Preparing and publishing applications in the Marketplace
Recently, I was incredibly lucky to participate in the Microsoft webinar of Stas Pavlov and Julia Shcheglova " Windows Phone for startups. Answers to your questions " (recording is available on techdays ).
Due to technical overlays, I was unable to show some of the prepared materials. In this article I will try to talk about the preparation for publication and the process of publishing the application.
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The first and rather trivial advice is to check your applications on physical devices. There are two main reasons for this. First of all, on the emulator, you may not notice performance problems, since the emulator runs too fast. If phone resources are not used efficiently, you can see the difference in performance between the emulator and the phone ten times.
It is also advisable to check applications on new budget devices with 256 MB of memory like the Nokia Lumia 610. Since at the moment it is not yet on sale, it is advisable to at least test the application on the 256 MB emulator that comes with the WP7 SDK 7.1.1 update kit
A second, equally important reason is to detect problems interacting with the interface of your application. It is especially important to check the application on a live device if you are developing your own controls or writing games.
Life example:
After developing a three-position checkbox with which it was possible to work quite successfully with a mouse, it turned out that it was incredibly difficult to get into it with finger pads. In another real-time strategic toy according to our logic, a click on a unit would select it, and pressing and drawing the machine would give a command to move / attack along the traced route. When testing on a live device, it turned out that it was almost impossible to select a unit; instead, the unit moved several pixels, because when pressed with a finger, the handler showed the state as if pressed at a certain point and slightly dragged.
Another strong recommendation is to test your applications using the marketplace test kit. This wonderful tool comes with development tools, and it is quite simple to launch it - from the context menu, when you right-click on a project, select the Open Marketplace Test Kit option.
It should be borne in mind that tests are carried out for self-testing and the test results are not sent anywhere and do not directly affect the process of publishing the application itself and only help to make sure that you have not forgotten anything. It is a tool that can save days and weeks when publishing applications.
It should also be borne in mind that the successful completion of all tests does not guarantee that your application will be certified, although the chances of getting certified successfully increase dramatically.
In Test Kit we can see 4 tabs: Application Details, Automated Test, Monitored Test, Manual Tests:
The first tab, Application Details is needed in order to be able to make sure that you have prepared all the necessary icons and screenshots.
During the publication of the application, you will need three icons of size 173x173, 200x200, 99x99.
At the same time, despite the fact that the application itself uses the 173x173 icon, it may be impossible to use it when publishing. In the application, the icon, made in the metro-style to support the accent color, should be with a transparent background. In addition, since you need a place for the signature, the icon in the application is usually shifted up from the center. Accordingly, when publishing an application, opaque centered icons with one of the accent colors in the background are needed instead of a transparent background.
Also, be sure to specify at least one screenshot. As simply as possible, a screenshot of the required size (480 x 800) can be made using an emulator.
Quite often asked question - how to remove tsiferki on the left of the emulator. These numbers are debugging and so that they do not appear, it is enough to run the application on the emulator without debugging (for example, using the Ctrl + F5 combination from the studio). You can also upload the xap file using the Application Deployment utility supplied with the developer tools.
There are very few automated tests, they check the size of the xap file, the indication of the functions used in the manifest, the icons (indicated in the Application Details section) and screenshots.
The xap file size should be less than 225 mb. You should also bear in mind that if the size is more than 20 MB, it will be available for download only via WiFi.
These tests "monitor" the work of your application. They only work with a physical device and require release compilation.
The application monitors the start time, memory consumption, application crash (the application should not close unexpectedly due to an error) and the use of the Back button.
It should also be borne in mind that if these tests "do not see" problems with your application, this does not mean that they are not there, so when testing it is desirable to "load" the application to the maximum. For example, if you have any lists, it is advisable to fill as many elements as possible (the number depends on the features of your application, but usually 50-100 elements are enough to make sure if there are problems or not. Accordingly, you also need the maximum fill each of the elements - for example, if the images are displayed in the elements, then it is desirable to fill with various pictures.
Here you can see a list of 50 items by which you can check your application for compliance. For each of the tests, you yourself put the test result
You may spend half a day - a day to check the compliance of all these tests, but this can save you weeks.
To publish the application you must have a developer account.
At http://create.msdn.com you can register an account or go to your personal account by going to the menu: my dashboard -> windows phone
After we choose submit a new app, the application download wizard starts.
In the first step, we specify the downloaded xap file, the type of publication and the version number.
The specified name will be visible only in your account and does not affect the name of the application in the marketplace.
Publication in Private Beta Test will allow you to distribute the application in private access to testers (or, at your discretion, to colleagues, friends and relatives :)
One of the frequently asked questions is to fill in the description In particular, how to change / add languages.
You cannot change the language in details. The language is automatically determined from the XAP file.
If you just want to change the main language of your application, you can do it right in the studio
in the project properties, the Application tab in the Assembly information drop-down menu of the Neutral Language
An alternative is to edit the AssemblyInfo.cs file, where you need to specify the desired language.
Now if we reload the file, we can see that instead of English we have a Russian section.
In most cases, multiple language support is required. In this case, you should have one primary language and supported languages.
The localization process itself is completely identical to the localization process of ordinary .NET desktop, web applications.
For example, if our primary language is English, and we want to add support for the Russian language, we add the appropriate resources.
MyResource.resx
and localized language resource for the Russian language:
MyResource.ru-RU.resx
In order for all language sections to appear simultaneously in the marketplace, our application must have at least one localization resource for the supported language.
The second step we need to edit the project file of our application [myprojectname] .csproj
You need to open it in some text editor (for example, in a notebook) and in the SupportedCultures section specify the supported languages
ru-RU
For several languages through the separator ";"
ru-RU; en-US
At the same time, it is not necessary to specify the primary language.
After that we can see and fill in the information for all supported languages:
Further on this page we fill in the application description, key search words and indicate the corresponding icons and screenshots of the application.
The third step depends on whether you choose a beta test or public access.
In case you selected the beta publication, you will see a form with a suggestion to specify the LiveId testers:
Here, too, simply after clicking on Submit within a couple of hours you will receive a link to download the application.
If the publication to the application store was selected in the third step, you will be given the opportunity to specify the price and countries in which your application will be published and the availability of the trial version. For each country, the price is indicated in national currency:
The next final step you will see is a text box for the certification team. In this field, briefly indicate the features of your application. Especially it is necessary to indicate features that do not correspond to the guidelines. For example, if your application necessarily requires authorization (for example, a social network client or an online game), then you need to specify that this is a feature of the client application and that the server requires authorization to continue working.
You can also choose publishing options. At this point, I recommend choosing the last item - publishing manually after passing the certification. It often happens that serious bugs are discovered after the beginning of the certification process, and you have the opportunity to correct the error without showing it to users.
Officially, it takes about 5 days to certify the application, but it took me 4 to 8 days to certify.
After completing the certification you will receive a letter with the status of passing the certification In case of failure, you will receive a detailed report with information on what exactly prevented the certification.
I have had several occasions when an application was rejected by mistake. A subsequent re-run of certification with a detailed description of why I disagree with the result led to the fact that the application was certified. So do not hesitate to write testers about the features of your application - it can also save time.
PS As correctly noted in the comments below, if your application requires authorization, it is desirable to provide a test account. I had three applications denied requiring authorization because of this. Provide a test account to testers even if they are clients of popular social networks like Facebook or Twitter.
Due to technical overlays, I was unable to show some of the prepared materials. In this article I will try to talk about the preparation for publication and the process of publishing the application.
')
Preparing for publication.
1. Check for a "live" gland.
The first and rather trivial advice is to check your applications on physical devices. There are two main reasons for this. First of all, on the emulator, you may not notice performance problems, since the emulator runs too fast. If phone resources are not used efficiently, you can see the difference in performance between the emulator and the phone ten times.
It is also advisable to check applications on new budget devices with 256 MB of memory like the Nokia Lumia 610. Since at the moment it is not yet on sale, it is advisable to at least test the application on the 256 MB emulator that comes with the WP7 SDK 7.1.1 update kit
A second, equally important reason is to detect problems interacting with the interface of your application. It is especially important to check the application on a live device if you are developing your own controls or writing games.
Life example:
After developing a three-position checkbox with which it was possible to work quite successfully with a mouse, it turned out that it was incredibly difficult to get into it with finger pads. In another real-time strategic toy according to our logic, a click on a unit would select it, and pressing and drawing the machine would give a command to move / attack along the traced route. When testing on a live device, it turned out that it was almost impossible to select a unit; instead, the unit moved several pixels, because when pressed with a finger, the handler showed the state as if pressed at a certain point and slightly dragged.
2. Test your application using the Marketplace Test Kit
Another strong recommendation is to test your applications using the marketplace test kit. This wonderful tool comes with development tools, and it is quite simple to launch it - from the context menu, when you right-click on a project, select the Open Marketplace Test Kit option.
It should be borne in mind that tests are carried out for self-testing and the test results are not sent anywhere and do not directly affect the process of publishing the application itself and only help to make sure that you have not forgotten anything. It is a tool that can save days and weeks when publishing applications.
It should also be borne in mind that the successful completion of all tests does not guarantee that your application will be certified, although the chances of getting certified successfully increase dramatically.
In Test Kit we can see 4 tabs: Application Details, Automated Test, Monitored Test, Manual Tests:
2.1. Application details
The first tab, Application Details is needed in order to be able to make sure that you have prepared all the necessary icons and screenshots.
During the publication of the application, you will need three icons of size 173x173, 200x200, 99x99.
At the same time, despite the fact that the application itself uses the 173x173 icon, it may be impossible to use it when publishing. In the application, the icon, made in the metro-style to support the accent color, should be with a transparent background. In addition, since you need a place for the signature, the icon in the application is usually shifted up from the center. Accordingly, when publishing an application, opaque centered icons with one of the accent colors in the background are needed instead of a transparent background.
Also, be sure to specify at least one screenshot. As simply as possible, a screenshot of the required size (480 x 800) can be made using an emulator.
Quite often asked question - how to remove tsiferki on the left of the emulator. These numbers are debugging and so that they do not appear, it is enough to run the application on the emulator without debugging (for example, using the Ctrl + F5 combination from the studio). You can also upload the xap file using the Application Deployment utility supplied with the developer tools.
2.2. Automated Test
There are very few automated tests, they check the size of the xap file, the indication of the functions used in the manifest, the icons (indicated in the Application Details section) and screenshots.
The xap file size should be less than 225 mb. You should also bear in mind that if the size is more than 20 MB, it will be available for download only via WiFi.
2.3. Monitored test
These tests "monitor" the work of your application. They only work with a physical device and require release compilation.
The application monitors the start time, memory consumption, application crash (the application should not close unexpectedly due to an error) and the use of the Back button.
It should also be borne in mind that if these tests "do not see" problems with your application, this does not mean that they are not there, so when testing it is desirable to "load" the application to the maximum. For example, if you have any lists, it is advisable to fill as many elements as possible (the number depends on the features of your application, but usually 50-100 elements are enough to make sure if there are problems or not. Accordingly, you also need the maximum fill each of the elements - for example, if the images are displayed in the elements, then it is desirable to fill with various pictures.
2.4. Manual Test
Here you can see a list of 50 items by which you can check your application for compliance. For each of the tests, you yourself put the test result
You may spend half a day - a day to check the compliance of all these tests, but this can save you weeks.
3. Publish the application
3.1. Loading
To publish the application you must have a developer account.
At http://create.msdn.com you can register an account or go to your personal account by going to the menu: my dashboard -> windows phone
After we choose submit a new app, the application download wizard starts.
In the first step, we specify the downloaded xap file, the type of publication and the version number.
The specified name will be visible only in your account and does not affect the name of the application in the marketplace.
Publication in Private Beta Test will allow you to distribute the application in private access to testers (or, at your discretion, to colleagues, friends and relatives :)
3.2. Description of the application.
One of the frequently asked questions is to fill in the description In particular, how to change / add languages.
You cannot change the language in details. The language is automatically determined from the XAP file.
If you just want to change the main language of your application, you can do it right in the studio
in the project properties, the Application tab in the Assembly information drop-down menu of the Neutral Language
An alternative is to edit the AssemblyInfo.cs file, where you need to specify the desired language.
[assembly: NeutralResourcesLanguageAttribute("ru-RU")] Now if we reload the file, we can see that instead of English we have a Russian section.
In most cases, multiple language support is required. In this case, you should have one primary language and supported languages.
The localization process itself is completely identical to the localization process of ordinary .NET desktop, web applications.
For example, if our primary language is English, and we want to add support for the Russian language, we add the appropriate resources.
MyResource.resx
and localized language resource for the Russian language:
MyResource.ru-RU.resx
In order for all language sections to appear simultaneously in the marketplace, our application must have at least one localization resource for the supported language.
The second step we need to edit the project file of our application [myprojectname] .csproj
You need to open it in some text editor (for example, in a notebook) and in the SupportedCultures section specify the supported languages
ru-RU
For several languages through the separator ";"
ru-RU; en-US
At the same time, it is not necessary to specify the primary language.
After that we can see and fill in the information for all supported languages:
Further on this page we fill in the application description, key search words and indicate the corresponding icons and screenshots of the application.
3.3 Beta test
The third step depends on whether you choose a beta test or public access.
In case you selected the beta publication, you will see a form with a suggestion to specify the LiveId testers:
Here, too, simply after clicking on Submit within a couple of hours you will receive a link to download the application.
3.3. Application Cost (Public Marketplace)
If the publication to the application store was selected in the third step, you will be given the opportunity to specify the price and countries in which your application will be published and the availability of the trial version. For each country, the price is indicated in national currency:
3.4. test (Public Marketplace)
The next final step you will see is a text box for the certification team. In this field, briefly indicate the features of your application. Especially it is necessary to indicate features that do not correspond to the guidelines. For example, if your application necessarily requires authorization (for example, a social network client or an online game), then you need to specify that this is a feature of the client application and that the server requires authorization to continue working.
You can also choose publishing options. At this point, I recommend choosing the last item - publishing manually after passing the certification. It often happens that serious bugs are discovered after the beginning of the certification process, and you have the opportunity to correct the error without showing it to users.
Officially, it takes about 5 days to certify the application, but it took me 4 to 8 days to certify.
After completing the certification you will receive a letter with the status of passing the certification In case of failure, you will receive a detailed report with information on what exactly prevented the certification.
I have had several occasions when an application was rejected by mistake. A subsequent re-run of certification with a detailed description of why I disagree with the result led to the fact that the application was certified. So do not hesitate to write testers about the features of your application - it can also save time.
PS As correctly noted in the comments below, if your application requires authorization, it is desirable to provide a test account. I had three applications denied requiring authorization because of this. Provide a test account to testers even if they are clients of popular social networks like Facebook or Twitter.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/142469/
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