To create an app, we need a Shopify account and a development store. If you go to Shopify.com and try to sign up from there, it will just start you on a free trial and then ask you to pay because essentially you would be creating a merchant account. Instead, we need to create a partner account so that we can create development stores and not the production ones. So if we scroll down a little bit, we see sections for different uses. We can create a partner's account from either the developer section or the partner's one. Essentially both options lead to the same partner sign up page. A Shopify partner is basically someone who works with Shopify to provide services to merchants who are using the Shopify platform.

A Shopify partner is basically someone who works with Shopify to provide services to merchants who are using the Shopify platform. Partners can include developers, designers, marketers, and other service providers. Basically, in addition to being able to build apps, you can also earn revenue by building or migrating stores, by becoming an affiliate, and so on. So let's click on the partners and then fill in the email here and click join now. Then we can follow the steps here to create our partner account. So I'm going to select building apps for Shopify App Store. Click next. Then country and state, we're going to click next.

Click next. Then country and state, we're going to click next. And here you enter some additional information like business name, if you have a company address, and click next. I already have a partner account, so I'm just going to skip this part, but you can go ahead and fill out the form and sign up. Once you sign up and log in, you should be brought to partner's dashboard page, which should look something similar to this. Now before creating an app, let's first set up a development store that we'll use to test our application as we're working on it.

Now before creating an app, let's first set up a development store that we'll use to test our application as we're working on it. So let's go to the stores page. Then we can click on add store and click on create development store. Here we have to decide if we're building a store for a client or we just need a testing store to test our app, because the second option makes the store non-transferable in some cases. We're going to go with the second option because we're building a public app and don't need to transfer the store to anyone after we're done playing with it. For store name, we'll enter something like Laracasts testing store, and it will generate

to transfer the store to anyone after we're done playing with it. For store name, we'll enter something like laracasts testing store, and it will generate the URL on its own. So it's going to be laracasts-testing-store.myshopify.com, which is okay for now. We don't need to change that. So we'll keep that domain. Then for the build, we're going to keep the latest build checked. And for the last section, we are able to start with an empty store or start with the test data. And as you can see, starting with the test data makes it non-transferable.

data. And as you can see, starting with the test data makes it non-transferable. The app that we're going to be building will do sort of the same thing as this option, but our app will have the ability to delete all the test product data and also give some options to the user to select when generating fake data. This option I think only generates like 10 or 11 products if I remember it correctly. So we'll stick with the first option to create an empty store. So let's click on create development store. It's going to take a few moments to create the store, and then it will redirect us to the Shopify store management page once it's done.

It's going to take a few moments to create the store, and then it will redirect us to the Shopify store management page once it's done. All right, so this is our Shopify store. As you can see, it's a slightly different management page because here we're basically able to manage the Shopify store. We are able to create products, collections, customers, orders, and so on. Basically pretty much customize things that you typically would in a free trial Shopify store. We can install a theme, customize pages, can install apps, and so on. Now we're not going to go through all of this stuff because this is just the Shopify

We can install a theme, customize pages, can install apps, and so on. Now we're not going to go through all of this stuff because this is just the Shopify store customization. You can do that on your own if you want to. All right, so let's now create our app. To do that, we need to go back to the partner's dashboard page because remember this is the store dashboard, and I know this may be a bit confusing at first, but you'll get used to it with time. There are two dashboards. One is the partner dashboard where you manage your apps and manage stores like create or

There are two dashboards. One is the partner dashboard where you manage your apps and manage stores like create or archive stores, basically partner management page. And then there is the store dashboard that lets you manage that specific development store. So let's switch back to the partner's dashboard. In here we can click on apps and then click on create app. Now as you can see here, we have two options. One is to use tool called Shopify CLI and other is to create it manually. Shopify CLI is a great tool to build apps quickly and has many features.

One is to use tool called Shopify CLI and other is to create it manually. Shopify CLI is a great tool to build apps quickly and has many features. It requires Node.js and uses templates to create a template app for you. They do have a PHP template which uses Laravel, but I prefer to use another Laravel Shopify package. That's why we won't be using the Shopify CLI for now. So let's click on the create app manually and enter the application name. I'm going to call our app Faker because essentially we will be generating fake data. I know that this is not very original, but I'm not that creative when it comes to naming things.

I know that this is not very original, but I'm not that creative when it comes to naming things. So we'll stick with Faker for now. So let's click on create. And once the app is created, we are brought to the app management page. We can see the client credentials in here, which we'll use later on. We'll also handle the distribution later as well. That's basically to decide if we want the app to be published in the App Store or if we want it to be a one-time installation for one client. Within the test your app section, we are able to select the store that we want to install.

it to be a one time installation for one client. Within the test your app section, we are able to select the store that we want to install this app on. So that's where our development store will come in handy because we will be able to install our app on that store and test it out. All right. So now that we have our app and we have our development store all set up, next step is to set up the Laravel and go over the Laravel Shopify package that we'll be using in this course.

course.