Application Filtering

The Tizen platform provides a wide range of features across a variety of hardware and software components. Among the features, some can be selectively supported by the Tizen device manufacturer. For application stores to correctly select your application for installation on an appropriate device, the feature and profile information must be correctly declared in your application.

Feature-based filtering

Some features can be selectively supported by the Tizen device manufacturer. To prevent problems when the user is trying to run your application on a device that does not support all the features your application is using, do one of the following:

• When the application is running, check whether the device supports the needed features. If not, the application can use other features, which are supported by the device, as a workaround.

  For example, if an application wants to use location information, it can check the device capability by using the system_info_get_XXX() function of the System Information API (in mobile and wearable applications). If the device supports GPS, the application uses GPS information, and if the device supports WPS only, the application uses WPS information instead of GPS.

• Use feature-based filtering to prevent your application from being shown in the application list on the official site for Tizen applications, if the user’s device does not support all the features of your application. This way you can prevent the application from being installed on an unsupported device in the first place.

  Be careful when defining the feature list for feature-based filtering. The feature list can dramatically reduce your chances of getting the application downloaded by reducing the number of devices which can support the application.

If the tizen-manifest.xml file of the application package includes a feature list, the store compares the capabilities of the device with the required feature conditions of the application. The store only lists the applications whose conditions match the capabilities of the device and thus prevents incompatible applications from being installed.

Figure: Feature-based filtering

When multiple features are defined in the feature list for feature-based filtering, the store creates the filtering condition for all using the “AND” operation. For example, if there are http://tizen.org/feature/network.nfc and http://tizen.org/feature/network.bluetooth features in the feature list of the application package, only a device that has both those features can show the application on the store application list for downloading.

Screen size feature

The screen size feature is the only exception to the normal feature handling process described above. When the screen size is defined in the feature list, the store creates the filtering condition with the “OR” operation. For example, if the http://tizen.org/feature/screen.size.normal.480.800 and http://tizen.org/feature/screen.size.normal.720.1280 features are defined in your application feature list, a device that supports one or the other of those features can show the application on the store application list.

If you do not specify a proper screen size in the tizen-manifest.xml file, your application can be rejected from the store.

The following table lists the available screen size features:

Table: Available screen size features

Feature hierarchy

The feature keys have a hierarchy. For example, consider the http://tizen.org/feature/location, http://tizen.org/feature/location.gps, and http://tizen.org/feature/location.wps features. How the hierarchy for these features work is described below:

• If the feature list includes the http://tizen.org/feature/location.gps feature, only a device which has the http://tizen.org/feature/location.gps feature can show the application on the store application list.

• If the feature list includes the http://tizen.org/feature/location feature, a device which has the http://tizen.org/feature/location.gps, http://tizen.org/feature/location.wps, or http://tizen.org/feature/location feature can show the application on the store application list.

  This means that the store considers the http://tizen.org/feature/location feature as the http://tizen.org/feature/location.gps OR http://tizen.org/feature/location.wps feature. (If the feature list includes the http://tizen.org/feature/location.gps and http://tizen.org/feature/location.wps features together, only a device which supports both those features can show the application.)

Add the feature list

To enable filtering for your native application, follow the steps below to add the feature list for the application tizen-manifest.xml file:

1. To open the manifest editor in Tizen Studio, double-click the tizen-manifest.xml file in the Project Explorer view.

2. Select the features you need, one at a time:

   • In the Features tab, click +.
   • Select a feature.
   • Click OK.

   The manifest file (tizen-manifest.xml) is updated automatically.

The following tables show the available requirements for an application package:

Table: Available mobile native requirements

If you want to verify which features are necessary for using a specific API, see the related feature in the Native API Reference.

Table: Available wearable native requirements

Table: Available IoT-only native requirements

Profile-based filtering

A Tizen profile describes the requirements for a category of Tizen devices that have a common application execution environment. Applications are created for a single specific target profile, such as mobile or wearable, and can run on devices compliant with that profile.

Use profile-based filtering to ensure that your application is only downloaded on the appropriate device profile. To ensure this, declare the intended profile by adding the profile name element in the tizen-manifest.xml file.

The following table lists the Tizen profiles and related profile name attributes.

Table: Tizen profiles and profile name attributes

In a native application, the profile name element can be added to the tizen-manifest.xml file as follows:

<manifest xmlns="http://tizen.org/ns/packages" api-version="2.3.1" ... >
   <profile name="mobile"/>

The official site for Tizen applications compares the device profile and the profile name element in an application. The store only shows the applications with a profile name matching the device profile to prevent unsupported applications from being installed.