CODEWITHSUNDEEP
visual-studio-2012windows-8msbuildwindows-store-apps
Etienne
Etienne

Reputation: 1032

Script Create Package for Windows Store apps

I am maintaining a set of eleven Windows Store apps. I would like to automate the "Create Package" task, which I am currently doing through the wizard in Visual Studio, in order to produce test packages (signed with my test certificate).

Is there a way to script this task? I was thinking probably using MSBuild or PowerShell, my goal is to have a single script to run that would generate all my app packages and copy them all to a given target directory.

I found some documentation about using the wizard on MSDN, but nothing about scripting the task.

Any ideas?! Thanks.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1456

Answers (1)

Nate Diamond
Nate Diamond

Reputation: 5575

MSBuild will create app packages for you, in the AppPackages folder. You can also do it manually using MakeAppx, but I've found it to be a bit more cumbersome.

Some things to note: There is a build target called Publish you should use (/t:Publish) when making the actual packages. You should look into the different command-line switches, such as DebugSymbols.

You'll likely want to use the 32-bit MSBuild, as I've had issues with the 64-bit and things like the Multilingual App Toolkit. Also in regards to the MApp Toolkit, make sure you do a full rebuild before building your app package. If an entry is not in a given language and is in another, the entry for the secondary language will be used, so you can end up with multiple languages all popping up on the same page.

Hope this helps and happy coding!

Upvotes: 3

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