Iteration Plan for May 2019

[patniko]

May 2019 Plan

Last month, we hit most of our goals for the period. We delivered updates to our Build service to add support for the latest versions of Xcode and macOS plus updates to Mono and Xamarin support. We enabled search for handled errors in Diagnostics, changed the way Distribution updates work on a device in guided access mode, and enhanced Test to support NUnit 3. We also delivered the REST API and UI for the new Push to User capabilities in the Push service.

On the MBaaS side, we completed the UI for the public preview for our new Auth and Data services; you should be able to start using these services in your apps in early May. Our work on these services moved rather quickly considering we started work at the beginning of the year. Our intent is to ship early, so you can try them out yourselves, and continue to iterate on new features as we use customer feedback to tune our plans.

Our Build service gets some special attention this month as well, we expect to make progress on the clone branch configurations feature and start investigating adding support for git and GitLab. We’re also finally ready to roll out the first version of our HockeyApp migration experience so our existing HockeyApp customers can begin transitioning fully on to Visual Studio App Center.

Services

HockeyApp Migration Experience

• Opening private preview for interested users [Move apps from HockeyApp to App Center #230]

Auth

• Ship early public preview [App Center Auth in early preview #388]

Build

• Clone branch configurations [[Feature] Clone branch configurations #22]
• Investigate gitlab.com and/or general git support [GitLab.com as a source code service #37]

Data

• Ship early public preview

Diagnostics

• Filter crash and error groups by build number [Filter diagnostics data by build number #133]

Distribution

• CodePush support for Electron apps

General

• AAD groups support in Organizations
• Add a Member role to Organizations

[lassana]

Could you consider #30 (Xamarin.iOS entension signing)?

[SVCAppCenterGit]

Are you considering supporting TestNG ?

[jamelait]

Is there currently a way to send analytics data and crash reports to AppCenter from an Electron app?

[maestersid]

@SVCAppCenterGit no plans at this time, though we are certainly monitoring interest on various test frameworks. Always open to feedback/ideas.

[patniko]

@jamelait definitely on our mind, but still have a lot to do with our current platforms. I did mess around with it a bit here.

[brimmy11]

Where can I find further information on how I can consume Push to User? I understand it is not part of the SDK yet, but cannot find any information on it at your REST API explorer either (https://openapi.appcenter.ms/).

[patniko]

@brimmy11 have you looked at this documentation?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/appcenter/push/push-to-user

[brimmy11]

@patniko that wasn't what I was after, I was looking for a way to target a user via the REST API. I only just noticed you can toggle between "Example Value" and "Model" on the OpenAPI Explorer. Currently we target "devices" (installation id's), now I can see there is a "user_ids" type. I think I should be ok now :)

[patniko]

Excellent! Please do let us know if you need anything else.

[trevortirrell]

I currently am using Auth through Azure, but would like to transition to App Center (which I know still uses Azure). Are there plans to support UWP and MacOS?

What about Data for UWP and MacOS?

Thanks for the great work!!

[trevortirrell]

Also, Is there a place for current videos / training?

[amchew]

Hi @ttirrell,

Thanks for the kind words and support! We have plans to support UWP in our roadmap but there’s no exact timeline yet; we currently support iOS, Android and Xamarin, and have a work item that will be worked on this summer to support React Native. MacOS is not on our roadmap yet but our work is also based on our developer community that we serve, so if we hear feedback, we will continually reprioritize our efforts.

Re videos and training, not yet. However that is a good point and we’ll work on it. Here is a video of our early preview launch at Microsoft Build: https://youtu.be/k3G0XoY8XII

You mentioned that you’re using Auth through Azure. Would you mind sharing what service you’re using, and your use case?

[danieljgmaclean]

Any chance you could support "APK per ABI through Release/Distribute" for Xamarin Android any time soon? #99

[chris-cubhub]

We're loving AppCenter so far and we are fully on board with it for all features. However, the upcoming restrictions for distribution will drastically reduce it's value for us since we'll have to go back to manually building and deploying droid. Are there plans in the next month or two to get support for .aab support so we can keep our automated distribution pipelines in place?

I've already voted here: #194 but was hoping a bump on this board might also assist in planning for both of us.

From google: "By August 1, 2019, all apps that use native code must provide a 64-bit version in addition to the 32-bit version in order to publish an update. This past January, we reiterated that this is required in order to make way for innovation and in anticipation of future Android devices that only support 64-bit code."

[toomasz]

@patniko Could you also add support for building with xamarin android 9.3?