Hello!
I know Appery team is working hard to make state-of-the-art solution for building cross-platform mobile apps, and I appreciate this. You have a great work done so far!
I al know tat vast majority of developers makes apps for Android and iOS, but not for Windows Phone. However, even here Appery is the best tool to make Android app work on WP8.
Still, when I am deploying a new version of the app to all 3 stores (Google Play, AppStore and Windows Store), it takes me too much time to craft my project before uploading it to WP Store. Here I ask Appery developers to consider my ideas about extending "App Setting" page with a few new configuration features. I also ask another developers reading this to second me, if you tink you will also benefit from those little changes.
"Windows Phone Binary" tab in "App settings" currently holds only "Publisher ID" field. Newbie developers like me will enter there string like "CN=XXXXXXXX-XXX-XXXX...." as they copy it in this format from MS WP DevCenter Profile. It will not work in this format, as "CN=" is not required! You should enter Publisher ID without "CN=" to make app work.
My idea is to add at least some hint near the field, or to strip "CN=" automatically if found. A little update in documentation is also welcomed.
"Windows Phone Binary" tab could be extended with "Icons" and "Launch Image". WP8 expects a number of icons if very odd sizes, including rectangular one (more info was recently posted in MSDN: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libra...). It would be nice to have similar uploader as already featired in "Android binary" and "iOS binary" tabs.
Same goes for orientation lock. It was discussed several times here, but still developers have a selectbox on "iOS Keys" tab to easily lock required orientation for iPhone. There is also more-or-less painless way of locking orientation for Android by editing Manifest file. This is not a good approach, as Manifesh file should not be edited at all; it should be constructed from settings ideally. When it goes to WP8, I need to edit "MainPage.xaml" file in downloaded VS project to find 'SupportedOrientations="Portrait" Orientation="PortraitorLandscape"' line there and edit it manually before building my app. And if I forgot about it, I got a broken app uploaded to WP Store. Not good at all! Simple selectbox could overcome this issue. And I believe Android developers would also like same selectbox on "Android permissions" tab.
When we use NavBar item fixed to the bottom of the screen of out app, it causes an issue in WP8. Namely, WP8 app expects to have their branded AppBar sticked to the bottom of the screen, and builder reserves space (approx 30px) for it. Cordova developers had plans to solve this issue in 3.5, but I am unsure about current status. Now the only way to fix it is to edit "MainPage.xaml" file and set 'shell:SystemTray.IsVisible' to "False" instead of "True" that is selected by default. I'd like Appery to do this little thing when preparing XAP file or VS project for download.
Thank you for reading tat far. Appery is a cool project and I with you success and prosperity. I used it for a year and will continue my subscription in any case. It saves my time, and I hope it could save me even more time in the future, to keep me focused on actual development, and solving cross-platform compatibility issues better then me.