[Feat] - Add `isHittable` to iOS driver

[ikharebashviliGD]

It would be very useful to expose the isHittable property in the xcuitest driver's page source.

This is already available in the Mac2 driver (reference).
Having it on iOS would help determine when elements become interactable inside scroll views and improve test stability.

isHittable is part of the public XCUIElement API, so this should be possible without private APIs.

Thanks for considering!

[mykola-mokhnach]

the hittable attribute is also present in elements managed by xcuitest driver: https://github.com/appium/appium-xcuitest-driver/blob/master/docs/reference/element-attributes.md

The main reason it's not included into the page source is performance. In order to determine if an element is hittable it is necessary to perform an extra request to the accessibility layer. If such attribute is present in the page source then it would be necessary to perform such request for each element in the page source tree, which may dramatically reduce the performance of the /source API.

[ikharebashviliGD]

the hittable attribute is also present in elements managed by xcuitest driver: https://github.com/appium/appium-xcuitest-driver/blob/master/docs/reference/element-attributes.md

The main reason it's not included into the page source is performance. In order to determine if an element is hittable it is necessary to perform an extra request to the accessibility layer. If such attribute is present in the page source then it would be necessary to perform such request for each element in the page source tree, which may dramatically reduce the performance of the /source API.

Thanks for the explanation!

I totally understand the performance concerns.
However, it would still be extremely useful to have an option to retrieve isHittable for cases where accuracy is more important than speed (e.g., scrollable views, dynamic UI testing).

Would it be possible to add a capability or query parameter like extendedTree=true etc., so that the driver explicitly performs extra requests only when needed?

This way, the default /source behavior stays fast, but advanced users can opt in for more detailed trees when necessary.

It would really help to improve the reliability of interaction tests without building extra logic outside of the driver.

[mykola-mokhnach]

Another thing to mention - the source tree is built based on element snapshot, not the element instance itself. Snapshots don't have the hittable property. One may try to make up something similar of existing snapshot methods, but there is no guarantee it would work exactly the same as the original method.

[ikharebashviliGD]

Another thing to mention - the source tree is built based on element snapshot, not the element instance itself. Snapshots don't have the hittable property. One may try to make up something similar of existing snapshot methods, but there is no guarantee it would work exactly the same as the original method.

Got it, thanks for the detailed explanation.
Just to clarify — is there any plan to add this in the future?
If not, would you consider a PR if I try to implement it under a capability flag (e.g., includeHittableInSource)?

[KazuCocoa]

If you'd try out, via settings api might be proper now.
https://appium.github.io/appium-xcuitest-driver/latest/reference/settings/

We already have pageSourceExcludedAttributes. It could be a similar one for possible future compatibility.