How to Publish an App Studio app to the Windows Phone Store

Introduction to Mobile App Developer Welcome to this video. Get your app ready to go to market. In the previous videos, the ins and outs of Windows' phone apps studio on how to get to the source code and make a modification. You still have to create a Windows phone app using the web-based app studio tool. And then notify the source code in Visual Studio. In this video, I'm going to show you how to get your app ready to be published in Windows phone store. By the end of this video, you will see how to get started with publishing an app studio app. After that, it's up to you to come up with great ideas for apps, develop them and then publish them in the store. Some Useful Resources Before I get started, I want to highlight a couple of resources that you'll find useful when you come to publish your own app. When you submit your app for publication it must be certified before it can appear in the store. On this page, you can review the detailed certification requirements all apps published in the store must meet. To make sure you avoid common certification failures, you may also want to check out the post, Top Windows Phone App Certification Failures and How to Avoid Them on the Windows Phone Developer Blog. On this page here provides detailed guidance on how to test your app before submitting it to the store. when you're happy your app meets all those certification requirements, you can begin the submission process. Downloading the XAP FILE from App Studio On the Publish Info tab, I'm going to complete and information and preparation for publishing my app to the store. I write a description. Select a language, and optionally each loads an about dialogue and enable arts in my app. I click Finish when I'm done. The first thing that you'll need to publish an app to the store is the XAP file that contains you app and all its resources. If you're planning on publishing the app you created on App Studio without making any further changes then you can download the XAP file from App Studio by clicking on the Publish Package link. In addition to downloading the XAP file you must register for developer account. You'll need three hundred by three hundred pixel PNG file that will serve as your app tile to display in the store. This is typically a larger version of the image used as your app tile on the phone. You need one or more, with a maximum of eight PNG screenshots of your app. You must have permission to use all the content that your app contains. It must have a suitable logo, title, description for your app. You'll learn more about all of these as you watch this video. Building the XAP File in Visual Studio If you've made some changes to your app using Visual Studio. You'll need to build the XAP file in Visual Studio. Make sure that you set Visual Studio to do a release build and then, build the solution. You'll find the XAP file in the app slash AppStudio.UI slash Bin, slash Release folder. You should then make sure that you've identified the other resources ready that you'll need during the submission process. Creating Screenshots As I discussed earlier, you need a three hundred by three hundred pixel PNG file to represent your app int the store. Typically, this is the same images as the one hundred and sixty by one hundred and sixty pixel image that you used in App Studio to represent the app and use on the app's tile. Ideally, you should start with a three hundred by three hundred image and create a scaled down version to use in App Studio. You also need one, you can have up to eight screenshots of your app to give potential users browsing the store an idea of what your app looks like. The easiest way to get a screenshot of the right size is to run your app in the emulator at WXGA Resolution. If I expand this toolbar at the side of the emulator then I can capture a screenshot that has to create dimensions. Seven hundred and sixty-eight by twelve hundred and sixty pixels. There are a couple of specific requirements for the screenshot images that you must meet. Screenshots must only contain app graohics and must not include any emulator chrome, frame rate counters or debug information. We may not graphically enhance your screenshots except for the additional informative overlays designated and pre-approved by Microsoft. For more information about these overlays, search the Windows Phone Blog for the word, 'Overlay.' Each screenshot must match the supported resolution size. For more information, see the webpage, 'Multi-resolution apps for Windows Phone 8.' Screenshots must not be transparent PNG files. You must not submit screenshots of the photos of the app while it runs on a phone or on the emulator. Use the built-in emulator screenshot tool to take screenshots for your app instead. Optionally, you can provide a one thousand by eight hundred image that will be used if your app is featured in the store. You also need some text to describe your app. It's a good idea to take a look at other similar store apps to see what kind of tile images, screenshots and descriptions work well before you go ahead and create your own. The Submission Process I've already signed up for a developer account. So from the Windows Phone Dev Center, I'm going to click Submit App. At this point, if you haven't signed up for a developer account, you'll be given the opportunity to do so. I use the same Microsoft account that I use when I signed up for App Studio. Then, i click on the Submit App link. From here, I can complete the mandatory and optional steps in the app submission process. I start by clicking on Step One to enter my app info. On this page, I complete all of the basic app info including its alias which is what they use in the Dev Center, not in the store. The category to be listed in and the price it is sold at. There are more options if I click here. If I'm submitting a game, I may need to submit a game certification for specific regions. Clicking on the, Learn More link will provide you with necessary information about game certificates. When I'm done, I click, Save. Next, I click on Step Two to upload the XAP file. If I click on Add New, I can locate the XAP file on my computer and upload it. When the upload completes, the page displays information about the XAP file. If I scroll down, I can enter additional information about my apps such as a description of the app and keywords to help users to find my app in the store. And scrolling down further, I can upload the various image files. Notice how the site can automatically generate the low resolution screenshots on the WXGA ??. Finally, I click Save, at the bottom of the page. This app doesn't require any of the optional information, so I go ahead and click Review and Submit. From here, you can already go ahead and submit the app for certification and publication. We'll go back and make any further changes that are needed. I click on Submit. And then, go to the Lifecycle page. From here, I can monitor the process of my app through the different stages of certification and after it is published, manage the app in the store. It can take up to five business days for the app to complete the certification process before the app appears in the store. Thank you for watching this video and looking forward to seeing your great apps in the store.