We paid a developer account in Windows Store (enterprise). We created a Cordova 3.7 app for Windows Phone 8.1 and even we could test directly on a phone with Windows 8.1 from Visual Studio 2013 and everything worked in the hardware. therefore, We begin to fill in the details for the App We need to publish in the store.
There is a section in which we are asked to upload a packaged App so here We have the chance of selecting it on the disk.
Our problem is We don't know how to create the pack and where in the disk Visual Studio left it.
We started to search in msdn.microsoft.com and these are the ideas we could get (but still couldn't make a pack):
1) Every where in MSDN they talk about a STORE option on Visual Studio. We can see this option in the ppal menu but all its options are disabled. But in a forum, after searching a lot, We could figure out that this is normal for Cordova Apps on Visual Studio 2013 because they are considered as Silverlight Apps. Then We find out again a doc in MSDN about uploading Silverlight Apps to Win Store. They say this kind of Apps must be packed and uploaded by hand.
2) So We focused in find out how to prepare a Windows Phone Silverlight 8.1 app for publishing. This is a link in MSDN :http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/dn655122(v=vs.105).aspx
But a new problem comes out, We don’t have any Package.appxmanifest.xml file in our project but only have aWMAppManifest.xml file. We finally find out only Windows Phone 8.1 projects on Visual Studio have the Package.appxmanifest.xml file and it seems that my Cordova Project was generated like a kind of a Win Phone 8.0, what is not that bad because we want our App to be supported by Windows P. 8.0 and 8.1 devices.
But at the end of all this journey, we are stuck at the first step again. So we realized we don't know how pack a Windows Phone 8 (Cordova) App in order to be uploaded to Windows Store. How and where Visual Studio 2013 make the pack and what is the extension name of this file. The App, as I said, is ok and can be deployed and executed OK in a real phone from Visual Studio (run button)
Sorry, We know the question is large but We wanted to clear what We had reached so you know What We are asking and What We could have done bad just in case.
Thanks in advance, We think a lot of people could profit of the answer of experts in this matter because a summary is needed, the info in MSDN seem disperse.
You cannot upload a Windows Phone Silverlight xap to the Windows Store, only to the Windows Phone store. To upload to the Windows Phone store you won't need the Package.appxmanifest for a Windows Phone 8 app (only for a Windows Phone 8.1 app).
You'll upload the xap file created when you build for release with the normal build process. You don't need to do any further modifications for a Silverlight app.
You can create either Windows Phone or Windows Store apps with Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova