Application Distribution
From WebOS101
Contents |
Introduction
So, you want to distribute your app. There are several avenues of distribution available to you. Your choices include: Palm App Catalog, Palm Web Feed, Palm Beta Feed and Homebrew. Here are the steps you'll need to take and the things you need to watch out for.
Prepping your app
- Remove debug code
- Pack images and reduce sizes of music files
- Remove unneeded files
App Guidelines
Whether you plan to distribute through the App Catalog or not you should look over Palm's App Guidelines document. Users will expect to interact with your app the same way they do with other apps. Check out our list of common App Catalog review rejection comments.(todo)
Distributing Through Palm
Palm makes three distribution channels available to developers: App Catalog, Web and Beta. The App Catalog feed requires developers to upgrade to a paid account and submit their applications for review. The Beta feed exists to allow developers to distribute their application for testing. The Web feed exists to allow developers to self-certify their application, though apps will not appear on the device's App Catalog. All of these require you to set up a developer account on Palm's site.
App Catalog
Beta Feed
Web Distribution
Tips & tricks
Tip: If you want to have newlines/line breaks in the text description of your app in the App Catalog, you'll have to have an ampersand (&) character somewhere in your text. Then and only then will your text look like what you wrote in the description text field, that is line breaks you wrote will be honored in the App Catalog description.
Example styling with linebreaks:
AwesomeCoolApp is available in USA & Canada.
FEATURES:
+ Feature 1
+ Feature 2
Use this when you have a lot of text in description for easier reading.
Submitting to Homebrew Feed
Link to PreCentral feed
Useful Links
"Find it in the App Catalog" graphics: https://developer.palm.com/distribution/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=4041
Screen Video Capture for YouTube: http://developer.palm.com/distribution/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6383
