PureBasic Forums - English

I've ran the gauntlet and have published ColorCoder Pro in the windows store using the Microsoft Desktop app converter. As far as I'm aware, this may be the first PureBasic app in the windows store

ColorCoder is a palette manager, primarily suited for HTML & web design work (your mileage may vary). It's a universal button bar that will work with whatever editor you prefer, and allow for easy collaboration with peers on projects or for brands with defined color palettes.

To others looking at it, *yes* it's possible to get your apps published there.

To those that want to check out ColorCoder, there's a free version out there too

https://teamdrake.wordpress.com/ColorCoder

Nice !

I've launched the free version of this app as well in the windows store!

Please check it out if it looks like something you would find useful. Thank you!

https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9msrsh3ks832

The process for getting published is not particularly painful once you've gotten it set up, as an FYI to others that are interested in publishing in the windows store for windows 10.

aszid wrote:The process for getting published is not particularly painful once you've gotten it set up, as an FYI to others that are interested in publishing in the windows store for windows 10.

can you please give us an overview of the process? thanks!

I'm also very interested in the initialization (contracts, registration) and technical prerequisites (setup, signatures etc) for getting listed in the Windows App Store!

Did you use a good tutorial or did you try by yourself?

aszid wrote:I've ran the gauntlet and have published ColorCoder Pro in the windows store

Congratulations!

But this is what's wrong with the future of software -- the page says: "This app does not work on your device." A perfectly normal windows executable, that runs on any PC, has now been converted to a format that won't run on any PC unless Windows says so. I'm shaking my head here at the future of Windows, and not liking where it's going. Oh, and the page says your app is a 29 MB download and requires 1 GB of memory. Sigh. Such BS.

So, I'm not fond of the overall situation with the store, and silly requirements that are pushed. *But* having an accessible marketplace with a huge scope sounds pretty nice.

Desktop software published through the MS store requires that you have windows 10 with the anniversary patch installed. This app is no-where near as big as they made it, but after running the process, I understand why it ended up bigger. Converting a desktop app to a UWP appx container, is basically installing the app in a virtualized clean Win10 environment, then the UWP is generated by a differential snapshot of the VM.


For those interested, here's where to start:

- Register as a microsoft developer (this costs a few bucks)
- Install win10 anniversary, if you haven't updated to it yet. Windows 10 Pro or Enterprise 64-bit is necessary.
- Install the win10 SDK https://developer.microsoft.com/en-US/w ... ows-10-sdk
- Install the 'Desktop Bridge' from the windows store: https://www.microsoft.com/store/apps/9nblggh4skzw
- Submit your information on this form: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/w ... top-bridge
- Follow the rest of the "Set up the Desktop App Converter" steps from this page: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/window ... -converter
- Register your app name in the Microsoft developer center
- Open up "App identity" under "App management" for your new app in developer center
From this page the following 2 pieces of data need to be used with the app converter from the command line:
Package/Identity/Name (-PackageName)
Package/Identity/Publisher (-Publisher)
- Use the desktop app converter from the command line, as described on the page listed above.
Make sure to use these switches to ensure the end result *looks* right:
-AppId
-AppDisplayName
-PackageDisplayName
-PackagePublisherDisplayName
-Sign
- To test your generated appx file, you'll need to install the "auto-generated.cer" certificate into your local store as a "Trusted People", then you can install the Appx to ensure it runs correctly.
- Twiddle your thumbs and wait for 2-5 days for an email reply from someone representing Microsoft, make sure to check your spam box.

It's downhill from there, and the person that reaches out to you representing MS should be able to help you with any issues you have that I didn't cover here

It certainly is a big market, Windows always has been of course. The blurb on the desktop-bridge sign-up page, however, is nauseating BS! In particular, the claim that you can 'Reach every Windows device' - that is exactly what you can't do!

IdeasVacuum wrote:It certainly is a big market, Windows always has been of course. The blurb on the desktop-bridge sign-up page, however, is nauseating BS! In particular, the claim that you can 'Reach every Windows device' - that is exactly what you can't do!

To be fair the rest of that very same line reads: "Once all functionality moves from the full-trust portion of your app and into the app container portion, your app will be able to reach every Windows device."

Well, their intentions are quite clear, they want to transition the world away from the aging win32 platform. It's my opinion that they're quite upfront about the fact that this is just a carrot on the path to rebuilding stuff as uwp. There's numerous other languages that would require far less rewriting to port, so I'm pretty sure PureBasic users aren't anywhere remotely near the core demographic for the desktop bridge.

I wont argue any merits of their new platform because quite honestly I just don't know it well enough yet to make any fair judgments, aside from thinking it's ugly as sin

I can not pass the Microsoft Application Verifier with any PB program if it is using the XMLDialog. I would like to add two programs to the app store, but it fails for both.

So I have no chance: http://www.purebasic.fr/english/viewtop ... =4&t=68058

aszid wrote:For those interested, here's where to start:

- Register as a microsoft developer (this costs a few bucks)
/snip
- Twiddle your thumbs and wait for 2-5 days for an email reply from someone representing Microsoft, make sure to check your spam box.

Hi aszid,

this is very interesting information, would you mind posting that (perhaps adding some additional info if it came to your mind) to Windows forum and admins might put it as a sticky as well?!