turn TouchDevelop scripts into apps on the Windows Phone Marketplace

The TouchDevelop app is a great environment to create, share, run and discuss scripts, and if are new to programming, then you might also like that you can read other people’s code — you do everything on your Windows Phone, you do not need a PC. Visit touchdevelop.com to see all the scripts that people have created with TouchDevelop.

marketplace-concept-hubLet’s say you have written a great script – what has been a bit difficult in the past was to get wider audience beyond the TouchDevelop community. The place where most people get their apps from isn’t the TouchDevelop script bazaar, it’s the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Starting from today, you can take your TouchDevelop script and turn it into a real app on the Windows Phone Marketplace (if certain conditions are met and your app passes a certification process) !

Read more on touchdevelop.com/help/wp7app and follow the detailed walkthrough to learn all the details.

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conditions

First, you need to publish your TouchDevelop script on the script bazaar.

To roll out this feature slowly, we are imposing the following restrictions at this time:

  • at least 3 people gave a ♥ to your script
  • you are the author of the script, and all scripts on which the script is based on
  • you may not reference other libraries
  • some APIs may not be used in the script

We may relax some of these requirements in the future.

To get started, go to the script’s page on the web, with a URL like touchdevelop.com/abcd, and click get started with your app…

image

After entering some additional information, you can download a custom app binary that was generated from your script.

appdownload

certification process

Second, your application needs to pass the regular Windows Phone 7 certification process before it can actually be published to the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. To start the certification process, you need to submit your app binary on App Hub (https://create.msdn.com) where you will need to have an App Hub developer account.

apphub

more information

You can read more about the conditions and process on touchdevelop.com/help/wp7app, and we also provide a document with a detailed walkthrough of the first part of the process: how you can generate an app binary from your script (you would then submit this app binary to App Hub).