Submitting to the Google Play and Amazon Stores

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Watch the video: Get ready for the Android store!

Prepare your App

Watch the video: Get ready for the Android store!

In this TechNote, we'll cover what you need to do to submit your app to Google Play and the Amazon Store. Submitting your app is fairly straightforward. The only hard part is signing your app: fortunately, VoltBuilder makes this much easier.

The method used will be to take an AppStudio app, use VoltBuilder to produce a .apk file, then submit that to the stores.

You can use this procedure for any AppStudio project. It will also work if your project uses the [Cordova|Cordova CLI]. It will not work if you are using third party Cordova plugins which are not supported by VoltBuilder: for those, you will need to use the Cordova CLI method.

Start by testing your app as much as possible while it is still a web app. It will be much easier to make changes, fixes and improvements at this stage.

Until you have your own account and have entered your signing key, VoltBuilder will build your app in debug mode. Once signed, it will build in release mode.

Create the Keystore

The signing key is a small file which identifies the creator. It will get built into the .apk file so the developer who built the app can be identified. Since the information in the signing key is all supplied by the developer, it really doesn't provide any security. It will make sure that updates to an app are generated by the same user.

Install the Java Development Kit

The signing key is created by a small program called keytool. To use it, you need to have Java and the Java Development kit installed.

Java: https://www.java.com/en/download/

Java Development Kit: https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

Open a CMD or Terminal session

Open a CMD window and type the following (the jdk version may be different): 

cd c:\Program Files\Java\jdk-12.0.1\bin

Use KeyTool to create the keystore file

Enter this command, replacing 'KitchenSink' with the name of your app. 

keytool -genkeypair -v -keystore %userprofile%\documents\KitchenSink.keystore -alias KitchenSink -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000

A series of questions will then appear: 

c:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_25\bin>keytool -genkeypair -v -keystore KitchenSink.k
eystore -alias KitchenSink -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -validity 10000
Enter keystore password:
Re-enter new password:
What is your first and last name?
  [Unknown]:  Eric Cartman
What is the name of your organizational unit?
  [Unknown]:
What is the name of your organization?
  [Unknown]:  South Park
What is the name of your City or Locality?
  [Unknown]:  South Park
What is the name of your State or Province?
  [Unknown]:  Colorado
What is the two-letter country code for this unit?
  [Unknown]:  US
Is CN=Eric Cartman, OU=Unknown, O=South Park, L=South Park, ST=Colorado, C=US co
rrect?
  [no]:  yes

Generating 2,048 bit RSA key pair and self-signed certificate (SHA256withRSA) wi
th a validity of 10,000 days
        for: CN=Eric Cartman, OU=Unknown, O=South Park, L=South Park, ST=Colorad
o, C=US
Enter key password for <KitchenSink>
        (RETURN if same as keystore password):

(tracing appears as the file is generated)

[Storing KitchenSink.keystore]

The file KitchenSink.keystore has now been created your documents folder.

VoltBuilder

VoltBuilder is a web service which takes your project and returns a file which can be uploaded to the App Store.

To use it, follow the instructions here.

Build and Download

Now we can upload our app to VoltBuilderr. Set the values in Config.xml correctly and choose 'Build Native App with VoltBuilder' from the Run menu.

Each time you submit a new version to the Google Plan and Amazon stores, increment the value of versionCode in config.xml. If you build with AppStudio, this value is incremented automatically.

Config.xml

One of the project properties is named config.xml. This is used to create the config.xml file which is passed to VoltBuilder. It contains much of the information that VoltBuilder needs to create your app. The default configxml file will work, though you may wish to do some customization. It's worth consulting Cordova's config.xml documentation to see all the options.

Here is a sample config.xml: 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<widget 
xmlns = "https://www.w3.org/ns/widgets"
id = "com.nsbasic.{id}"
versionCode = "{phoneGapBuildCounter}"
version = "{version}">

<name>{title}</name>
<description>{description}</description>

<icon src='{icon}' />
<preference name='SplashScreenDelay' value='2000' />
<preference name='AutoHideSplashScreen' value='true' />
<plugin name='cordova-plugin-splashscreen' source='npm' />

<preference name="permissions" value="none"/>
<!-- sample preference specifications -->
<!-- <preference name="autorotate" value="false" readonly="true"/> -->
<!-- <preference name="orientation" value="default" /> -->
<!-- <preference name="fullscreen" value="true" /> -->

<!-- Platforms: Customize as needed. -->
<gap:platforms>
   <gap:platform name="android" />
   <gap:platform name="ios" />
</gap:platforms>

<plugin name="cordova-plugin-statusbar" source="npm" />
  <preference name="StatusBarOverlaysWebView" value="{phoneGapStatusBarOverlay}" />
  <preference name="StatusBarBackgroundColor" value="{phoneGapStatusBarColor}" />
  <preference name="StatusBarStyle" value="{phoneGapStatusBarStyle}" />

<plugin name="cordova-plugin-whitelist" source="npm" />
  <allow-navigation href="*" />
  <access origin="*" />
  <allow-intent href="*" />

<plugin name="cordova-plugin-wkwebview-engine" source="npm" />
<platform name="ios">
  <preference name="WKWebViewOnly" value="true" />
  <feature name="CDVWKWebViewEngine">
    <param name="ios-package" value="CDVWKWebViewEngine" />
  </feature>
  <preference name="CordovaWebViewEngine" value="CDVWKWebViewEngine" />
</platform>

</widget>

Fields which are surrounded by brackets, like {version}, are automatically filled in by AppStudio from the other information in the project.

Set up store accounts

Setting up your store account is straightforward, but involves many steps. Thankfully, they are clear and well documented, so we do not have to repeat them here.

Google Play

The Google Play Store costs $25.00 to join. You can get started here: https://play.google.com/apps/publish

Amazon Store

The Amazon Store is free to join. You can get started here: https://developer.amazon.com/welcome.html

To submit your apps to the Amazon Store, you need to add some lines to your configxml to tell it which devices you support.

At the top, add this: 

xmlns:android = "http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"

and add this elsewhere in configxml: 

<config-file platform="android" parent="/manifest" mode="merge">
  <supports-screens android:anyDensity="true" android:resizeable="true" 
    android:smallScreens="true" 
    android:normalScreens="true" 
    android:largeScreens="true" 
    android:xlargeScreens="true" />
</config-file>

Submit your App

Finally, you're done. Both stores have an Upload APK button where you can upload the apk file that was downloaded from VoltBuilder.

Google apps go live automatically a few hours after being submitted. Amazon app go through a review process which is not as extensive as Apple's, which can take a couple of days.

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