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Easy Update Package for Developers Help
Usage
Please read the following carefully.
First of all an installation file is needed, that is a setup executable which will update the application on the users machine. Normally this is the existing setup executable with which you distribute the software already.
If you want to include Easy Update in your installation (highly recommended) you have to include the "Easy Update 1.0 Setup.exe" (located in the "Example Application" folder) in your installation executable.
An example Inno Setup script file is in the "Example Application" folder for demonstration ("Inno Setup Example.iss").
Inno Setup can be downloaded fo free, from: http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
Two things need to be done to acomplish this:
1. Put the "Easy Update 1.0 Setup.exe" (from the "Example Application" folder) in your installation package, extract it and run it (for example after the setup)
2. Set some registry values so that Easy Update will know to monitor your software for updates.
No. 1 is described above, so let's see no. 2:
Two solutions are possible: set registry values in HKCU or HKLM. HKCU is recommended becouse changing the HKLM values under Vista/7 requires UAC elevation, so Easy Update will pop-up an UAC prompt if the user decides to change the "monitor this application" value. Here (and in the example Inno Setup script file) we use HKCU for demonstration.
All values that need to be set are located in the "Software\3delite\Easy Update\Registered applications\{Your project's name as you like}" branch.
Fields that are needed for successful registration for Easy Update:
"Application name": The application name that will appear as the monitored application/project name.
"Company": Your company's name or author of the application/project.
"Folder": The folder where the installed files are.
"File": The main executable or .dll file with full path name from which the version information is extracted (so you must include a standard Windows "Version Information" in yor .exe or .dll) that will be compared with the latest version available from the internet (more about this later).
"Version": The installed current version of your application/project. If the "File" above is omited this version will be compared to the update version. Usefull when the installation doesn't contain an .exe or .dll.
"URL of update file": This is the most important value. This value specifies the URL (so should start with "http://") of the update information file which contains the new version number, the URL of the update setup file, the web page to display containing the description of updates, etc.
For example the registry values should look like this:
HKCU\Software\3delite\Easy Update\Registered applications\Easy Update Example Application\Application name="Easy Update Example Application"
HKCU\Software\3delite\Easy Update\Registered applications\Easy Update Example Application\Company="3delite"
HKCU\Software\3delite\Easy Update\Registered applications\Easy Update Example Application\Folder="C:\Program Files\Easy Update"
HKCU\Software\3delite\Easy Update\Registered applications\Easy Update Example Application\File="C:\Program Files\Easy Update\ExampleApplication.exe"
HKCU\Software\3delite\Easy Update\Registered applications\Easy Update Example Application\Version="1.0"
HKCU\Software\3delite\Easy Update\Registered applications\Easy Update Example Application\URL of update file="URL of xml file"
This is all that is needed to for the application to show up on Easy Update's list of monitored applications.
The other part for proper functioning is the above mentioned application update information file. This is where Easy Update Information File Manager comes into play.
You don't need to use Easy Update Information File Manager, you can edit the update information XML file manually, but Easy Update Information File Manager makes things much easier.
Using Easy Update Information File Manager
Start the program and click on "Add Project...". Specify a project name and an icon if you like.
Local files: These are the local files on your computer that will be uploaded through FTP to your server if you click Publish.
Update File: The setup file that will be downloaded by Easy Update as the update. This is the setup file for your installation. The file name of the uploaded file will be the same as this file's name.
Update Page File: This is the web page file on your computer that will be uploaded when you click Publish, which will be displayed by Easy Update as the recent changes page. The file name of the uploaded file will be the same as this file's name. You can leave it blank if this file is for example a .php page on your server, but don't forget to specify the URL of this page on the main window (about this later).
Update Information File: Important! The file name on you computer to which the update information file will be written. The file name of the uploaded file will be the same as this file's name. This file will be uploaded to the FTP server and must have the same name that we specified before in the registry as "URL of update file".
We have these files on our computer. Ok. But we want to upload them to our web server.
The following folder names specify the folders on our FTP server:
Host: FTP server host name or IP, for example: "ftp.3delite.hu"
Update File Folder: Full path name on the FTP server in which the application's setup (update, installation) file will be saved. The file name will be the same as specified at "Update File".
Update Page Folder: Full path name on the FTP server in which the application's update web page file will be saved. The file name will be the same as specified at "Update Page File". You can leave it empty if you want to show a user a .php page for example.
Update Info File Folder: Full path name on the FTP server in which the application's update information file (the file that contains the new version's information) will be saved. The file name will be the same as specified at "Update Information File".
Login name and password are obvious.
Close the window with saving the settings. The new project icon will appear on the main window. Click the icon.
Specify Version, that is the new version. The file name specified in the registry will be compared to this specified version by Easy Update on the end user's computer.
URL of update page: This is also very important! This is the URL of the web page that Easy Update will display when the user wants to update the project/application. It is displayed in a small web browser so you can (and should) make the link in the page appear in a new window (HTML: "target="_blank""). This can be a simple .html file, a .php file or any web page.
Update file download protocol: There are two ways you can go with downloading updates: through HTTP or FTP. You can choose which one fits you more, using HTTP is simpler becouse no authentication is needed.
For example:
Folder: "public_html/3delitehu/Easy Update/"
File name: "Easy Update Example Application 1.0 Setup.exe"
Other options currently avialable are:
Silent install: Install the update silently, without user interaction. Note that setup/installation only begins if the user starts it. It won't update without the user knowing it!
MD5 hash: When specified MD5 hash code is generated for the setup/installation file. When the user downloads the update Easy Update checks the downloaded file's MD5 and compares it to this value.
If they don't match a dialog will pop-up, warning that MD5 hash codes do not match.
When you are finished click on the "Save Changes" button to save the changes you have made.
You can save the update information file (that contains the new version data) to a different, selectable folder. Note that clicking on previous "Save Changes" button automatically saves the information file to the file name that you specified when you created the project as "Update Information File".
That's all, if everything is set, just click on "Publish Project" to publish (upload to the specified FTP server) all files.
Easy Update application will detect the new version on next polling round.
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