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Rapid app development using register layout from network share – new in build 14965

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We hear a lot from our developers that collaborative and multi-device development is time consuming due to the need to copy packages, repositories, build folders etc. With the release of Windows 10 Creators Update, we are excited to introduce a new functionality to provide developers a faster iterative loop while building UWP apps in these scenarios – we are calling this “Register layout from network”.

In a collaborative environment designers, artists, developers, etc… can contribute to a single app layout on a network share and the effects of which will be immediately visible by all other collaborators. On the other hand, if you are building an app for multiple devices you no longer need to copy the app to each device to test the experience. For larger apps, the savings in time, on-device space and network traffic will be huge! Potentially saving hours of file transfer while testing experiences in the app!

 

Want to try this out?

Cool! To start you will need the following setup -

  1. Your devices must be on Windows 10 Creators Update Insider Build 14965 or later
  2. You will need to enable developer mode and device discovery on all devices
  3. Collaborators will need read and write access to the build folder
  4. Users will only need to read access to the build folder

If you are using Visual Studio 2015 Update 3 or later with Windows 10 Anniversary Update SDK or later, you can follow the steps outlined here.

If you are using the SDK tools corresponding to the Windows 10 Creators Update, you can use  WinDeployAppCmd. Here is a sample of how it works:

 WinAppDeployCmd.exe registerfiles -remotedeploydir <network path> -ip <IP Address> -pin <target machine PIN>

Network Path – Path to the app’s loose files

IP Address – enter the IP Address of the target machine here

Pin - A pin if it is required to establish a connection with the target device. (You will be prompted to retry with the -pin option if authentication is required.) Click here to learn how to get a PIN.

 

A couple things to note:

  1. This feature is limited to PC and Xbox.
  2. We recommend that the final validation be performed on a packaged app that’s signed with a trusted certificate.

We are very interested in hearing your feedback. Please post your comments or questions below.

Thanks!

Chaitanya Donthini, Program Manager – Windows Developer Platform