Migrate from the HockeySDK to App Center SDK for Cordova
Important
Visual Studio App Center is scheduled for retirement on March 31, 2025. While you can continue to use Visual Studio App Center until it is fully retired, there are several recommended alternatives that you may consider migrating to.
Follow this documentation if you're looking to update your application to use App Center SDK instead of HockeySDK.
1. Update the libraries
1.1 Remove old HockeySDK
Open a terminal window, navigate to the Cordova project folder, and execute the following command:
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-appcenter-analytics
Navigate to the Your app > platforms > android > platform_www > plugins folder and delete cordova-plugin-hockeyapp from it.
1.2 Add new App Center SDK
The App Center SDK is designed with a modular approach – you can integrate only those services that you're interested in. See the equivalences in the next table:
HockeyApp module | App Center module | Install command |
---|---|---|
Crashes and Exceptions |
Crashes |
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-appcenter-crashes |
Metrics |
Analytics |
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-appcenter-analytics |
Run one of the commands to install the module you need (or both).
2. Update the SDK setup code
2.1 Convert the application identifier
The App Center SDK uses application identifiers in the globally unique identifier (GUID) format. Your HockeyApp App ID can be used by App Center but you need to convert it to a different format. To convert the identifier, you must add four hyphens to get an 8-4-4-4-12 representation.
Before (HockeyApp):
00112233445566778899aabbccddeeff
After (App Center):
00112233-4455-6677-8899-aabbccddeeff
2.2 Replace SDK initialization in the application code
Remove the HockeyApp initialization inside the
deviceready
handler:hockeyapp.start(null, null, "APP_ID");
Configure the App Center SDK
Open the Apache Cordova project's config.xml file; for each of your Apache Cordova project's target
platform
elements (only Android and iOS today), add a childpreference
element in the following format:<preference name="APP_SECRET" value="{App Secret from the previous step}" />
For more information, refer to App Center Cordova documentation.
Replace all HockeyApp API calls throughout the application. The detailed API mapping tables are given below.
3. Services and feature comparison
Core
Feature | HockeyApp | App Center |
---|---|---|
Identify Users | hockeyapp.setUserName or hockeyapp.setUserEmail | AppCenter.setUserId |
Analytics
Feature | HockeyApp | App Center |
---|---|---|
Automatically track sessions | Documentation (can't be disabled) | Documentation (enabled by default) |
Track events | hockeyapp.trackEvent | Analytics.trackEvent |
Crashes
Feature | HockeyApp | App Center |
---|---|---|
Automatically send crashes | autoSend parameter (disabled by default) | APPCENTER_CRASHES_ALWAYS_SEND (enabled by default) |
Attach additional meta data | hockeyapp.addMetaData | Documentation (can be attached from listener) |
Generate test crash | hockeyapp.forceCrash | AppCenter.Crashes.generateTestCrash |
Display a dialog on crash | ignoreDefaultHandler (disabled by default, Android only) | AppCenter.Crashes.process (callback on processing a crash) |
Version updates
App Center Distribute service isn't supported in App Center Cordova SDK yet.
Feedback Service
The feedback service won't be supported in App Center. See HockeyApp feedback.