What the Apps view finds
Open Apps from the side panel's view menu. Piye looks at the project and recognises its apps:
- Phone apps: Expo and React Native, Capacitor, native iOS (Swift) and native Android (Kotlin).
- Desktop apps: Electron and Tauri.
- Websites: for these, open the site in the Simple Browser inside Piye, or add a native app from Setup.
A folder with several apps (a monorepo) shows each one.
The tabs
| Tab | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Project | Run the app, see its running processes and their output. |
| Devices | iPhone and iPad simulators, Android emulators and connected phones: create one, start it, and Run app on this device. See Simulators and devices. |
| Stores | Ship to the App Store and Google Play. See below. |
| Setup | Which tools the app's stack needs and whether they're installed, and create a new app (iOS, Android, Electron, Tauri) with the platforms' official command-line tools. |
Settings, Panels sets which tab opens first and whether Apps remembers the last one.
Previews
- Phone apps preview in a device frame (an iPhone or Android phone), or on a real simulator. View: Open preview on simulator opens the project's preview on one.
- Desktop apps preview in a MacBook or Windows frame. Electron needs only Node to run; Tauri needs Rust as well.
- Websites open in the Simple Browser, or in your own browser from the Ports panel.
Running processes
The Project tab lists the app's processes (its dev server, its bundler) with their output. When one fails, send the error and the process's output to the Code agent, which reads them and fixes the cause.
Stores
For an Expo app, the Stores tab signs in to Expo, runs EAS cloud builds, and submits to the App Store and Google Play:
- Set expo.ios.bundleIdentifier and Set expo.android.package, or Set Up Store Config to write the store settings.
- Connect Apple with an App Store Connect API key (the
.p8file, its Key ID and Issuer ID) and Google with a Play service account key file. - Submit to App Store sends the latest build to TestFlight and App Store Connect; Google Play gets the latest Android bundle on the internal track as a draft.
- Expo update sends an over-the-air update.
Desktop apps' signing and notarizing for the Mac is on the same tab. Apps: Open App Store Connect and Apps: Open Play Console open the stores' own consoles.
The guided version of all of this, written for people who don't code, is Visual's Publish: see The App Store and Google Play.