Source Tab

The Source tab is the default tab opened after starting an Inspector session. It can be divided into two connected parts: the Application Source panel, and the Selected Element panel.

Source Tab

Application Source¶

The Application Source is the central panel of the Source Tab. It shows the application source XML in a tree-like structure, and provides a few additional buttons in the top right corner.

Application Source

The application source tree is generated from the XML data returned by the Appium driver. By default, the tree only shows the class name for each element entry, along with several 'important' attributes such as value and content-desc. All non-'important' attributes are hidden by default for ease of navigation, but can be revealed with the Toggle Attributes button.

All elements in the XML tree are interactable, and clicking on one causes 3 actions:

The element entry in the XML tree is highlighted
The element highlighter appears in the Screenshot panel (if Element Mode is selected)
The element details are shown in the Selected Element panel

Elements that have one or more child elements have an arrow on their left side, which can be clicked to toggle visibility of such child elements.

For supported Appium drivers, the maximum depth of the returned XML tree can be adjusted with the snapshotMaxDepth setting.

Refreshing the Source¶

By default, the source XML is only updated when a refresh is requested. This can happen when:

interacting with an element (tap/send keys/clear)
interacting with the screenshot (tap/swipe)
simulating system actions
executing driver commands (depends on the command)
executing custom gestures
pressing the Refresh button

Note that interacting with the application outside of the Inspector will not cause the source XML to refresh.

The use of MJPEG session capabilities (such as appium:mjpegServerPort) allows to modify this behavior. While the default source refresh behavior in MJPEG mode stays the same, the mode adds the automatic source refresh button in the application header, which allows to disable automatic refreshing.

Toggle Attributes Button¶

This button allows to show/hide all non-'important' element attributes in the source tree:

Source With All Attributes Shown

Copy XML Button¶

This button copies the full application XML source to the clipboard.

Download XML Button¶

This button allows to download the full application source as an .xml file.

Selected Element¶

The Selected Element panel is shown on the right side of the Source tab. It is empty by default, but becomes populated once an element is selected.

Selected Element

In order to populate the panel, an element can be selected in one of the following ways:

Selecting an entry in the Application Source
Selecting a highlighter in the Screenshot panel
Clicking the Reveal Element in Source button in the Search Results

The panel can be divided into 3 parts: element action buttons, suggested locators, and element attributes.

Element Action Buttons¶

Icon	Description
	Tap the element
	Enter text to send to the element, or clear its text
	Copy the element attributes to the clipboard as an array of JSON objects
	Run a timing comparison for the suggested element locators

Suggested Locators¶

This table lists one or more locator strategies + selectors that can be used to find the element. Clicking on a selector copies it to the clipboard.

Pressing the timing comparison button executes a search for each of the listed strategies + locators, and adds a new table column with the elapsed time until the element was returned.

Locators Table With Timings

Element Attributes¶

This table lists all attributes retrieved from the element, along with their values. Clicking on a value copies it to the clipboard.

Refer to your Appium driver documentation for ways to customize the attributes shown in this table.