Using the HeliumDev Client and Deploying Apps
Releasing Non-Snapshot Apps
Snapshot deployments are suitable for testing apps during development. Helium, however, regularly clears out snapshot apps and their related schemas as part of an automatic cleanup mechanism. For apps, used for longer term testing and, amongst others, production purposes a different process of deployment should be used. This steps to achieve this follows.
Firstly the app source needs to be release to the server using the release command in the HeliumDev client. During this you will be prompted for your pin, as specified earlier, a name for the release, an optional description for the release and a release group for the release to belong to. Note that if the "releaseGroup" variable was set for your project, this will be available as the default release group. The default value can then be used, or a different release group can be specified.
he-dev> release Please enter your PIN: he-dev> ********* Loading source files... Compiling the application... The project "helium-tut" compiled successfully Release name: Helium Tut Release 2 Release description: Helium Tut Release 2 The default release group for the "Helium Tutorial" project is "Tutorials" Use this release group? (yes/no) no Release group: Instructionals Loading source files... Publishing a new release of "helium-tut" to the "localhost" server An official release of "helium-tut" has been published to "localhost". The last command completed in 38.03 seconds
Please note the Release Name cannot exceed 50 characters
The next step is to create an app using the Helium core app. To do this open a browser and navigate to the Helium url that was provided. Select the "Apps" menu item and click on "Create app".
Fill in the app details and upload the app artwork as needed. The only compulsory data fields for the app is "Name", "Release Group", and "Data Source".
In addition to the standard app fields and artwork, invitation message templates represent templates for e-mail and SMS messages sent to newly invited users or existing users that are invited to new app roles. These can be edited under the "Template" tab. The text areas for these fields contain place marker text by default to list the available parameters and to show an example of their usage. More information on invite messages templates can be found here.
Once the new app has been saved it will appear under the list of apps.
In order to deploy your released source code for the new app, select to "Upgrade" row action. Once selected you will be able to search for your release. This is done by specifying tags for the release group. In this case we used "Instructionals" as the group name. Note that multiple tags can be used at once for searching. Once the release has been located, the "Upgrade" button can be used the upgrade the app to the selected source code release.
To prevent an accidental upgrade to the wrong release, specifically one belonging to another release group, you'll see the following warning pop-up if you select a release with a group name different than that of the app you're upgrading:
On the confirmation page tick the disclaimer message and click the button labeled "Upgrade". Your source code release has now been deployed for the app. The next step is to invite yourself to the app. To do this, click the "Invite" row action for your app. Complete the form and click the "Invite user" button. Value for the "Role" and "Mobile number" fields are required in order to proceed. Note that you can invite yourself to the app for additional roles by repeating the process and selecting a different value for "Role". This will only work if the application source code includes an invite user function for that specific role. This is discussed here.
Once invited you should see the app on your Home view.
