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How to provide a pre-release app for a focus group?

asked 2018-12-29 12:37:20 +0200

jsommer gravatar image

My company is working on a non-public prototype of a native Sailfish app, that should be tested by a focus group while the app itself should be contineously updated after feedback and bug reports. What is the best approach to provide this app? We allready have a bunch of Sailfish test devices, that we will distribute to the focus group.

Does Sailfish Harbour or OpenRepos offer testflights for a closed user group like the App Stores of Apple and Microsoft? The documentation of Sailfish Harbous is quite short. I also couldn't find a note in the Harbour FAQs.

My company want to target average consumers with a Sailfish device and pre-installed apps. So the updates need to be very simple and preferably almost automomized like other apps in Harbour. Some ideas or recommendations? Maybe there is a Qt framework like Spakle for macOS, that we could use.

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1

only downloading rpm itself and call sideload

coderus ( 2018-12-29 12:47:07 +0200 )edit

your name is german? perhaps you can ask in the german sailfish-telegram-group.

mettska ( 2018-12-29 18:02:52 +0200 )edit

@mettska. Thanks. A good idea. I also could ask the general Sailfish group. I assume there are much more members.

jsommer ( 2018-12-29 19:34:06 +0200 )edit

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answered 2018-12-29 12:47:26 +0200

AFAIK there's no such framework available yet for 3rd party devs. Jolla does have such a system for Cbeta and internal releases.

The setup is straightforward: 1. Setup a repository 2. Add your repository to each SFOS device you want 3. Install the application through the command line. You could provide an update checker in the app using the Qt binding for PackageKit (just as Storeman does)

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Sounds plausible. Thanks. Two additional questions:

  1. What is the technical requirement for a repository. I have added them several times to a device, but I have never setup one. Is it a Git repository or just a web server? Is it possible to setup a non-public repository with authentification? We likely publish our project as open source, but not for now.
  2. How does the update work? Does the app updates itself with a Qt binding for PackageKit? Do you know an example to learn how to use PackageKit? Is PackageKit a third party library beyond Qt?
jsommer ( 2018-12-29 17:36:39 +0200 )edit
1
  1. Me neither, I just know how it works :) I have never done that. Contacting the guy behind OpenRepos (Basil) might be helpfull. OpenRepos works with a repo for each account.

  2. Normally manually but you should be able to automate to process using the Package Kit bindings. Storeman's code moght shed some light on this how you can accomplish this.

Dylan Van Assche ( 2018-12-29 18:19:24 +0200 )edit

@Dylan. Thanks. I'll check out the storeman project and ask Basik for the technical requirements. Maybe we could use Openrepos. Maybe he has an idea to offer an app just for specific registered users.

jsommer ( 2018-12-29 19:35:47 +0200 )edit

The simplest way I could imagine is by providing a URL where you could download your app and then let the app do the rest (checking for updates etc).

spag ( 2018-12-30 11:22:43 +0200 )edit

@spag. So I could send the test users an email with a link with the advice to open the list of transferred data in the settings, tap on the app and confirm installation?

For this approach I need to prepare Sailfish on the test devices to accept the source, right? Otherwise the user has to allow foreign software the setting, that is quite dangerous. How could I prepare sailfish to accept a specific source?

jsommer ( 2018-12-30 13:35:10 +0200 )edit
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answered 2018-12-31 04:35:28 +0200

Yunwu gravatar image

What kind of apps doyou develop?

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answered 2018-12-31 10:47:11 +0200

Yunwu gravatar image

updated 2018-12-31 10:47:53 +0200

Set up a telegram group and release rpm file.

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Asked: 2018-12-29 12:37:20 +0200

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Last updated: Dec 31 '18