Beginning-to-End Process Maps for Building Your App
To help guide you through the processes for building an app with Fire App Builder, various process maps guide you with more visual links across the topics. The purpose of these maps is to increase clarity about how the topics fit together, the right flow to take to achieve larger goals in building and customizing your app.
I: Get Set Up
In this section, you download the Fire App Builder code and build the "Application" in Fire App Builder. You connect your computer to your Fire TV device using adb so you can test your app on an actual device. Finally, you customize the sample project and files with your own app name.
II: Configure your Feed
In this section, you load and configure your media feed. Your feed contains all of your media assets, including the titles, descriptions, thumbnails, and media objects for your content. To load and configure your feed, you will use queries to target specific elements in your feed and map them to the Fire App Builder model. This process will involve configuring "recipes" for both categories and content.
III: Customize the Appearance
You can customize almost every element of the app, from the font to background colors, homepage layout, splash screen, and more through your app's custom.xml file. In this section, you customize your app's logo and icon. Optionally, you can adjust the homepage layout, media playback screen, and other details.
IV: Add Components for More Functionality
Components allow you to extend your app's functionality. Fire App Builder includes components for authentication, in-app purchasing, analytics, ads, and the media player. You add or remove a component by editing some lines in your Gradle build files. Each component has specific instructions for configuration. You can only load one component per interface type.
V: Add Recommendations
Recommendations allow you to show media tiles to users about the content in your feed you want them to watch. Recommendations appear on a "Recommended By Your Apps" row on the Fire TV home screen. Because they appear on the Fire TV home screen, recommendations encourage users to engage with your app with minimal effort. Integrating recommendations in your app is optional.
Submit Your App
After you finish building your app, you're now ready to submit your app to the Amazon Appstore. To submit your app, you generate a signed APK file, gather image assets, and upload your APK into the Appstore.
Last updated: Jan 16, 2018