Working with installation of the app (2/19)

Today I attempted to self-host and self-publish the app. Although the instructions to do so looked very simple, it turned out to be a very difficult process.

Alex and I tried as many options as we could think of. I decided to start by self-hosting the app on the students server, so it's now there in zipped format. We installed a manifest file, as well as an index file that triggers the installation. We've gotten to the point where the user can accept the install. The device even says that the install succeeds. However, once it downloads the file, it quickly fails, and there's no way to check exactly why the errors are occurring. I checked ADB and the console in the WebIDE, and there's no display of the error, no logs at all.

To back up a bit and go over the basics:

• There's an index file, index.html, which executes the script to install the app
• There's an app mini-manifest file, which defines the name and hosted file location of the app, and
• There's a .zip file of the app and all of its source, including a full manifest file

There's two options for the install: install and installPackage. Both would be run in <script> tags in the index.html file. We are going with installPackage, since our app is a self-hosted, self-published app. If it was a simple webapp, it'd be install. However, the install method is installing the app, but when we click on it, it's redirecting us to the students.gctaa.net homepage...

I guess I'll try more options tomorrow. Hopefully, it'll work, but it will definitely take a lot more trial and error!