Before you can test certain Android applications, you must rebuild them by providing a
private key. Examples of such applications are those that are pre-installed on devices or APIs that
need administrator or root-level permissions.
About this task
To test certain applications, you need administrator or root-level permissions. For
example, applications that are pre-installed on devices, are protected and cannot be uninstalled
without administrator rights. Examples of other applications that need root-level permissions are
Gmail, Facebook, Dropbox, and applications that use Google APIs (for example, to access Google maps,
Google marketplace) or Facebook APIs. To test these types of applications, you must provide your
private key and rebuild the application. The application is thus recompiled with the new
certificate. For pre-installed applications, because the recording and playback packages share the
same signature key as the original application, the packages can now be installed on the device.
When you initiate a recording or playback on the device, the currently installed application is not
uninstalled but replaced by the recording-ready application or the playback-ready application
respectively if the option
This application is pre-installed and cannot be
uninstalled is selected.
Procedure
- In the Mobile and Web UI Applications editor,
right-click an application and click Rebuild Application. To build the application with a new version of the application,
you must import a new version in the editor first.
- Select Sign application with your own private
key in the dialog box and click yes to
rebuild the application.
- In the wizard that opens, select a keystore
file, enter a Keystore password,
select an Alias , enter the Alias
password, and click OK. When the build process is completed, the application under
test is signed with the private key (the certificate) for that alias.
Thus, the application is rebuilt, re-instrumented and made ready for
recording and testing.
- Optional and for pre-installed applications only: In the Mobile
and web UI applications editor, select the This
application is pre-installed and cannot be uninstalled option.
With this option selected, when you are ready for recording a test,
the application is not uninstalled; rather, the recording ready application
or playback application is installed over the currently installed
application.