Including AppToDate support with your application is REALLY easy!

You simply need to install an XML file (and optionally an icon) with your application, and then host the same XML file online with your CAB file.

First things first, what does the XML look like?

Here's my 'CamerAware' XML:


Simple eh? I think it's all quite self explanatory!

You see, you install this with your app (details of location below), and then host it online. When your version changes, the online XML shows a newer version number. AppToDate compares the two, and if the online one is newer, downloads and installs the CAB linked in the 'caburl' node. Beautiful simplicity!

So where do you put the file?

You install the file (e.g. cameraware.xml) to '\Application Data\AppToDate'. Optionally, you also install an icon file containing 16x16 and 32x32 icons named the same (e.g. cameraware.ico) to the same place, as that'll be used in future apptodate versions.

What about non free upgrades or other instances where a downloadable CAB isn't appropriate?

I appreciate that sometimes major upgrades for your applications won't be free and you need to provide for that, so you have the option of a 'Notification'. This is a text message that you show instead of making a download available. For ROM developers, you would make use of apptodate this way too. To create a notification, you just omit the element, put something really helpful to the end user in your description and AppToDate knows what to do. E.g.:

CODE

<application>
<name>My ROM</name>
<version>2.0</version>
<description>Version 2 of My ROM is now available, and has lots of new features you are gonna love! Visit http://www.me.com/myrom to download! </description>
<versionurl>http://www.me.com/myrom/myromversion1.xml</versionurl>
</application>

or, if you have a major version upgrade on your application perhaps...

CODE

<application>
<name>My Application</name>
<version>2.0</version>
<description>Version 2 of My Application is now available, however you are running version 1.0, and the upgrade isn't free! We do have special upgrade deals though, so come and check them out at http://www.me.com/myapp!</description>
<versionurl>http://www.me.com/myapp/myappversion1.xml</versionurl>
</application>

Easy! You can see what it looks like in the application in the screenshots in this post.

Feedback welcomed!

P

A few of the 'freebies' software are usually hosted on a freebie website - what happens if the website has maxed out the bandwidth and doesn't serve files anymore - how will AppToDate react to it? Will it throw an error message? Will it time out? Will it blow up?

Great product by the way!

AppToDate will inform you that update has failed, and then download the others.

P

Just a reminder to developers to open your XML in a browser to check that it is correctly formed! Certain characters break the XML, and this has caught a few people out.

You can also get round this by using CDATA sections, e.g. the XML node below (that breaks due to the ampersand)...


becomes...


P

Paul,

I think something happened with the forum database - It looks like 15+ posts from yesterday seem to be missing

UPDATE: I just discovered you created a new suggestion section and there they are

& and such should work as well, btw (I for one always forget exactly what the CDATA syntax was, but I never forget & ;))

Updated first post with how to do 'notifications'!

P

Hi Paul,

I'm pretty new with creating cab files and I'm tying to get the cabwiz to install the xml to the "\Application Data\AppToDate" directory,
but for some reason it is not working at all...
Could you post a working inf file maybe the cameraware or apptodate.inf file so I can see how you did it?

Thanks!

-=edit=-
I've used your "advanced" ApptoDate support, adding a reg setting provided a workaround :-)
thanks anyway

The relevant part in my CamerAware XML is probably this:


Where Common86 is my cameraware.xml...

In the 'Advanced' guide in this forum I talk about how to actually have the XML in your own app directory and point ATD at it via a registry key, but the subtleties of install to main memory vs storage card could make that difficult.

P