• Introduction
• Web Entrypoints
• Architecture
• Debugging
• Development Lifecycle
• My first Acre App
• Top Companies News
• Writing to Freebase from Acre
• Integrating with Other Web Services using OAuth
• FAQ

Acre App Development Lifecycle

Phase 1: app creation

An Acre app starts either by creating a new one or by cloning an existing one. Either way, you'll start by being the only one allowed to write to it.

Phase 2: granting write access to others

Over time, people might interact with your app and either desire to clone your app or join forces with you to work on it.

If they want to clone your app, they can do so without having to ask you permission (since all the apps in acre are under an open source license), but if they want to work with you, you have to be the one granting them write access. To do this, go to the 'app dialog' by clicking on the app name on the top bar of the app editor and look for the authors tab.

There, granting access is as simple as typing their Freebase id in the suggest box and hit return: their name and icon will show up below yours in the list of users allowed to write to this app.

Phase 3: releasing your app

When you reach the point that you're happy with the functionality of your application and you want to tell the world about it, here is what you should do:

1. click on the app dialog
2. on the dialog that opens, click on Edit Name & Directory Listing
3. add a short and a long description of your application
4. select the 'List in Directory' radio button
5. click on the Update this App button

Phase 4: getting a shorter URL

By default, all Acre apps have pretty long and complicated URLs and this might get in the way of using or promoting your application. Fortunately, Acre allows you to claim a shorter subdomain for your application (if that subdomain is not already in use, of course).

Here is how you do it:

1. click on the app dialog
2. at the bottom of that dialog, type the name you would want for the *.freebaseapps.com subdomain
3. if it's not in use, Acre will enable the Change URL button
4. click on the Change URL button

Now Acre will know to 'mount' your application not only to the default domain but also to the shorter subdomain that you just claimed.

Phase 5: further development after release

At some point after the release of your app, you decide to add functionality to it or change some behavior, but you want to do so without impacting the existing users of your app while you work on such improvements.

This is when Acre App versions come to the rescue. Here is what you should do:

1. click on the app dialog
2. click the add version button (this will create another radio button with the name of the version you choose, or '1' as default).
3. select the radio button next to the version you just created

That's it. You have just frozen your application in time and mounted the short URL to that version that you just created. This allows you to go back in the app editor and work on your app without impacting users visiting your app thru the short URL.

Phase 6: releasing after versioning

Once you're ready to make another release, simply do:

1. click on the app dialog
2. click the 'add version' button
3. select the radio button next to the version you just created

Again, it's that simple: you have just created a new version and remounted your app's short URL to that. Now you can continue to do this step for as many times as you want (and you can even remove old versions that are no longer used if you don't care for them).

Important Information

A an app version is really just a timestamp that is used by Acre to freeze the application in time, so adding a new version or mounting your app to a new one are very cheap operations and can be done as many times as necessary without worries.

Also, it's important to realize that versioned apps are much easier to cache and for that reason perform considerably faster that non-versioned ones, for that reason it is strongly advised that you version your apps as soon as you reach as functional milestone.