we can use Cypress to perform tests on the functionality of mobile applications before they are built for a native device.

Pros & Cons

There are some nice benefits when pairing Ionic and Cypress for testing mobile devices. Because Ionic apps run like any modern web app, no device-specific configuration is required to get a running version of your application for testing. No need to install Android Studio or set up an emulator. Also, because Cypress runs right alongside your application code, you can also directly access and manipulate the state of your application for more efficient testing.

There are some limitations, as well. Because we are mocking a mobile environment within a browser, you can’t directly test native device functionality like camera or fingerprint authentication. If there are specific limitations of your application related to running a mobile device (performance, security, etc.) you would need to use workarounds to replicate these in your testing environment as well.

Demo: Writing tests for the Ionic Conference App

For this blog, I am using a fork of the Ionic Conference App. Built with Angular and Ionic Framework, it is a demo app for the framework and showcases a wide variety of functionality provided by Ionic. The app is like one you would use when attending a large conference, with speaker information and a session schedule.

You can add Cypress to your Ionic app the same way you install in any other project. Once you have installed Cypress, you’ll want to configure the [baseUrl](https://cypress-io.ghost.io/blog/p/cf748a97-b256-4670-af75-fa615933d65e/docs.cypress.io/guides/references/best-practices.html#Setting-a-global-baseUrl) in your cypress.json file and create a spec file for your tests in your integration folder.

#tutorials #ionic #cypress #mobile apps