I am interested in developing an app for BlackBerry devices, and was wondering if they support the concept of demo or beta releases for their app developers? By this, I mean the ability to deploy a beta or demo version of my app to a limited/restricted audience, such as business partners, customers, external beta testers, etc. Nothing in their Testing and Deployment documentation indicates either way. Thanks in advance!
There isn't a built in beta process in App World for BlackBerry 10, but you can share the debug version of your app with your beta participants. When you create a debug token, you specify which PINs you want it to be valid for. The debug token will only install on a device with one of those PINs, and your app will only install on a device with your debug token on it. The token will only be valid for 30 days. You would have to deploy it with the command line tools and not App World.
This link on the BlackBerry Developer blog explains how to do it: http://devblog.blackberry.com/2012/04/debug-token/
It's for PlayBook, but the same process applies for BlackBerry 10 as well.
I actually don't know if RIM themselves have anything formal, but since I've always released BlackBerry apps on more than just the official App World store, I've used a beta testing system that is independent of RIM. Luckily, the legacy BlackBerry Java platform gives you the freedom to do this, free of charge. (Note that this answer is not about the upcoming BB10 platform!)
Over-the-Air (OTA) Installation
You can have your beta testers install your beta versions, Over-The-Air (OTA). Unlike iOS, for example, you aren't limited to a certain number of test devices, and you don't have to tell RIM what the unique identifiers of all the test devices are.
So, what I do is just put beta versions of my apps on a webserver, and send links to beta testers that allows them to download them. So, you are in control of who gets access. If you need security to limit the beta version to nobody except the official beta testers, then you are certainly free to add password protected logins to your webserver. That works the same way it would for any other secure web content.
If you do this (OTA), here are a few references:
http://www.blackberryinsight.com/2008/07/08/howto-setup-an-apache-webserver-to-deliver-blackberry-ota-applications/
Blackberry over the air installation
https://stackoverflow.com/a/10307074/119114
There are a couple steps to be aware of:
You normally just upload a .cod file to BlackBerry App World. If you want to deploy an app to your own webserver, you also need the .jad file. A JAD file is basically just a descriptor of the app, that can redirect a BlackBerry browser to the .cod file for installation. Your build process is already probably generating the .jad file for you, in the same output directory where it generates your .cod files.
You may need to configure your webserver to properly setup MIME types for files with a .jad extension. If you use Apache, then this is what you would put in your httpd.conf file:
AddType text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor jad
you may also need to add a MIME type definition for the .cod type, too
AddType application/vnd.rim.cod .cod
If you don't have access to the web server's httpd.conf file, but can place the JAD and COD in your own user directory, then you can configure the MIME types in a local .htaccess file.
Depending on your web server configuration, there may be a couple more steps necessary. Check the OTA links I provided above.
Desktop Installation
Another option is to simply email your beta versions to beta testers, and have them install on their devices using BlackBerry Desktop Software. I don't do this, but it is another way to accomplish the same thing. For this, you use the .cod file, and also the .alx file, which is also generated by the normal BlackBerry build process.
Note that some of the project properties that get put into the .alx or .jad files are things that you don't need to worry about if you only deploy the .cod file directly to BlackBerry App World. If you use one of the options (ALX for Desktop installation, or JAD for OTA), then I would recommend opening up the .alx or .jad file and just inspecting the values for correctness. They're normal text files, and most of the values should be self-explanatory. I believe all settings can be configured from inside your IDE. If you use the BlackBerry Eclipse plugin, right click on your project, select Properties and look around there.
Here are the official RIM docs on all your installation options
its not possible. When you publish your app in app world, it will be available to all users. So you cant set any special conditions like- available only to some people. Else make it in un published mode. Then only users with sandbox id can access your app.
Check the below link for BB 10 Cascades beta 3 release(Preferrable way of development in BB 10)
https://developer.blackberry.com/cascades/
For BB 10,they are plenty of ways for developing the applications ,check the below link
https://developer.blackberry.com/platforms/
I have a client database iPad/Iphone iOS application running OK. I wish to be able to easily update the data associated with the application and the ideal solution would be to read from a text file on my PC when I am connected to iTunes on my (Windows XP) PC.
Can my iPhone/iPad app open a file on my PC when connected to iTunes? I can't get a file path specification that will work (allow me to open a file on my PC).
I have also investigated the iTunes FILE SHARING facility, requires a manual modification to the application .PLIST file to turn this on. Since whenever I rebuild and "Export to XCode" my application a new .PLIST file is generated I have to manualy edit it each time to get the file sharing changes made so this seems to not be the answer.
Alternatively packaging the file with the iOS application would be workable. I get some sort of application checksum error if I drop the data file into the xCode application.. not sure why. I understood this was the mechanism to get the data file packaged with the project. Maybe I am dropping the data file in the wrong place...
Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.
Looks like the menu item Deployment under the Project drop down menu in XE2 does the job. Allows files, images etc to be packaged up with the application.
Here's a crazy question...The client wants a web application to be available on the ipad when not connected to the internet. My first thought was that it would be a great opportunity to use the offline app feature of HTML5, except that the entire web app (including all the media) is 3GB, and apparently all of it must be available. This exceeds the 5MB limit of the app cache. The website does not necessarily have to rely on any dynamic server side code. It can be straight HTML files. Does anyone know if it would be possible to manually copy the entire website onto the ipad and from there easily launch it in a browser? I was not able to do this, but I have to believe there's a way. Any other approaches to this problem that you can think of? Thank you.
I had a similar problem and here's what I found that worked (using an iPad and a PC):
Download (on the PC) the program HTTrack to the PC. This program can create an offline mirror of a website and has all sorts of options for what gets included.
Run HTTrack on the PC and create a folder for your website.
Install (on the iPad) the free App "Documents 5" by Readdle.
Connect Documents 5 to some sort of cloud based storage (I used by Google drive account, but I'm sure Drop Box would work also)
Zip the entire offline website folder mirrored using HTTrack and upload the zip file to cloud storage (Google drive)
Click on the zip file in Documents 5. It should be downloaded to the iPad
Click on the downloaded zip file in Documents 5. It should be automatically extracted.
Now open the extracted folder and click on index.html. This is your website offline.
I don't know if there is a way to move the index link to the home screen...
There are several apps that can be used for storing files on the iPad and viewing them in an embedded browser. I use GoodReader, but this might be overkill for your purpose.
I've been able to view them using FileApp (after transferring via DropBox), but it's far less than ideal.
Use hightail.com, you can link a website as a space, it will actually convert the website to preview image, then can be access on iPad as webpage in browser, no need to copy file to iPad or install any software.
I already have an installation using .alx/.cod files that we use to install our Blackberry application via Desktop Manager, and also an "over the air" install version consisting of a .jad file and .cod files (uncompressed and no larger that 64K as specified by the mime type) that is downloaded from our website.
What format should I upload the application to App World as?
I gather all the files should be in a zip file but apart from that I'm struggling to find much more information on the RIM website
RIM has a document with the exact requirements for a submission bundle for an app for BlackBerry AppWorld:
"Contents of a .zip file for a release"
Look at section 5 b in the App World FAQ.
It mentions among many other things, COD files. The plural is because, you need to submit a COD file for each OS version you are planning to support.
I want would like to make my BlackBerry application available for download through a website using the BlackBerry browser. Is this possible?
There are two ways to allow your BlackBerry application to be downloaded from a website:
1.Over the Air distribution
To allow users to install the application over the air you will need to have a web server. On the web server you will need two files:
Yourapplication.cod
Yourapplication.jad
On your web server you will need to setup three MIME types:
.jad files: text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor
.cod files: application/vnd.rim.cod
.jar files (optional): application/java-archive
However, if the .cod file is larger than 64KB, it must be unzipped on the web server, otherwise you may get a "907 invalid cod HTTP error 404" error message. To do this, rename the .cod to .zip, then open the .zip file and place the file contents in the same folder on the web server alongside your .jad file. (See: https://stackoverflow.com/a/5788124/1943). Links to download your application should be to the .jad file.
2.Using the BlackBerry Application Web Loader
This is an ActiveX plugin that facilitates the download of the application. See the developer documentation for more information on this.
Reference:
Vivart's link: http://supportforums.blackberry.com/t5/Testing-and-Deployment/How-to-Deploy-and-Distribute-Applications/ta-p/442794