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4.0 tutorial for Newsstand

Simbul edited this page Dec 22, 2012 · 27 revisions

Using Baker is simple and even if there are some technicalities involved, it's doable with just basic technical knowledge.

This tutorial assumes that you choose the Newsstand publication support in Baker. If you're not sure, read [here](Newsstand vs Bundled publications support in Baker 4.0).


REQUIREMENTS

  1. A Mac with Xcode
  2. An Apple iOS Developer account (required to test Newsstand and publish to the store).
  3. A server (to store your issues)

A. CREATE YOUR ISSUES/BOOKS

  1. Create your issues using the Book tutorial.
  2. Upload the issues, as zipped [Hpubs](hpub specification) (remember to zip the files, not the folder), to your server.

B. CREATE A SHELF.JSON FILE

  1. Create the shelf.json file following the instructions for Newsstand shelf JSON.
  2. Upload the shelf.json file to your server (e.g. to http://example.com/baker/shelf.json).

C. CONFIGURE BAKER WITH NEWSSTAND

To meet the App Store requirements for a Newsstand app, you must provide a free subscription. You can create one on iTunes Connect.

  1. From the iTunes Connect page for your application, select Manage In App Purchases.
  2. Click the Create New button.
  3. Select Free Subscription.
  4. Fill in all the required form fields. Baker will need a reference to the Product ID, which will be something similar to com.example.Baker.subscriptions.free.

D. CONFIGURE BAKER WITH NEWSSTAND AND SUBSCRIPTION

  1. Download and unzip the current working version from master.
  2. Open Baker.xcodeproj in the latest version of Xcode.
  3. Change the Bundle ID in Baker to your own Bundle ID (which you can find on iTunes Connect).
  4. Replace the icon files (ios-icon-*.png, check the Apple Guidelines for reference).
  5. Within Xcode, open file Constants.h inside the BakerShelf folder.
  6. Set NEWSSTAND_MANIFEST_URL to the full shelf.json URL (e.g. http://example.com/baker/shelf.json).
  7. Set PRODUCT_ID_FREE_SUBSCRIPTION to the iTunes Connect Product ID of your free subscription (e.g. com.example.Baker.subscriptions.free).
  8. (optional) Set PURCHASE_CONFIRMATION_URL to the URL where you want to receive the ping when a user subscribes to your app (see Subscription-pingback).

E. OPTIONAL CUSTOMIZATION

  1. Within Xcode, open file UIConstants.h inside the BakerShelf folder.
  2. There you can set many details about the shelf look and feel.
    Title color, info text color, button color, button text color, loading color and so on.
  3. Within Xcode, open file Baker/Supporting Files/en.lproj/Localizable.strings.
  4. There you can set the shelf title, button titles and messages related to downloading and archiving.

F. TEST AND PUBLISH

  1. Test your publication, subscriptions and downloads
  2. When you're ready, submit to the App Store.