Publish a BlackBerry App
This writeup is more of an afterthought than a planned event, so if there are missing details, I apologize beforehand.
A little more than four weeks ago, an ad agency owner/friend approached me about writing apps for BlackBerrys (BB) and iPhones. I told him I’d look into it to see how much dev this would take. I am not by nature or choice a programmer, although I have accomplished some pretty involved programming projects for my current employer. I knew BBs were deep in Java, but I decided to find out how much Java I would need to know to program a BB app.
I got to the BB developers site and discovered that BB programming could be done almost entirely in a web browser, which is something I mostly rock at.
A little Java “scripting” is required to package a launcher, a small Java app used to create a browser call that the end-user actually runs to get to the app webpage. Fortunately for me, the good people over at CrackBerry.com had put together a step by step instruction set detailing the entire process. There were a few quirks in their instruction set, but there’s nothing like a flawed manual to help you learn the process more intimately.
After creating the launcher, we simply had to be approved as a BB vendor, which is easy when you own a web marketing firm.
I am now waiting to get the logins for the vendor portion of the site, where I can seemingly submit the app to the world!
Let’s see what happens…
UPDATE: I got the logins and submitted the app. Unfortunately, I sumbitted the app before requesting Java Code Signing Keys from RIM using their webform. After getting the form filled out and submitted, I was forwarded an email outlining the key receipt policy:
“…should receive your keys within the next two business days as three(3) emails with the respective .CSI attachments…”
::sigh:: So now I have to wait until I receive the keys, rebuild the code, and resubmit the app.
UPDATE2: I received the keys last night. The signing process was a lot less complicated than I thought it could have been, considering what I had already gone through. The email states that each .CSI attachment must be run on the same computer, so I double clicked the first attachment I received and, behold, it workéd. Since this was the first time a .CSI file had been run, it asked me to create a password and confirm. It then requested the 10 digit PIN that was created when I registered for the keys and the password I just created. After getting the PIN from my partner (who actually registered for the keys), I was able to successfully finish “installing” that file and the other two, which just asked for the PIN and the password. Each file told me that I had over 2.1 BILLION code signings remaining. Guess I will not run out any time soon.
So, the process is finished (after I uploaded the .cod file to the vendor portal app management site). I am awaiting approval, then I will confirm that the app is available for download.
9 months ago • 0 notes