Like money? RIM is practically throwing it at you!

Hello all, I'll do my best to answer the questions at hand.

RE: Terms and Conditions

I've reached out to the team organizing the Port-a-Thon to get official clarification on that section.

In my opinion (and I am far from a lawyer), I don't think the statement is as broad as is being discussed based on the definition of information.

ny and all information you provide to RIM in connection with this Program, including but not limited to any ideas, suggestions, improvements or modifications, to or for RIM's products, that are included in your App or that arise from your participation in the Program constitute "Information".

Things that begin with "You guys should..." or "I improved performance by..." might fall under the category. Otherwise an open-forum webchat where information is flying freely would simply not be possible. But that doesn't mean free reign over redistributing your products. Again: not a lawyer, didn't write these, but does that interpretation seem reasonable to others?

I do agree that the wording could use a facelift though :-) Ultimately, developers fully own the applications that they submit to App World, and I'll provide the "official interpretation" as soon as I have it.

RE: Quality of Submissions

In testing, there is a subjective element to applications. Games are judged more on the experience they provide than just whether they run. It doesn't mean something simple can't be compelling, but a Tic-Tac-Toe game would require a lot of polish and presentation. A lot of the Construct 2 games I see out there wouldn't have an issue on that front though; the tools do a great job of giving you a lot of power in creating solid applications. If you enjoy the game, chances are others will too.

RE: Target Resolutions

Regarding the resolution, BlackBerry 10 devices are launching with 1280x768 and 720x720 resolutions; you could target just one of those. You can design for 1280x1024 as long as it scales to the device appropriately (i.e. content isn't cut off.) To help with this, there is the Ripple tool which emulates device dimensions as a Google Chrome extension:

developer.blackberry.com/html5/download

If I missed anything, please let me know.

I'm not really jazzed by their terms. Sounds to me like blatant exploitation. Heck I wont even touch a job without a deposit. Let alone just give away my work like that. That's the main reason I stay the hell away from facebook. I wonder how many facebook users have actually read through the terms of service thoroughly. Sounds to me like they are just casting their nets for game ideas to exploit.

Hi Folks,

I'm Lou Gazzola, Senior Marketing Manager at Developer Relations (RIM). I'm not a lawyer, but I know the intent of the agreement is not to take ownership of your app in any way.

Why such a harse clause you ask? Well, I've been chatting with our lawyer who indicates that it's only for the Information you provide to describe the application and that the BlackBerry App World Vendor Agreement takes precendence in the rights to the application.

Plain and simple. You own your application. We will update our terms in the future to be more clear.

Hope that clarifies and I really encourage you to particpate in this Port-A-Thon. It's an incredible experience with the community all pulling together.

Cheers,

Lou

I've done this event for 3 times, next friday will be last :)

What was your experience?

> I've done this event for 3 times, next friday will be last :)

>

>

What was your experience?

Nice, it's part of exercise

>

> > I've done this event for 3 times, next friday will be last :)

> >

> >

>

> What was your experience?

Nice, it's part of exercise

Something flew over my head, do you help with it or have you taken part?

I was at all portathon now I have a playbook to dev alpha and 3000 dlls. Great to have been a month ago. Blackberry is doing wonderful things very well

HenMex: That's what I like to hear! :-)

lougazzola: Thank you for clearing that up.

If there are still any concerns out there, by all means don't hesitate to ask.

For those looking at participating for the first time, I've given mzo's documentation (on the first page) a read through and it does a good job of covering a lot of the pieces you'll go through. Even if you have no development experience and are unsure about Code Signing Keys, downloading SDKs, etc. there are people like me (who you can reach at eoroshvb@rim.com as well) who will be online during the Port-a-Thon actively helping you overcome any challenges you encounter.

Best of luck all!

This is a real shame, I would love to chuck a few of my games up but the process is totally baffling. A step-by-step would be great, there is just too much to go through to make it worthwhile time-wise for someone unfamiliar with the process.

Hi Tobye, I'll do my best to help get you to a point where you're ready so submit; and hopefully this will help some other starters too. As noted mzo's guide does a good job of bringing all the information to one place, but if you're looking at it all for the very first time, it can look like quite a bit. Let's try to pick out some of the more urgent pieces first.

Just to understand where we're starting, is it safe to say that you're familiar with C2 to the point where you've created projects and can export an HTML5 version of those project? (i.e. the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files are generated in a standalone folder.)

I concur with HenMex, BB is taking very good care of its developers and they have an excellent team running the various events...

WaterlooErik - Yeah I am very familiar with C2. I have made several games in several genres and published a few to Android. I am not familiar with non-C2 game development however.

It is just a lot of information to digest on that link :) The contents bounce around quite a bit too. Having a "Step 1, step 2..." would really make it much easier and less daunting.

I'll try to cover the steps here; feel free to ask any questions.

The starting point that I'm assuming is that you have exported your Construct 2 project such that you have a single folder that houses all of your HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and resource files.

We need to add one file to the root of this project called config.xml.

EDIT: Updated the wording to be more clear. 'root of this project', not 'root of this folder'.

The most basic config.xml looks as follows.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<widget xmlns="http://www.w3.org/ns/widgets"
          xmlns:rim="http://www.blackberry.com/ns/widgets"
          version="1.0.0.0"
          id="A_UNIQUE_APP_ID">

     <name>Sample App</name>
     <author>Erik Oros</author>
     <content src="index.html" />
</widget>

     <access uri="http://google.com" subdomains="true" />

WaterlooErik - So you can just type that out on word or what have you? And how do you add it to 'the root' of the folder? Thanks!

This is the second post in packaging a Construct 2 game as a BlackBerry 10 application. Previously the recommendation was to request Code Signing Keys from this form:

blackberry.com/SignedKeys/codesigning.html

These keys are issued by an automated system, hourly, and when the keys arrive to your email, they should arrive as two (2) separate emails; each with a unique attachment.

* client-RDK-########.csj

* client-PBDT-########.csj

######## simply refers to a unique string of numbers in the filename.

You will also need to download the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK. This SDK contains the packaging tools to take your HTML files and create a BlackBerry 10 application. These can be downloaded here:

developer.blackberry.com/html5/download

The current version of the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK is 1.0.4.7. Download the installer and install to the default directory. For this example, we'll be using the following working directory:

C:\Program Files\Research In Motion\BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK 1.0.4.7

The first thing you'll want to do is to copy the two CSJ files you received as Code Signing Keys and save them to the following folder:

C:\Program Files\Research In Motion\BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK 1.0.4.7\dependencies\tools\bin

Once copied there, you will need to open a Command Prompt / terminal to that location. If you are not familiar with the terminal, have no fear, we're only there for a short time and I'll do my best to make it as simple as possible.

In Windows Vista / 7, if you hold Shift and Right-Click within the Explorer Window, you should get a Context Menu pop up. One of those items should be:

Open command window here

By clicking that, you should get a Command Prompt window that is opened to:

C:\Program Files\Research In Motion\BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK 1.0.4.7\dependencies\tools\bin

At this point, we want to execute one command to register our code signing keys. The command looks as follows:

blackberry-signer -register -csjpin CSJPIN -storepass STOREPASS client-RDK-########.csj client-PBDT-########.csj

Where CSJPIN needs to match the PIN you created on the online form, STOREPASS is a NEW password you are creating. You will need to enter the STOREPASS each time you create a BlackBerry 10 application, so make it something you will remember. And finally the ######## would be replaced by the numeric string in your specific code signing files.

Run the command by hitting enter and you should get a message that the code signing keys were successfully registered.

You should now be at the point where:

* You have modified your project with the config.xml

* You have downloaded and installed the BlackBerry 10 WebWorks SDK.

* You have requested and registered your Code Signing Keys.

All that remains now is to actually package your Construct 2 HTML files into a BlackBerry 10 application. I'll cover that in my next post.

If at any time you have any questions or run into issues, do not hesitate to reach out here or directly at (eoros@rim.com).