WinRT App Development from Design to Certification

For the past six months I've worked on a Windows 8 (WinRT) app that started out as a request by my wife, but grew into something I planned to distribute via the Windows Store.  Lots of learning, planning and late nights were required.

I started to loose steam around the beginning of December, but I pushed through that last week until I was finally ready to submit to the store for certification.  I thought I had finished the hard part (design and coding) but then I came to the point of dealing with certification. There were a few items I didn't even consider in my design that I discovered were required for certification, and I had to go back and address those (like implementing certain interfaces).

Take the time up front to look at the certification requirements.  There are a number of resources on app submission guidelines and checklists.  Pete Brown's blog post is helpful, among others.  But Microsoft's own documentation is the most comprehensive and contains everything you need.  It is tempting to want to quickly get through it because of all the points it covers.  Don't.  Invest the time.  Otherwise, you may miss out on some opportunities or simply fail certification. 

Beyond that, here is a recap of the tools/services that I've relied on to get my app completed:

• SQLite-net for WinRT (explained in this post by Tim Heuer);
• Windows Azure - including Azure Mobile Services, SQL and Azure Web Sites;
• WACK (Windows App Certification Kit) - do this often during development!
• CSLA - simply fantastic that we can use this on WinRT just like with other .NET projects;
• PluralSight - a great resource for learning. In particular, the Selling Windows 8 Apps course helps make sure you dot your i's and cross your t's;
• MSDN forum;
• Microsoft BizSpark.

It feels good to be done (at least with initial release).  Hopefully the app will help many while paying for itself, but at the very least I've (a) given my wife and family a helpful tool and (b) learned a lot that I can apply in other areas of my work.

Check it out:  ScriptureBox.com