How to Run an App in the Tulip Player

Learn how to setup the Tulip Player.

There are two different ways Tulip Apps can be run:

1. Clicking on the Test button in the app editor will open Developer Mode. Developer mode is for testing your application. Data won't write to your Tulip tables so that any production data isn't impacted by testing.
2. Clicking Run will launch the Tulip Player (if it is installed) or bring you to download.tulip.co to download the plater. Tulip Player is how we recommend you run your apps in production.

The Tulip Player can also be run in a browser at https://your-account.tulip.co/player. We generally recommend that you download the Player because that is the best way to use the Player to test apps in real-time as you work on them in the App Editor.

Download the Player

The Tulip Player can be downloaded within your Tulip account by opening the Help Menu (click on the question mark in the Menu Bar in the top right of every screen) and selecting ‘Download Player’.

From here, select the appropriate download based on your operating system (Mac or Windows). The download should begin automatically.

Alternatively, you can visit download.tulip.co.

If you have an Android, you can download the app from the Google Play Store.

When the download is finished, if the Player does not start automatically, navigate to your download directory and run the ‘Tulip Player’ file.

The Player is installed to C:\Users<username>\AppData\Local\tulip-player-desktop

In addition, Player uses C:\ProgramData\tulip folder to store global configuration. All users on the PC using Tulip must have Read, Write and Modify permissions on that folder and all files within that folder

After a brief loading screen you will see a prompt to register the Tulip Player to your Tulip account.

Register the Tulip Player

Now that you’ve successfully downloaded and run the Tulip Player it needs to be registered to your Tulip account.

On the Device Registration screen enter the name of your Tulip account in the Account URL field.

The name of your account is part of the URL that precedes ".tulip.co" in your address bar when you navigate to Tulip in your browser. For example, the name of the Tulip account below is petehartnett.tulip.co.

Click Launch, then login using your Tulip username and password. (Note: this was created when you first logged into Tulip.)

Next, you’ll be prompted to register the Interface (display device) where you are running the Tulip Player.

Enter a name for the interface. Most customers use the IT department issued name for the computer as the device's name. We recommend establishing a standard naming convention for all of the devices running Tulip in your operation. It will make it easy to see which devices correspond to the physical shop floor. This will simplify things later on when you’re managing many devices across your instance.

Stations

Stations are an important concept to understand when deploying Tulip Apps. Each station is a grouping of a number of different things:

• A computer that is running the player
• (Optional) Edge Devices providing more external data to your application
• Apps that are allowed to run at that station, and the desired Version of your application to run at that station.

Stations are an important concept to understand when publishing and productionizing applications with Tulip. You can see and configure your stations at https://your-instance/stations.

When running an app for the first time, you probably don't have any stations set up. Let's create a new station. More information about station creation is available here

After clicking 'New Station', enter the new station name (could be "My Name Test" if you are testing apps), assign your player to the App Builders station group, this will give you access to all apps in Development Version.

Station groups allow you to bulk configure Tulip players that are running in production, including what apps they can access, and what versions of apps run in production. More information about station groups is available here

The last step is to enter a Badge ID to log into this device. Badge IDs are managed in User Settings in the Account Settings Menu. In this example I setup my badge id has been setup to be "612".

NOTE: Every Tulip instance has a generic user with the badge ID "0000". You can use this badge ID for testing if you don't have access to account settings.

Run Your App

Select the app you would like to test. As you build more apps in your Instance, any station in the App Viewers station group will be able to test them.

Click Begin to start your app.

Your station is set to play the Development Version of your applications, so any changes you make it the Tulip App editor will automatically change the app you are running in the player.

Further Reading

• How To Use the Tulip Player

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You can also head to community.tulip.co to post your question or see if others have faced a similar question!