So you have registered for the Dev
Center and completed the first version of your application. You are
ready to get that app in the Store and start sharing your creation with
users. You might think you’re ready to submit your creation, but before
you get started, some preparation is required.
Preparing Your Application
After your application code is ready, you
should perform some simple steps to ensure that the submission process
goes smoothly. Here is a checklist of tasks you should complete before
you submit your application.
To simplify this experience, the Windows Phone
SDK provides an option called the Store Test Kit to package your
application and run tests to ensure it’s going to
be approved the first time. To get started, open the Project menu and
select Open Store Test Kit, as shown in Figure 1.
FIGURE 1 Opening the Store Test Kit
When the kit is opened, you’ll see three tabs
on the left that indicate the various parts of the application testing.
The first tab contains the Store images you should supply when
submitting your application. This can ensure that your images are the
correct size for submitting to the Store. You can see the first tab in Figure 2.
FIGURE 2 Store Test Kit image validation
To create the Store Tile,
I just use any image editor for my logo. But for the screenshots, I
usually use the emulator and take screenshots. When running your
application in the emulator, you can press the small right-arrow icon
to open the emulator tools. One of the tabs is called Screenshots.
Clicking the Capture button will take the screenshot; clicking the Save
button lets you save the image. You can see the screenshot emulator
tool in Figure 3.
FIGURE 3 Screenshot tool in the emulator
When including screenshots, you must supply
screenshots for every screen resolution you support. In your
WMAppManifest.xml file, you can specify which resolutions you support.
By default, all three resolutions are enabled, as shown in Figure 4.
FIGURE 4 Supported resolutions
In the first tab of the
Store Test Kit is a drop-down that changes the screenshots for each of
these resolutions. You should supply screenshots in all three
resolutions. The easiest way is to rerun your application in each of
the emulator sizes.
Normally you can include these images in your
project to have a common place to put them. If you do include them
directly in your project, be sure to change the Build Action to “None”
to prevent them from being included in the .xap file. Including them
will unnecessarily bloat your application package. You can change the
Build Action in the Properties panel as shown in Figure 5.
FIGURE 5 Changing the Build Action of images in your project
The next tab in the Store Test Kit are the
automated tests. These tests do static analysis on the .xap package
itself looking for errors. You must change the build type to “Release”
before these tests can be performed. You can select the “Run Tests”
button to execute the automated tests. The results will be shown in the
window (see Figure 6).
FIGURE 6 Automated tests
From this window, you can also profile your
application using the built-in profiler. The Start Windows Phone
Application Analysis button launches this tool. This tool enables you
to see how your application performs and tweak memory, CPU, and animation performance to make your application the best it can be.
The last tab in the Store
Test Kit is a set of manual tests. The number of these tests varies and encourages you to perform
this series of manual tests on your applications. Many of the tests are
not necessarily applicable to every application (for example, VoIP
tests). After you’ve prepared your application, you’re ready to submit
it!
