Provisional Profile - New to iOS development

[martimer]

Hello,

I am new to iOS development and am having some issues, naturally.

I have written a stack (single page, simple controls) and I would like to test it on my iPhone. How on earth do I do that? I keep getting an error about needing a provisional profile. I think this means that I have to spend the $99 to become an Apple iOS developer - is that true?

What I have is a developer account (grandfathered in from the pre-iOS days). I have Xcode 5.0.2 installed as well as the commercial version of Livecode 6.5.2. I have created the stack. I see Xcode in the Mobile Support pane of the LC preferences. I have checked iOS in the builds window (where I see an inoperative pop-up for profiles that currently says none. I get the provisional profile error when I try to save as a standalone application.

I have looked through some documentation that points me to setting up the PP via Xcode. I created a project in Xcode and in the Project Navigator I see the error about code signing and the fix button. When I try to fix that problem, I am sent to the Apple Developer page where I am given an option to spend another $99 per year. I am not going public with my little stack, is this the final step?

[Klaus]

Hi Martimer,

yes, thanks to Apple you need to spend 99,- bucks in order to test you app on you own device!
Only testing the app in the simulator is "free".


Best

Klaus

[Jellicle]

I'm not sure why anyone complains about this. The software, infrastructure and services provided by Apple has to be paid for somehow.

Gerry

[martimer]

I am unable to even test for iOS for some unknown reason. I have "added" Xcode and selected iOS in the Application Settings dialog. The "test" button is greyed out.

As for being annoyed, well it was free in the old days. I know there is a lot more going on under the hood, but I am just a hobbyist and am never going to earn back that $99. It is the cheapest of all my hobbies so I am mostly just grumbling.

[dave.kilroy]

Martimer - have you gone through the whole shebang on the Developer Portal? You need much more than provisioning profiles, you must have certificates - identities - devices - (and only then) provisional profiles. Apple is picky, picky picky and you have to get everything just 'so'

Also, I'm guessing you have made necessary changes to the 'mobile support' tab of the preferences dialog box in LiveCode - you will need something like "/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer" to reach the iOS SDK (but use the 'Add entry' button to navigate to it to be sure. If that doesn't work then you may be left with desperate solutions like uninstalling and reinstalling Xcode (which does sometimes have to be done). Can you give details of your OS, versions of LC and Xcode used.

[dave.kilroy]

I have looked through some documentation that points me to setting up the PP via Xcode

No that used to be how it was done, currently (Xcode 5.02) you need to do provisioning profiles etc on Apple's website.

[dave.kilroy]

One last thing - with Xcode 5.0.2 once you have created provisioning profiles etc on the website you will need to download them and then double-click them to open them up and get them inserted into Keychain Access. Then you can refresh your profiles etc in Xcode - and then you can re-start LiveCode and with any luck it will be able to reference nice new valid digital assets ... etc etc etc

[martimer]

Okay. A project for later.

For now, I have testing sort of working (my only button script is not working) thanks to another user.

[thatkeith]

I've done this once, using a very long set of instructions I found in a thread here. But boy, it was intense and hard to remember. Now I'm trying to explain how to do this (long story...) and I'm wondering...

Does anyone have a recommended – well-explained, nothing unnecessary, that sort of thing – list of steps they can point at or share?
Assume a Dev account, but assume no significant 'real' programming knowledge.

(crosses fingers)

[jacque]

There's this video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyn_K_GUKUs

I haven't watched it all the way through but it's worth a try. It walks through distribution profiles at the beginning.

[thatkeith]

Great stuff! That plus these two links seem pretty useful – although Apple does seem to have done its best to make this stuff impossible for mere mortals.

http://lessons.runrev.com/s/lessons/m/4 ... -developer

http://forums.runrev.com/viewtopic.php? ... 52&#p91778

[dave.kilroy]

Keith

Just a word of warning about that video (at least when I watched it several days ago) I could see that in places an older version of Xcode was being used and in some screens 'September 2013' was clearly visible. That said, it is essentially correct and a great resource.

With the current version (Xcode 5.0.2) we need to do things slightly differently to how they are shown in the video (at least in the version I saw) - create provisioning profiles on the website as Neil describes, and once created click the 'download' button, then find them in your 'downloads' folder and double-click them to put them into Keychain Access, then go to Xcode, preferences-accounts-view details and click the little 'refresh' button on the bottom-left of the dialog box (this button does not show the text 'refresh' it shows an arrow glyph bent round into a curve). Once this has been done go back into LiveCode (ideally restart it in my opinion) and open up the standalone settings dialog box for your app and choose the relevant provisioning profile from the drop-down list

...phew...

Dave

[thatkeith]

Phew indeed! Thanks Dave. This really does seem to be an area that should be kept up to date.
[looks meaningfully at the LiveCode peeps]
[who are beavering away like mad already]

[dave.kilroy]

Yes its a never ending task keeping things up to date - but one thing that I believe would help tremendously is for EVERY piece of LiveCode documentation to include metadata on:

- when it was created
- what versions of LiveCode it targets
- what versions of other things such as iOS/OSX/Xcode/Android/Window it targets (if any)

Doing this would make each article, tutorial, video etc much more useful - now and in the future