SimURLator: Test Custom iPhone URL Schemes in the iPhone Simulator

Over the last few months ThoughtWorks has implemented several "Conference Connection" iPhone applications. They provide a view of the conference schedule, the ability to save a list of sessions you plan to attend, maps of the conferene site, a view of relevant Twitter posts, and some features specific to the various conferences.

The Twitter integration includes a feature to post, launching your prefered Twitter client (Tweetie, Echofon—formerly "TwitterFon"—or Twitterrific) using UIApplication's openURL: and the apps' custom URL schemes.

Relatively late in the testing cycle for another upcoming conference, we discovered an issue with selecting a Twitter client when you have more than one of the supported clients installed. Some of our testers were testing only in the iPhone Simulator, and because you can't install third-party apps in the Simulator, that feature had been undertested.

That was no good, so we created a sort of workaround: a stand-in app that takes the place of the third-party apps you can't install in the Simulator. SimURLator is now available on Github.

You configure SimURLator to respond to whatever custom URL schemes you want (by adding or removing URL schemes in SimURLator-Info.plist) and deploy it to your Simulator alongside your app. When SimURLator is launched via a URL by your app, it shows you the full URL. Obviously that's not as satisfying as seeing the third-party app launch and do the right thing, but it's a lot better than nothing.

You can also test your app's handling of its own custom URL schemes. Launch SimURLator and type in a URL that should launch your application. One button lets you verify that the OS reports the URL can be opened (with canOpenURL:); the other launches your app (with openURL:).

If there are other features you think would be useful, comment below. Better yet, fork it and show us.