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Beginner Chapter 5 · 7 min read

Actions & Interactions

Tap, double-tap, long-press, fill text fields, swipe the screen, and press hardware buttons — all with built-in auto-waiting.

Tapping

Tapping is the mobile equivalent of clicking. Mobilewright waits automatically until the element is visible, enabled, and has stopped moving before it taps — so taps land exactly where they should:

taps.test.ts 
import { test, expect } from '@mobilewright/test';

test('tap variations', async ({ screen }) => {
  // Simple tap
  await screen.getByText('Sign In').tap();

  // Double tap
  await screen.getByRole('button', { name: 'Submit' }).doubleTap();

  // Long press (opens context menus, drag handles, etc.)
  await screen.getByText('Options').longPress();
});
taps.test.js 
const { test, expect } = require('@mobilewright/test');

test('tap variations', async ({ screen }) => {
  // Simple tap
  await screen.getByText('Sign In').tap();

  // Double tap
  await screen.getByRole('button', { name: 'Submit' }).doubleTap();

  // Long press (opens context menus, drag handles, etc.)
  await screen.getByText('Options').longPress();
});

Filling Text Fields

fill() taps the field to focus it, then types the text. Use it for logins, search boxes, and forms:

forms.test.ts 
import { test, expect } from '@mobilewright/test';

test('fill in a form', async ({ screen }) => {
  await screen.getByLabel('Email').fill('user@example.com');
  await screen.getByLabel('Password').fill('secret');
  await expect(screen.getByLabel('Email')).toHaveValue('user@example.com');
});
forms.test.js 
const { test, expect } = require('@mobilewright/test');

test('fill in a form', async ({ screen }) => {
  await screen.getByLabel('Email').fill('user@example.com');
  await screen.getByLabel('Password').fill('secret');
  await expect(screen.getByLabel('Email')).toHaveValue('user@example.com');
});

Swiping

Swipe the screen in any direction — great for scrolling through lists, dismissing cards, or navigating carousels. You can optionally control the swipe distance in pixels:

swipe.test.ts 
import { test } from '@mobilewright/test';

test('scroll through the feed', async ({ screen }) => {
  // Swipe up (scrolls the content down)
  await screen.swipe('up');

  // Swipe down with a custom distance in pixels
  await screen.swipe('down', { distance: 300 });
});
swipe.test.js 
const { test } = require('@mobilewright/test');

test('scroll through the feed', async ({ screen }) => {
  // Swipe up (scrolls the content down)
  await screen.swipe('up');

  // Swipe down with a custom distance in pixels
  await screen.swipe('down', { distance: 300 });
});

Hardware Buttons

Some flows need the device's physical buttons. pressButton() handles them:

buttons.test.ts 
import { test } from '@mobilewright/test';

test('hardware buttons', async ({ screen }) => {
  // Go to the home screen
  await screen.pressButton('HOME');

  // Android only: the back button
  await screen.pressButton('BACK');
});
buttons.test.js 
const { test } = require('@mobilewright/test');

test('hardware buttons', async ({ screen }) => {
  // Go to the home screen
  await screen.pressButton('HOME');

  // Android only: the back button
  await screen.pressButton('BACK');
});
Tip: pressButton('BACK') is Android-only — iOS has no back button. Keep platform-specific steps behind a platform check or in separate projects (covered in chapter 11).

Everything Auto-Waits

Every action in this chapter performs actionability checks before executing: the element must exist, be visible, be enabled, and have stable bounds (not animating). If a check fails, Mobilewright retries every 100ms until it passes or the timeout expires. This is why Mobilewright tests need no sleep() calls — the framework handles timing for you. We will dig deeper into this in the Auto-waiting chapter.

Mobilewright Beginner Actions Gestures

Written by PV

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