HockeyApp plugin now available for Corona apps

18 May 2016

HockeyApp plugin now available for Corona apps

HockeyApp is a service from Microsoft that allows you to upload test builds of your iOS, Android, Windows, and OS X apps. Once uploaded, you can easily distribute them to your testers. HockeyApp also lets you provide release notes on what has changed and gather stats on downloads and other app metrics during the testing process. In addition, it supports crash reporting. All of these factors are where the Corona HockeyApp plugin comes into play.

Getting started

Like all third-party services, you will need to register with HockeyApp. Once that step is complete, you can start setting up your apps, your testers, and begin deploying test builds. Since this is a Corona plugin, you will also need to add the plugin to your build.settings and require() it in main.lua (see our HockeyApp documentation for details). Finally, you will need to activate the plugin in the Corona Marketplace.

Features

For crash reporting, you simply need to initialize the plugin by calling the hockeyApp.init() function with an app ID retrieved from the HockeyApp portal. If your app crashes during testing, the plugin will detect it and report the crash to the HockeyApp dashboard.

While you can choose to have HockeyApp send your testers an email when there is an app update, you may prefer to have your app detect when a new version is available via the hockeyApp.checkForUpdate() call. Similarly, you can un-register for updates with the hockeyApp.unRegisterForUpdate() call.

Conclusion

The HockeyApp plugin is simple — just add a few lines of code and let HockeyApp do the rest! You can find complete usage details for HockeyApp in our plugin documentation, or discuss it further in the Corona forums.