docs/html/preview/guide.jd

page.title=Testing Guide
page.image=images/cards/card-n-guide_2x.png
meta.tags="preview", "testing"
page.tags="preview", "developer preview"

@jd:body

<div id="qv-wrapper">
  <div id="qv">
    <h2>In this document</h2>
      <ol>
        <li><a href="#runtime-permissions">Testing Permissions</a></li>
        <li><a href="#doze-standby">Testing Doze and App Standby</a></li>
        <li><a href="#ids">Auto Backup and Device Identifiers</a></li>
      </ol>
  </div>
</div>

<p>
  Android N gives you an opportunity to ensure your apps work with the next
  version of the platform. This preview includes a number of APIs and behavior changes that can
  impact your app, as described in the <a href="{@docRoot}preview/api-overview.html">API
  Overview</a> and <a href="{@docRoot}preview/behavior-changes.html">Behavior Changes</a>. In testing
  your app with the preview, there are some specific system changes that you should focus on to
  ensure that users have a good experience.
</p>

<p>
  This guide describes the what and how to test preview features with your app. You should
  prioritize testing of these specific preview features, due to their high potential impact on your
  app's behavior:
</p>

<ul>
  <li><a href="#runtime-permissions">Permissions</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#doze-standby">Doze and App Standby</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#ids">Auto Backup and Device Identifiers</a></li>
</ul>

<p>
  For more information about how to set up devices or virtual devices with a preview system image
  for testing, see <a href="{@docRoot}preview/setup-sdk.html">Set up
the Android N SDK</a>.
</p>


<h2 id="runtime-permissions">Testing Permissions</h2>

<p>
  The new <a href="{@docRoot}preview/features/runtime-permissions.html">Permissions</a> model
  changes the way that permissions are allocated to your app by the user. Instead of granting all
  permissions during the install procedure, your app must ask the user for individual permissions
  at runtime. For users this behavior provides more granular control over each app’s activities, as
  well as better context for understanding why the app is requesting a specific permission. Users
  can grant or revoke the permissions granted to an app individually at any time. This feature of
  the preview is most likely to have an impact on your app's behavior and may prevent some of your
  app features from working, or they may work in a degraded state.
</p>

<p class="caution">
  This change affects all apps running on the new platform, even those not targeting the new
  platform version. The platform provides a limited compatibility behavior for legacy apps, but you
  should begin planning your app’s migration to the new permissions model now, with a goal of
  publishing an updated version of your app at the official platform launch.
</p>


<h3 id="permission-test-tips">Test tips</h3>

<p>
  Use the following test tips to help you plan and execute testing of your app with the new
  permissions behavior.
</p>

<ul>
  <li>Identify your app’s current permissions and the related code paths.</li>
  <li>Test user flows across permission-protected services and data.</li>
  <li>Test with various combinations of granted/revoked permission.</li>
  <li>Use the {@code adb} tool to manage permssions from the command line:
    <ul>
      <li>List permissions and status by group:
        <pre>adb shell pm list permissions -d -g</pre>
      </li>
      <li>Grant or revoke one or more permissions using the following syntax:<br>
        <pre>adb shell pm [grant|revoke] &lt;permission.name&gt; ...</pre>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>Analyze your app for services that use permissions.</li>
</ul>

<h3 id="permission-test-strategy">Test strategy</h3>

<p>
  The permissions change affects the structure and design of your app, as well as
  the user experience and flows you provide to users. You should assess your app’s current
  permissions use and start planning for the new flows you want to offer. The official release of
  the platform provides compatibility behavior, but you should plan on updating your app and not
  rely on these behaviors.
</p>

<p>
  Identify the permissions that your app actually needs and uses, and then find the various code
  paths that use the permission-protected services. You can do this through a combination of
  testing on the new platform and code analysis. In testing, you should focus on opting in to
  runtime permissions by changing the app’s {@code targetSdkVersion} to the preview version. For
  more information, see <a href="{@docRoot}preview/setup-sdk.html#">Set up
the Android N SDK</a>.
</p>

<p>
  Test with various combinations of permissions revoked and added, to highlight the user flows that
  depend on permissions. Where a dependency is not obvious or logical you should consider
  refactoring or compartmentalizing that flow to eliminate the dependency or make it clear why the
  permission is needed.
</p>

<p>
  For more information on the behavior of runtime permissions, testing, and best practices, see the
  <a href="{@docRoot}preview/features/runtime-permissions.html">Permissions</a> developer
  preview page.
</p>


<h2 id="doze-standby">Testing Doze and App Standby</h2>

<p>
  The power saving features of Doze and App Standby limit the amount of background processing that
  your app can perform when a device is in an idle state or while your app is not in focus. The
  restrictions the system may impose on apps include limited or no network access,
  suspended background tasks, suspended Notifications, ignored wake requests, and alarms. To ensure
  that your app behaves properly with these power saving optimizations, you should test your app by
  simulating these low power states.
</p>

<h4 id="doze">Testing your app with Doze</h4>

<p>To test Doze with your app:</p>

<ol>
<li>Configure a hardware device or virtual device with an Android N system image.</li>
<li>Connect the device to your development machine and install your app.</li>
<li>Run your app and leave it active.</li>
<li>Simulate the device going into Doze mode by running the following commands:

<pre>
$ adb shell dumpsys battery unplug
$ adb shell dumpsys deviceidle step
$ adb shell dumpsys deviceidle -h
</pre>

  </li>
  <li>Observe the behavior of your app when the device is re-activated. Make sure it
    recovers gracefully when the device exits Doze.</li>
</ol>


<h4 id="standby">Testing apps with App Standby</h4>

<p>To test the App Standby mode with your app:</p>

<ol>
  <li>Configure a hardware device or virtual device with an Android N system image.</li>
  <li>Connect the device to your development machine and install your app.</li>
  <li>Run your app and leave it active.</li>
  <li>Simulate the app going into standby mode by running the following commands:

<pre>
$ adb shell am broadcast -a android.os.action.DISCHARGING
$ adb shell am set-idle &lt;packageName&gt; true
</pre>

  </li>
  <li>Simulate waking your app using the following command:
    <pre>$ adb shell am set-idle &lt;packageName&gt; false</pre>
  </li>
  <li>Observe the behavior of your app when it is woken. Make sure it recovers gracefully
    from standby mode. In particular, you should check if your app's Notifications and background
    jobs continue to function as expected.</li>
</ol>

<h2 id="ids">Auto Backup for Apps and Device-Specific Identifiers</h2>

<p>If your app is persisting any device-specific identifiers, such as Google
Cloud Messaging registration ID, in internal storage,
make sure to follow best practices to exclude the storage
location from auto-backup, as described in <a href="{@docRoot}preview/backup/index.html">Auto
Backup for Apps</a>. </p>