How to get a Xojo app in the Windows Store

Targets Windows
1

Now that the very first Xojo app has been published in the Windows Store, I will try to provide some information about the process.

In a nutshell, here is how it works :

Keep cool and take that one step at a time. If something does not work, ask here. It took me approximately two months to get all that together.

After you sign up for the Windows Store, a Windows rep will get in touch and help you set up your store for these apps.

The Windows Store is not very different from the MAS, for those familiar with it. It should not be terribly difficult.

See also :
https://forum.xojo.com/31538-last-news-about-microsoft-project-centennial
https://forum.xojo.com/35836-failed-to-locate-framework-dll-in-centennial

2

Thank you Michel for this thread !

You speak of certificates. I have Commodo certs. Can I use them or do I need an other?

3

[quote=295595:@Christoph De Vocht]Thank you Michel for this thread !

You speak of certificates. I have Commodo certs. Can I use them or do I need an other?[/quote]

No need for Comodo. For local test, all you need is a self-signed certificate. See the link I posted.

Final sign will be done by Microsoft after you upload to the store. No need for an App Wrapper (sorry, Sam).

4

Do I understand it correctly this is free?

5

I remember paying something like $34.00 back in 2013 to enter the store. Since then, nothing needed.

6

There is a one-time registration fee. Individual account is USD19 and company account is USD99. There is no renewal fee.

I got my company account free with my MSDN.

Register as an app developer

7

Very Cool!. I just signed up yesterday and now waiting to hear back from them from the Desktop Bridge team.

8

Great info, thanks Michel.

Does the Windows store impose draconian sandboxing limitations like the Mac App Store does?

9

[quote=311305:@Michael Diehr]Great info, thanks Michel.

Does the Windows store impose draconian sandboxing limitations like the Mac App Store does?[/quote]

No. That is actually the opposite. Native UWP apps are very constricted and have as little access as Mac apps in the MAS. But Desktop apps are “full trust”, meaning they have as much access as when used directly. I was able for instance to plug characters in the keyboard buffer with RemoteControlMBS for Char Menu, which I was not able to do in the Mac version.

The only limitation I found was I could not launch a helper.

BTW no need to even sign the app ; that is done by the store.

The flip side is that every app has to be vetted by a Microsoft rep to make sure it won’t do anything dangerous before it goes online. Nothing terrible, though, compared to Apple reviewers.

10

Thats pretty cool Michel, did you have to send source, or did they just play with your app?

11

No need for the source. I sent the converted, self signed app, together with the self signing certificate, to my Microsoft rep, so he could play with it.

After which when he has vetted the app, I upload to the store and submit. Certification of the apps is then extremely fast, usually less than a day, and then they are available to the public.

12

Very nice. Do you go through the same process for updates? Do you know if you’re allowed an auto-updating app?

13

Once accepted in store, you can update without further vetting.

Since the apps are “bottled” into an Appx new API package, updates take place automatically whenever you update the app in the store. Just like the App Store or the Play Store.

I do not think it is possible to conceive an auto updating app with that format.

14

[quote=311306:@Michel Bujardet]The only limitation I found was I could not launch a helper.
[/quote]

Drat, that would be a deal-breaker for me. Do you know the limitations? Is it OK to launch a second helper app? (sounds like No). Is it OK to launch a second instance of the App itself to function like a helper app?

15

Here’s the restrictions https://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/uwp/porting/desktop-to-uwp-prepare

and the point that you might want to look at:

“But if you have two apps in the same package, you can do inter-process communication between them”

so it might be possible to have multiple apps in the same package.

16

I should be more specific. I was not able to use a helper through the regular Xojo shell. But I have not experimented further because the helper in question simply showed a progressBar and I was able to find another way.

You can perfectly well launch a program with FolderItem.Launch, though.

It is possible that another way of doing shell would work, like declares. I did not experiment.

17

Continuing tests, I found out that contrary to what I had found before, the Xojo shell works in Windows Store packaged apps.

What happened is that I used a MsgBox to display the result of the shell, and for some reason, that MsgBox did not display.

So, Shell works but MsgBox is strange. MessageDialog works fine, though. I use it throughout Check Writer and did not notice any glitch.

18

I got my eCheck from the Windows Store tonight. It is about half the MAS. Not quite there, but becoming interesting :slight_smile:

19

Same here — paid into my PayPal account!

20

Actually, MsgBox springs behind the window. In practice unusable as is. It will need to be replaced by a floating window. Unless someone has a magic declare ?

You know, I had apps in the Windows Store since 2013 (made with VB. Net).

It is amazing, but they grow as well. Seems indeed Windows 10 is picking up.