Using the Windows Phone Marketplace Test Kit

Introduction

Windows Phone Marketplace has stringent guidelines that an application needs to adhere to if it is to be accepted. Since the Windows Phone marketplace has been established, quite a few applications had to be resubmitted as a result of missing the criteria.

To help developers succeed the application submission process the first time, Microsoft has provided "Windows Phone Marketplace Test Kit". This kit contains a set of automated and manual tests, which can be executed to verify if the application meets the Marketplace standards.

How to Get the Windows Phone Marketplace Test Kit

The Windows Phone Marketplace Test Kit is available as part of the Windows Phone SDK. Once you have the SDK, it is accessible from any Windows Phone project opened under Visual Studio.

What Does the Windows Phone Marketplace Test Kit Check?

The Windows Phone Marketplace Test Kit checks a Windows Phone application for:

• Certification requirements for images and screenshots.
• Certification requirements for application icon and background image.
• Application capabilities
• Error handling
• Back button usage
• Prohibited API use
• Memory usage requirements
• Unhandled exceptions
• Application size limits
• Validity of application manifest

Accessing the Windows Phone Marketplace Test Kit

The Windows Phone Marketplace Test Kit can be accessed from Visual Studio. When a Windows Phone project is opened from Visual Studio, you can open the kit by right-clicking the project file and selecting "Open Marketplace Test Kit".

Figure 1: Open Marketplace Test Kit

Hands-On

Open any Windows Phone project from Visual Studio. Right click the project file and select "Open Marketplace Test Kit".

The Marketplace Test Kit opens.

Figure 2: Marketplace Test Kit

If it has been a long time since you have gotten the Windows Phone SDK, you might be prompted to download updated test cases. Choose Update if prompted.

Once the tests are updated, you will get a confirmation dialog as shown below.

Figure 3: Confirmation dialog for Marketplace Test Kit

Close and restart the Testkit to get the latest version of tests.

Choose all of the inputs for the tests as shown on the Windowsphone Test Kit home page.

Next, select the Automated Tests tab and click "Run Tests".

You will be prompted for a retail version of the XAP file if there is not one already created. Recompile the application.

In my dummy run, I had not provided some of the information, so the automated test run failed.

Figure 4: The automated test run failed

Once the failing criteria are satisfied, the test run should succeed and the application will be ready to be submitted to the Windows Phone Marketplace.

The Monitored Tests would need to be run on a real device to get the readings. The manual tests are also self-explanatory

Summary

In this article, we learned how we can use the Windows Phone Marketplace Test Kit to check the certification requirements confirmation of an application. I hope you have found this information useful.