Windows Phone 7 : Submitting Your First Windows Phone Application to the Windows Phone Marketplace

1. Package the application

To package the application you will use Visual Studio.

Double click on the solution and Visual Studio will open Notepad solution.

1. When you see Visual Studio as seen in Figure 1 below click on Notepad solution found in the Solution Explorer and then select Release mode from the dropdown found in the menu.

   Figure 1. Compiling the phone application in Release mode

   

2. Press F6 to build the solution in Release mode.

3. When the build is done, you'll find the binaries under bin\release directory where the project file is located. To find out where the project file is, click on the Notepad project from the Solution Explorer. In the Properties window that appears you will see the project path in Project Folder property, as seen in Figure 2 below.

   Figure 2. Project Folder property

   

4. In side of [your project folder]\bin\release you will find Notepad.xap which you will be using in next section to submit to the Windows Phone Marketplace.

2. Submit the application

From the above you compiled Notepad application and created Notepad.xap file. In this section you will be deploying the application.

Open your browser of choice and go to http://developer.windowsphone.com and sign into the portal.

1. You will see menu at the top called "my dashboard." Hover over the menu choose "child menu Windows Phone." When the page loads and if this is your first time submitting you application you will see Figure 3 shown below.

   Figure 3. Submitting Windows Phone application: my apps page.

   

2. Click the "submit new app" button and the upload page will load as show in Figure 4 below.

   Figure 4. Submitting Windows Phone application: upload page

   

3. From upload page enter Application name, choose Application platform Windows Phone 7, English as Default language, choose initial version, click on Application package and browse to where Notepad.xap is found and select the xap file. Put developer note for yourself and Tester note to provide special instruction. See Figure 5-4 above when you completed the step and click Next button.

4. The description page shown in Figure 5 will load. Fill out the description dialogue by completing the following steps:

   • Choose a category from the Category from dropdown menu that is appropriate for your application.

   • Choose a Sub-category

   • Add Detailed a description, and add a Featured app description, a single sentence that will catch a user's eye at the marketplace.

   • Add key words that will be used during the search by the user at the marketplace.

   • Add a legal URL if you have one, and add a contact email.

   Figure 5. Submitting Windows Phone application: Description page

   

5. The artwork page will load. You will be uploading large and small application tile, large pc application tile, and screenshots. The screen resolution is defined in the certification requirements document. Your screen should resemble Figure 6 below. The images that are used to upload in this step can be found in [directory where source code is unzipped]\Codes\ch05. Click Next button to continue.

   Figure 6. Submitting Windows Phone application: artwork page

   

6. The pricing page shown in Figure 7 will load. Choose currency and select application price. If you are targeting worldwide market select Worldwide distribution. Also if the application is trial application select Trial supported application. Your screen should resemble Figure 5-8 below. Click Next button to continue.

   Figure 7. Submitting Windows Phone application: pricing page

   

7. The submit page will load as shown in Figure 8 below. Check the checkbox labeled "Automatically publish to Marketplace after passing certification" and click the "Submit for certification" button.

   Figure 8. Submitting Windows Phone application: submit page

   

8. You will be returning to my apps page and you will see the application that you just submitted with testing in progress status as show in Figure 9 below.

   Figure 9. Submitted application with Testing in progress status

   

Congratulations. You have successfully submitted your Windows Phone application to the worldwide market of Windows Phone users for the price of 99 cents. If your application successfully passes through the certification process you will be notified by email. If your application fails the certification process you will be able to see the report of why your application failed and you will have option to resubmit.

3. Updating your application

In this section, you will learn to redeploy your application with a newer version that might contain fixes to the bugs users have reported or new features you have added.

When you log in to App Hub and go to my apps page as described in above sections. You will see your application that is published to the Marketplace similar to the Figure 10 below.

Figure 10. Updating the application published to the Marketplace

1. Click on the View Details link as show in Figure 10. You will find this link next to the application that you want to redeploy.

2. On next screen you will see Action dropdown and from the dropdown select Submit application update as show in Figure 11. Notice that Action dropdown contains other options like being able to change the price, removing the application from the Marketplace, and add completely different version of the same application in which case the consumers must buy the product again and where as with the update the consumers will get free update.

   Figure 11. Submit application update

   

3. The remaining steps are exactly the same as those for submitting a new application to the Marketplace, as described in previous section. An update must go through the certification process again.

4. Finding your application in the Marketplace

In this section you will learn to find your application and view ratings and comments. You will be using Zune software that you download from http://www.zune.net/en-US/products/software/download/downloadsoftware.htm.

1. Install your downloaded Zune software.

2. Open up your Zune software found in your machine at Start => All Programs => Zune.

3. Follow the steps to configure Zune if it is first time use.

4. Once you are on the main page of Zune click on marketplace link and then click on the APPS link as shown in Figure 12.

   Figure 12. Finding your application in the Marketplace using Zune

   

5. You can either search for your application or navigate to the category look for your application.