turning scripts into apps...Phone Store. Tips: Choose a good title, and run your description through a spell and grammar checker! The Title and Description are filled in automatically

Last changed: 7/31/2012 1 http://www.touchdevelop.com

turning scripts into apps

overview

introduction

touchdevelop on Windows Phone is a great environment to:

Create new scripts directly on your phone

Share your scripts with other people

Discuss your scripts

Read the code of existing scripts to learn how write awesome mobile applications

Run scripts

You can make it easy for people to find and use your script by turning your script into a real

application that can be found in and installed from the Windows Phone Store. If your script has

been positively received on the touchdevelop script bazaar, you can:

Generate a phone application binary on the touchdevelop website.

Submit this binary to the Windows Phone Store, where it will be reviewed.

When your application passes the Windows Phone Store Certification requirements, you can

publish it on the Windows Phone Store through the Dev Center

(http://dev.windowsphone.com/).

requirements

You need the following to create and publish an app with touchdevelop:

A Windows Phone device

The touchdevelop application, installed on your Windows Phone

A Windows Live ID

Optionally, a Facebook account

A PC to upload and download files

Your application needs to pass the Windows Phone certification process before it can be

published to the Windows Phone Store. You need the following to submit your script as an

application to the Windows Phone certification process:

A touchdevelop script published on the bazaar

You are the author of the script, and all scripts on which the script is based on

http://dev.windowsphone.com/



Usage of certain APIs prevent the creation of an app from a script; in particular, you may

not reference other libraries at this time

A Dev Center account (http://dev.windowsphone.com/)

workflow

The following is a typical workflow to publish an application built with touchdevelop.

1. Install the touchdevelop app on your phone.

2. Log in to the touchdevelop app on your phone.

3. Write and publish a script from the touchdevelop app.

4. Post at least one screenshot of your touchdevelop app.

5. Log in to the touchdevelop website.

6. Provide additional information about your script on the touchdevelop website, which is

required for all apps on the Windows Phone Store.

7. From the touchdevelop website, download the app binary and at least one screenshot of

your script.

8. Register as a Windows Phone developer on Dev Center.

(You may have to pay a fee. If you are a student, the fee might be waived. Read more

below.)

9. (Optional) If you have developer-unlocked your phone, you can side-load the app on

your phone. Your app works even if you don’t have touchdevelop installed on your

phone. Try your app to see if it’s ready for submission.

10. Submit the downloaded app binary on the Dev Center to the Windows Phone Store.

You will be asked to provide more information about your app, including its price.

11. If your app passes the standard app certification process, you can publish your app on

the Windows Phone Store.

script to app

In this section, we assume that you:

Have a Windows Phone

Installed the touchdevelop application from the Windows Phone Store

Logged in with your Windows Live ID or Facebook account

Published a script on the touchdevelop script bazaar

To get started with creating and publishing scripts with touchdevelop, tap the take the tour!

Button in the app, or read this document:

http://touchdevelop.com/Documents/tutorialwalkthrough.pdf

http://dev.windowsphone.com/

http://touchdevelop.com/Documents/tutorialwalkthrough.pdf



your script on the web

Every script has a unique identifier and a corresponding page on the touchdevelop website. For

example, the script “My Online Meetings” from Peter Heldens has the identifier mpuj:

When you log in on the website, using the same Live ID or Facebook account that you used

when logging onto the phone, you might see additional options further down on the script

page:



Click the get started with your app… button.

step 1: app settings – enter additional information to customize your app

On the app settings page, fill in information about your app. All items marked by * are required

for all Windows Phone apps.

At any time, you can click the save button at the bottom of the form to save your settings, and

return later to continue.



step 1.1: app info

The Title, Description, and Publisher will be shown to potential customers on the Windows

Phone Store. Tips:

Choose a good title, and run your description through a spell and grammar checker!

The Title and Description are filled in automatically from information you provided in

your script.

The Author is automatically filled in with your nickname. The Author can be the same as

the Publisher.

You can edit any of these fields in this web form, except the Main Action field, which tells you

which action will be run automatically when an end-user launches your app. The Main Action is

the same action that will run when an end-user launches your app directly from the script bazaar

in touchdevelop. That is, it is the first runnable action:

First is relative to an alphabetic ordering.

Runnable means that the action is not private and all arguments can be provided by the

user.

Some fields are optional, as shown in the following portion of the web form. You will see later

where those fields will appear in the generated app.



step 1.2: legal

Your app will have a privacy statement. You can write your own privacy statement. In any case, a

remark about how analytics data is collected by touchdevelop and how users are identified is

added.

You can choose to provide a terms-of-use text to which every end-user will have to agree in

order to run the app.



step 1.3: images

A set of images is required.

Note: You need a PC to create and select the images. As indicated on the webpage, the images

should have the preferred size and they should be provided in the preferred format. Other sizes

and formats may be scaled and converted automatically, but scaling will result in suboptimal

image quality.

After you create the images, click Browse in the Web form to navigate to the image files to be

uploaded.

You can see a preview of how the images are going to be used:



step 1.4: api keys

If your script accesses any APIs that are provided by Bing or Project Hawaii, you need to obtain

your own API keys, and enter them in the following fields on the web form. Click on the Get API

key link in the form to learn how to obtain the API keys.

Note: The API keys are used to link all web requests back to your app. You will be prompted

only for those API keys that are needed by your app. Many apps may not need any API keys at

all.

step 1.5: strings

This step is still under development, and does not yet apply to your script.



step 1.6: cloud service agreement and privacy notice

Finally, you need to agree once more to the touchdevelop Cloud Service Agreement, and you

should read once more the touchdevelop Privacy Statement. (It is the same agreement and

statement that you already agreed to earlier when you logged into the touchdevelop app on

your phone, or when you logged in on the web site for the first time.)

note

If there are any problems with any of your entries on the web form, you will see a set of notices

in red at the bottom of the form, for example:

There are some APIs which are not supported when creating an app. If you get a message such

as the following, you need to adapt and re-publish your script as an update (using the

touchdevelop app on your phone):



save and continue

Click save frequently to save all your entries. When there are no issues left, you can save and

continue to download the app binary and screenshots to your PC (you cannot download it

directly to your phone).

step 2: app download – download app and screenshots

After you click save and continue when there are no issues left, you can download the

generated app binary and a set of high-resolution screenshots.

step 2.1: download app

Click on the link to the .xap file and save it on your disk.

step 2.2: download screenshots

Starting with touchdevelop v2.5, all screenshots that the script author takes are stored in high-

resolution. (All earlier screenshots and all screenshots posted by people other than the script



author are stored only in a scaled-down form, and are not sufficient for the Windows Phone

Store submission.)

step 2.3: submit

After you downloaded the app and screenshots, you can side-load the app on a developer-

unlocked phone. If you think your app is ready, you can go to the Dev Center to submit your

app to the Windows Phone Store certification process by clicking the start the app submission

process button:

You can learn more about Dev Center by clicking any of the links.



what is in the app

The generated app bundles together your script and the touchdevelop runtime system.

After your app has passed the Windows Phone Store certification process, you can publish the

app.

When end-users install your app from the Windows Phone Store and start it for the first time,

they have to accept your terms-of-use (if you gave any) and they are asked to read the privacy

statement, as shown here:



After that, and whenever the end-user starts the app again in the future, they will go

immediately to the wall where your script runs:



When the end-user clicks on the … menu in the lower right of the screen, the following options

appear at the bottom:



Under settings, the end-user may be able to enable/disable access to their current location, if

your app accesses an API that queries the current location. The end-user may be able to

configure a nickname, if your application accesses the leaderboard. The settings menu might

not appear if the script does not use any such API.

Under about this app, the end-user can open a page such as the following:



The Title, Author, and Description are shown. If you entered a support URL, email, or website

earlier when you defined the app settings, then these items appear here. The rate and review

button takes the user to a form where they can fill out a review for the Windows Phone Store.

Under about touchdevelop, the following page appears. It is the only place that refers back to

touchdevelop.



frequently asked questions

can I use all touchdevelop APIs in my script when I want to turn it into an

app?

Some touchdevelop APIs are not supported in apps, in particular, APIs that access icons or refer

to the bazaar. You will get a message in the app settings page on the touchdevelop website if

your script uses any unsupported APIs.

can I localize the boilerplate text in the generated app?

No, you can only localize the text that you write inside of your script.



how do I publish an update of my app?

Update your script in touchdevelop and publish the updated script. Then you can generate and

download the updated app binary, just as for the initial version. When you submit the app

binary on the Dev Center, you indicate that this is an update to the previous version.

do I have to pay money to register as a developer on Dev Center?

If you are a student, then the following might apply to you.

DreamSpark has partnered with Windows Phone Store and the Dev Center. You can sell your

mobile applications and make money! Along with all the free applications, Microsoft waives the

$99 registration fee and gives you the first 100 application submissions for free! Learn more:

https://www.dreamspark.com/Student/Windows-Phone-7-App-Development.aspx

where can I ask more questions?

We monitor the following channels:

Post a question in the forum in the touchdevelop app on your phone

Ask a question on the touchdevelop page on Facebook at facebook.com/touchdevelop

Send an email to the touchdevelop Team at [email protected]

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Web site references, may change without notice. You bear the risk of using it.

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use this document for your internal, reference purposes.

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