This is a very simple, automated process.
In General, follow these steps:
- Create a new app by either installing an existing one (for later modifications) or by creating a blank app in the App-management
- Configure your content-types and views
- Optionall: configure some app-infos like brief description, icon, etc.
- Export
Creating the App
This is very simple. Either begin with installing one of the demo apps from the App-Catalog or create your own.
Important: The App has a GUID in the background to identify it across systems. This will become important in the future when we allow for App-Updates and similar. When you create a brand new app, a new GUID will be generated. When you install an existing app, it will keep the GUID of that App unless it's one of our official demo-apps (these will automatically reset the GUID so your installation is unique).
Building Your App
Typically you will begin with your content types, then create your views, etc.
Configuring Your App
An app has 3 places for configuration:
- The main settings (name, folder, and original GUID)
- the OriginalGuid is important for template-apps, which want to reset the app-Guid when installing on another system. This is a special feature that will not be explained ATM.
- The version is important - always update this after every export.
- The App-Settings - an entity which you can define as you want to, containing settings for this app.
- The App-Resources - an entity for resources like labels, etc.
Exporting Your App
This process is fully automated. The dialog just informs you what it's about to do, the rest is done automatically. It will also export all entities in this app and if files are referenced (like images), these will be exported as well :)!
Now, test the app on another installation, and fix anything you might have missed.
Converting your App to a Template-App
If you app is meant to demonstrate a technical feature or as a template for others to create their own apps, it's important to convert your App into a template App. This means, that the GUID of the target installation will be reset, making that app a "new" app. Otherwise, multiple descendants of your app would want to replace each other on a third-party system. To do this, find the App.xml in your ZIP file and set the App-GUID (about the 3rd line in the XML) to an empty Guid like "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000". For an example of this, just check out our template apps like this one.
Publishing Your App to the Central Catalog
This is not automated yet - as we're still working on some details and want to be sure the published apps are somehow good. So when your app is ready, send it to us by e-mail, we would love to publish it for you. When you send it to us, please provide us with the following additional info:
- An Icon (square), at least 250x250px
- A brief description
- A brief getting-started text
- A brief history
- Tags/categories of your app