Signing Solved: Blackberry 10 SDK and BlackBerry PlayBook SDK on Windows 8

Setting up the debugging and signing infrastructure for developing apps for BlackBerry 10 and the PlayBook on the same Windows 8 machine can be a nightmare.

The Problem
After installing the BB10 SDK you might run into the problem that your already existing PlayBook SDK on the same Win 8 computer can't create debug tokens and won't sign your PlayBook apps anymore.
Metaviewsoft found out that you can create your debug token for the PlayBook with the BB10 SDK, but that trick doesn't help with the signing. The PlayBook SDK doesn't find its signing keys (a.k.a. author.p12, ...) even while the BB10 SDK does. Unfortunately you can't use the BB10 SDK to sign your PlayBook apps.

The Reason
It turns out that the Playbook SDK is searching for the signing keys in the wrong location. The PlayBook SDK expects the keys in:

C:\Users\YourUser\Local Settings\Application Data\Research In Motion

while the BB10 SDK stores and expects the keys in:

C:\Users\YourUser\AppData\Local\Research In Motion

Here is the catch:
On Englisch Win8 systems both directories are identical because Windows 8 creates a hard link for the Local Settings\Application Data directory which maps it to the new location. But on non Englisch systems this directory is localized and the hard link is localized as well.
So on my German Windows there is a hard link for Lokale Einstellungen only but not for the Local Settings directory.

The Solution
Just create the missing directory structure Local Settings\Application Data\Research In Motion in you user directory and copy the 3 signing files author.p12, barsigner.csk and barsigner.db over and your old PlayBook SDK will happily sign your apps again.

Thanks DementiDevel for pointing me into the right direction.

Welcome iPad

Right from the start you can get a few of my iPhone applications in a shiny new iPad version:

Thesaurus XL - Find synonyms for every word

Compass XL - Find out where to go

Checklists XL - Create and manage all sorts of checklists

Source Viewer XL - Check the HTML, CSS and Javascript of websites

Ruler XL - Measure the scale of small things

All Countries XL - Map all countries of the world

Country Quiz XL - Can you spot all foreign countries?

States XL - Maps all states in the USA

State Quiz XL - Can you spot all states in the USA?

Capital Quiz XL - Test your knowledge and name all U.S. state capitals

Please stay tuned for the rest...

New in the App Store: Source Viewer

Whether you are a web designer or just curious - this application is for you. Source Viewer shows the HTML, CSS and Javascript source code of any website. It extracts the links which are embedded into HTML and CSS which can be followed easily. As well it collects all images from the HTML and CSS which can be viewed separately.