feature request: better sync between screenshot and page source

[GaneshGunaki]

Is this an issue specifically with Appium Inspector?

• I have verified that my issue does not occur with Appium, and should be investigated as an Appium Inspector issue

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Current Behavior

STEPS:
when user takes any action on mobile
when you refresh the appium inspector
Pagesource - its matching the device content
Screenshots - Screenshot is loaded with little bit older screenshot resulting user has to refresh again to highlight the object

e.g: consider on clicking button , it takes 5 seconds to load other next screen
screenshot is taking loading screen
Pagesource will be matching with Device content

Expected Behavior

it should wait for the screen to load and then take screenshot

Operating System

Mac

Appium Inspector Version

Appium latest

Appium Version

No response

Further Information

No response

[eglitise]

Currently this is expected, because retrieving the screenshot and retrieving the page source are not instantaneous operations (as much I would like them to be). In particular, if the page source is large, its retrieval can takes several seconds, which can result in it being out of sync with the retrieved screenshot.
Still, there are a few ways to adjust the current behavior:

• Retrieve the screenshot -> retrieve the page source -> update both (current behavior)
• Retrieve the page source -> retrieve the screenshot -> update both
  • Since screenshots are generally smaller than page source, resulting in faster retrieval, this would result in better sync between them, but would make for a worse experience in situations where only the screenshot is relevant
• Retrieve the screenshot and page source in parallel -> update each as soon as they are ready
  • This would be the most responsive solution, likely speeding up general behavior, but could be tricky to implement
• Retrieve the screenshot and page source in parallel -> update both only once both are ready
  • Likely the best option, this should allow for a faster refresh period while also slightly improving sync between the source and screenshot

I could probably take a stab at switching to the last option.

[eglitise]

I've created #2362 to use the last option mentioned above, though it won't really help this usecase, since Appium still processes the actions sequentially. I assume you are having this issue on iOS in native context, since in my testing, iOS webview and Android native/webview actually retrieved the page source faster than the screenshot, which means that changing the current behavior to retrieve the screenshot first will make it more out of sync with the source in those cases.

It might be possible to retrieve page source first only in iOS native context, but this requires a bit more changes. Although I'm not entirely convinced by this - in general, the time it takes to retrieve the screenshot and page source depends entirely on the application, so unfortunately there is no universal solution to this.

A better approach could be to let the user configure the ability to swap the order of these actions, so I will change this to a feature request for adding it as an application setting.