Sparkling Appcast

Description

Sparkling Appcast is a WordPress plugin. It allows you to use your WordPress site to distribute your macOS App via Sparkle. Sparkling Appcast supports multiple channels (alpha, beta, …).

Sparkling Appcast exposes a new shortcode to display a list of app builds.

[sappcast_display_builds sappcast_channel="{channel-id-or-slug}"]

Configure Sparkle to ingest the appcast.xml at https://your.site/wp-json/sparkling-appcast/v1/appcast.xml. You will see something like the following XML.

<rss xmlns:sparkle="http://www.andymatuschak.org/xml-namespaces/sparkle" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0">
    <channel>
        <title>MyApp</title>
        <link>/wp-json/sparkling-appcast/v1/appcast.xml</link>
        <item>
            <title>Version 1.0.1 (2)</title>
            <description><![CDATA[ This version is better but not yet released! ]]></description>
            <sparkle:channel>Alpha</sparkle:channel>
            <sparkle:version>2</sparkle:version>
            <sparkle:shortVersionString>1.0.1</sparkle:shortVersionString>
            <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jan 2025 08:56:19 +0000</pubDate>
            <sparkle:minimumSystemVersion>14.0</sparkle:minimumSystemVersion>
            <enclosure url="http://localhost:8088/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/app_v2.zip" length="4713394" type="application/octet-stream"/>
        </item>
        <item>
            <title>Version 1.0.0 (1)</title>
            <description><![CDATA[ - New features - New bugs ]]></description>
            <sparkle:version>1</sparkle:version>
            <sparkle:shortVersionString>1.0.0</sparkle:shortVersionString>
            <pubDate>Wed, 08 Jan 2025 07:43:06 +0000</pubDate>
            <sparkle:minimumSystemVersion>14.0</sparkle:minimumSystemVersion>
            <enclosure url="http://localhost:8088/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/app_v1.zip" length="4713394" type="application/octet-stream"/>
        </item>
    </channel>
</rss>

Configuration

To get started name the application you want to distribute on your WordPress site. You can find the settings page under the App Builds menu.

If you have multiple channels besides stable, you can should add them on wp-admin under the App Builds menu.

Usage

Fastlane

We recommend you use the wp_sparkling_appcast plugin to upload assets and create builds.

Other

To distribute a new build, you must upload the asset (1), create a build draft (2), after which you can finalize the build and publish it (3). Steps 1 and 2 are typically executed by your build server, while step 3 is done by a human.

1. Uploading Asset

curl --location "localhost:8088/wp-json/wp/v2/media?status=publish&title=MyApp%20${VERSION}%20(${BUILD_NUMBER})" \
    --header "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"myapp_v${VERSION}_${BUILD_NUMBER}.zip\"" \
    --header 'Content-Type: application/zip' \
    --user "${USER}:${APPLICATION_PASSWORD}" \
    --data-binary '@/path/to/asset.zip'

2. Create Build Draft

curl --location 'localhost:8088/wp-json/wp/v2/sappcast_app_build' \
    --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    --user "${USER}:${APPLICATION_PASSWORD}" \
    --data '{
        "meta": {
            "sappcast_app_build_version": string,
            "sappcast_app_build_number": int,
            "sappcast_app_build_min_system_version": string,
            "sappcast_app_build_attachment_id": int,
            "sappcast_app_build_changelog": string,
        },
        "sappcast_channel": int,
        "status": "draft"
    }'

3. Publish Build

The user may now go to « App Build » on wp-admin and publish the draft after verifying the build. After publishing the build will appear on the relevant appcast (/wp-json/sparkling-appcast/v1/appcast.xml).