With the Twixl macOS App you can start building the app you have prepared and designed on the Twixl Platform. You can also preview your app or invite someone else to preview it.
The steps below describe how to use the Twixl macOS App. The multi-step process is described in several articles. Below we explain how to install the required components, how to setup your Twixl Platform account and how to setup Xcode properly.
1. Add your Twixl account
In order to build and preview Twixl apps via the macOS App, you need to have an account on the Twixl platform, and your apps needs to be a 'production' app. There are 2 types of Twixl user accounts that will work:
- Administrator
- App Administrator
For more info on how to create accounts on the Twixl platform, see this Help article.
- To add a Twixl account in the macOS app:
- Open the Preferences... Screen
- Select the Accounts tab
- Click on the
+Icon - Fill in your credentials and Sign In
2. Setup components
You can access the components pop-up via:
- Twixl Publisher > Settings (or Preferences) > Components
- Via the warning at the bottom left of the window that appears if something is missing to build your app.
The macOS app lets you install 4 extra components:
- Twixl Publisher plugins for Adobe InDesign: only required if you intend to create InDesign-based content with interactive elements
- Twixl Publisher Helper: required to export and preview InDesign-based content, and also required to build and preview Twixl Apps
- Apple iOS SDK & Xcode: required to build iOS apps
- Android SDK: required to build Android apps
To install these components, open the Preferences... screen in the Mac App (CMD + ,) and install the required components.
INSTALL ALL COMPONENTS:
To avoid problems and unexpected behaviour, we strongly advise you to install all available components.
3. Setup Xcode
If you want to preview or build a Twixl iOS app, you also need to have Xcode installed. The new macOS App uses a much more simplified approach, so building your Twixl apps will be easier than ever! To get started, you need to:
- Install the latest version of Xcode
- Launch Xcode just once and install the additional required components
- Add your Apple Developer account ID in the Accounts tab in Xcode's Preferences... window
- Make sure a version of the Command Line Tools (CLI) is selected in the Locations tab of the Preferences... window
4. What's next ?
Before you are ready to finally build your app, there are two important steps to go through:
- Configure a build setting for your app on the platform.
- Create a signing certificate in Xcode.
Then you are ready to build your app.