Package Your App Built with Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova

Article
05/22/2015

In Visual Studio 2013, the Cordova tools are released as a preview (CTP) version. Cordova tools will be released as part of Visual Studio 2015 and we recommend that you now use Visual Studio 2015 RC to develop apps using Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova. You can download Visual Studio from the Microsoft Download Center.

When you package the app you created using Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova, you’ll want to configure the settings required for publishing your app. In addition to general settings, there are also platform-specific steps required in most cases.

In this article:

Configure general app package settings
Package and sign an Android app
Package and sign an iOS app
Package and sign a Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows Phone 8.1 app
Package and sign a Windows Phone 8 app

For a tutorial that walks you through the packaging and publishing process, see Package and publish your Cordova applications.

Configure general app package settings

You can specify details such as the package ID and version number by using the configuration designer, which is the Visual Studio interface for the config.xml file. In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for config.xml, and then choose Open or View Designer (or double-click the file).

Important settings in the Config Deisgner

You must configure the following settings to package your app for distribution.

Display Name, which specifies the name of the application that appears in an app store.

Note

The Windows Store display name and package ID are specified in a different way. See the Package and sign a Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 app section later in this article.
Package Id, which specifies a unique string that identifies your app on each platform (except Windows 8) when you publish your app to a store.
Version, which specifies your app’s version number. Some app stores may have independent versioning that is assigned when the app is published. However, for platforms like iOS, you should keep this number in sync with the version you configure in iTunes Connect.
Domain Access, which specifies the set of domains your app can access content from. During development, we recommend using the default value, "*", which provides access to all content. However, before releasing your app, use this setting to restrict your app to specific domains required by your app. (Windows 8 doesn’t currently use this configuration setting.)

For information about preferences you can manually set in config.xml, see The config.xml File in the Apache Cordova documentation.

Package and sign an Android app

Each time you build your app for Android, a package is created. Extra steps are required to sign your app for distribution.

To sign an Android app for distribution

Generate a keystore and provide the information required to create a certificate (private key). For more information, see Signing your applications in the Android documentation.
When you have created a keystore, open the res\native\android folder.
Open the ant.properties file, and enter information about the keystore and the alias.

The Key.store property in ant.properties must specify a relative or absolute path to the certificate file.
Put the keystore you created either in the same folder as ant.properties, or in some other location. (For example, for security reasons, you might not want to check the keystore into source control.)
Build the Android app.

When you build the app, Visual Studio will sign the package with the credentials you supplied.

Warning

Visual Studio doesn’t validate the credentials, so make sure that they’re correct.

If you accidentally delete the ant.properties file, create a new project and copy the file from your new project to the previous project.

Package and sign an iOS app

To generate a package that can be used on an iOS device, you need to sign it by using a valid Apple iOS Developer account and a Mac with Xcode.

To sign an iOS app

Create a provisioning profile for your app through the Apple Developer portal.
Download and install the provisioning profile on the Mac you’re using as your build machine.
In Xcode, open the Accounts preferences pane, and check whether your Apple ID is registered. If it's not listed, choose the + button to add it.
In Visual Studio, choose a Debug or Release configuration.
- When building a Debug configuration, by default the Visual Studio remote agent selects the first valid iOS Development signing identity installed on your Mac.
- When building a Release configuration, by default the Visual Studio remote agent selects the first valid iOS Distribution signing identity installed on your Mac.
Important

Make sure that your Mac has the appropriate provisioning profile that corresponds to the configuration you choose.

Note

A signing identity is valid if the provisioning profile identifier matches the package ID specified in the Visual Studio configuration designer. For example, a provisioning profile of com.msft.multidevice.* matches a package ID of com.msft.multidevice.someName. In many cases, you can use a wildcard provisioning profile that matches all package IDs, in which case validity isn’t a concern.
Build your app.

Tip

For detailed information, read the Maintaining Your Signing Identities and Certificates in the iOS Developer Library.

To force a specific signing identity

Create a res\native\ios\cordova folder in your Cordova project.
To override the signing identity or provisioning profile for the Debug configuration, place a custom build-debug.xcconfig file in this folder, or place a build-release.xcconfig file to override the Release configuration.
- The base files can be found here on github.
- build-release.xcconfig has a sample of the syntax for setting a signing identity.
- When creating your own xcconfig file, be sure to include the following at the top of the file:#include "build.xcconfig"
- For a complete set of build settings that can be overridden, see Xcode build settings.

Package and sign a Windows 8, Windows 8.1., or Windows Phone 8.1 app

Visual Studio provides built-in features to package Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 apps for distribution. These packages are APPX packages.

Warning

The AppxManifest may not get updated correctly when you do create a Store association. This may result in an error when publishing an app to the Store. Additionally, the Config Designer does not currently provide a method to create APPX bundles. See Known Issues for workarounds to these common issues.

To sign a Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows Phone 8.1 app for distribution

In Visual Studio, choose Project, Store, Associate App with the Store.
When prompted, sign in with your Microsoft account, choose a name for your app, and then choose Reserve.

Warning

App names must be unique within the Windows Store.
After the app is reserved, choose Associate.

Visual Studio updates the app package. To see where the reserved name is used, open the configuration designer and look at the display name and package ID in the Packaging tab.

Package and sign a Windows Phone 8 app

Windows Phone 8 apps are automatically packaged and don’t have to be signed at build time. You can submit the generated XAP file to the store as described in Submit your app in the Windows Dev Center.

Note

If you configure Windows Phone 8.1 as the build target, the generated package is an APPX. For more information, see the preceding section.

If you need to change the default language in a Windows Phone 8 package, locate the WMAppManifest.xml file in bld/Debug/platforms/wp8, modify the <DefaultLanguage code="en-US" /> tag, and include the file into your Visual Studio project in the following folder: /res/native/wp8/Properties. In this way, you can include the custom XML file in your generated project.

Download the tools Get the Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova or learn more