I want to remove/hide my app from the public Windows Phone Store.
In the Windows Phone Dev Center, on the app page, there are two different options:
Hide app in Store
Unpublish
What is the difference between these two? How should I choose, or maybe do both?
Hide from Store: The app is in a unlisted state, this means users can't find it using built-in seach function of the Store, moreover the app won't apper in Store spotlight. Actually users are still able to download/rate it and, if search engines (Google, Bing...) indexed the Store page, users will easily reach that page.
Unpublish: It really removes the app package you previously uploaded, so that new users won't be able to download it. However,
neither this option can perform a forced uninstall of the app from
users who have it on their phones. If they decide to uninstall it,
they can reinstall as your app still appear under "My
Apps" section of the Store.
So I would exclude the first option, usually it's used when you want to limit distribution of the app. Go with the second one, but keep in mind that old users can use the app whenever they want.
Hiding an app only removes it from the search. Someone who knows the direct url to your app will still be able to download it. Unpublishing removes the app entirely, making it impossible to be found or downloaded.
If you unpublish the app, it'll be hidden de facto, so you don't have to do both.
Related
I want to create a web app(for practicing my skills) that will help in conducting online exams. So I want to ask that is there any way to find out the following things---
Is there another page opened in the chrome (if yes then which)
Is there is another application running in the background (if yes then which)
Is user switching between tabs/applications/desktops etc.
Basically, I just want to create an app that just keeps track of users' activity when the user is giving an exam.
And if you have any of the solutions to the above problems then please tell.
Since most things you want to access are considered private data, it is not directly possible in a Web App, except the page visibility. But you can write a browser extension, which is at least allowed to access data within the browser. For information beyond the browser you should consider a native application or some embedded solution like React Native, Xamarin, or Electron, to name a few.
To get the info if the user is currently using the tab your Web App is running in, use the Page Visibility API:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Page_Visibility_API
For accessing information about other tabs and browser internal stuff, write an extension:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API
Basically, my question is the same than this topic but it's now 2018. So, how can I still have ECMAScript executed on my phone (to send geolocation position) even if it is asleep? We now have Open Web Apps and Progressive Web Apps (PWA) with service workers, even Apple is jumping in, I'm sure there are ways to do that.
While we can hope that things should've changed on this, unfortunately, it has not.
This article from Google on PWA GeoLocatoin API dated Jan-2018 says clearly that this API works "only while the page is open".
Why not available yet (in my opinion)? Thinking of users privacy, it makes sense. Think of tons of wep pages we visit and for how many we tend to five permission accidentally or we intend to give for a while(until we finish some transaction/booking). Currently there is no way for us to go and check on all location permissions that we've given to web sites in a browser, like we do for Native/Hybrid apps and having option to change it.
We can expect to have tracking option for PWA when it is installed to home screen, where native app like permission handling will be possible to user.
End of the story, we are not there yet!!
Alternate option: While you can use navigator.geolocation.watchPosition to track the user when he is actively using the app, You can complement your app with a separately installed (Native) Android service to update the users location to your back end server, till PWA supports naively.
I'm trying to publish an app for Windows Phone 8.1 and 10 (Only Mobile),
I already published a lot of apps on the same account. This is the same of another already on the store with just a different icon (different customer, it's B to B) and name, but from the 16 of october the policy for the windows store changed and now my app is blocked with the following reason:
App Policies: 10.1 Inaccurate Representation
Your app and its associated metadata must accurately and clearly
reflect the source, functionality, and features of your app.
•All aspects of your app should accurately describe the functions,
features and any important limitations of your app, including required
or supported input devices. Your app may not use a name or icon
similar to that of other apps, and may not claim to be from a company,
government body, or other entity if you do not have permission to make
that representation.
•Your app must be fully functional and must provide appropriate
functionality for each targeted device family.
•Keywords may not exceed seven unique terms and should be relevant to
your app.
•Your app must have distinct and informative metadata and must provide
a valuable and quality user experience.
Locations: Metadata
Notes To Developer
The app's "pin to start", "app list", or "games hub" icon does not
accurately represent the app and/or is a default icon. The
"pin-to-start" tile submitted in the submission package, which is
different from the icon and tile images in the app metadata, must
uniquely represent the app so users can associate it with your app.
For information about icons and tiles in Windows apps, see
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/hh202948(v=vs.105).aspx.
I searched on the internet but I didn't find anything useful for this problem and I don't get what are those "pin to start", "app list", and"games hub" they are talking about in the Note to Developers.
Anyone knows the solution?
Thanks in advice
Based on your description, it seems that you haven’t set the title images for your app. So I would like to suggest you to delete all of icons in your project and open Package.appxmanifest in Visual Studio and select the Visual Assets. Please make sure to replace all default titles with the correct size image that represents your app. And then you could need to create your app package and resubmit your app again.
By the way, if your project is UWP, you could use UWP Title Generator tool to generate correct size title quickly.
Update:
As your project is Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1, firstly, please prepare the correct size title, and then right-click Assets--choose Add--Existing item, you can choose the correct size title to replace the default title.
Then right-click Package.appxmanifest, choose open with--XML(Text)Editor, then you could need to make sure that the path of title is correct.
Finally, you may need to rebuild the project in order for the tile titles to show up properly.
Hope it is helpful to you.
I have a new extension that I am trying to get more users for, I am running two campaigns - lets call them A and B
These campaigns eventually lead to my extension's page on the Chrome store.
Is there a way to know how much installs\addons did each campaign added?
Not clicks - Proper users that added the extension.
Thanks!
In theory, yes.
If you have enabled Google Analytics for your extensions (created a property and added it while editing the extension), that property will start tracking your Web Store page. If you haven't installed it, then no, no such refined data will be available.
You will see installs as visits to /track_install/* URLs. You can create a Goal to have better analytics for it, but you can probably dig through the data even without it.
Is there a way of beta testing a Chrome extension in the Web Store among a small group of users?
I'd like to do this before scaling to everyone on my waiting list, but I don't want to have to send round the file with installation instructions, especially given that Google is tightening up on extensions that aren't downloaded from the Web Store.
It'd also be useful to be able to slowly roll it out (à la Mailbox) if that's at all possible.
Publishing on Chrome Web Store has 3 (well, 4) options:
Public. The extension will be listed in search and gallery, everyone can install and use.
Unlisted. The extension will not be listed in search and gallery, but everyone with a direct link can install.
(Google Apps domains only) People with accounts on [example.com] only. This allows to publish items privately, as long as you administer a Google Apps domain.
Private. The item will only be available to a selected list of Google accounts, or a Google Group. Note that this is aptly aliased as "Trusted Testers".
That said, you most probably have 2 options:
Have a restricted set of accounts that can use your app. CWS allows to either specify an explicit but short list, or to link with a Google Group you administer.
Use "unlisted" and send everyone the link. Use only if you don't care if the link leaks: you won't be able to remotely kill any install.
Note that if you have enough (10000+) users you can do partial rollouts of regular updates, to have less impact from problematic updates if they happen.