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LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - DcUpdater - 1.32.01 - May 9, 2017

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mouser:
superboy, when you install the newer versions of FARR, the dcupdater will have entries for it.  Also when you launch the updater from FARR itself.

other DC apps are not built with support for the updater yet, that will come starting in august.

superboyac:
superboy, when you install the newer versions of FARR, the dcupdater will have entries for it.  Also when you launch the updater from FARR itself.

other DC apps are not built with support for the updater yet, that will come starting in august.
-mouser (July 23, 2007, 03:35 PM)
--- End quote ---

Ah!  Very cool!  Works like a charm.  You know, there was a pretty cool plugin for Total COmmander that I almost used diligently that would check for updates for software.  but it was more like website-watcher than a true update checker, because you would point it to the text on the website that indicated the version number, and when it changed, it would notify you.  Not quite as slick as this.

Tekzel:
Heeeey Mouser.  Just something I was wondering, and you may have addressed in the PAD file discussion.  But, I will ask it anyway as I like being redundant.  Will we be able to add an entry to point to a 3rd party program's PAD file entry, hopefully put in an update frequency individually (maybe have a "default" frequency that is used if not specified otherwise) and have it check for programs with no .dcupdate file?  Or we can use one of the existing .dcupdate files and make our own for a program we use frequently that isn't from DC. 

mouser:
Will we be able to add an entry to point to a 3rd party program's PAD file entry, hopefully put in an update frequency individually (maybe have a "default" frequency that is used if not specified otherwise) and have it check for programs with no .dcupdate file?
--- End quote ---

The basic idea is this:
The .dcupdate file is a local file, it tells dcupdater what file on the web to check for version info, how to install a new version, and miscelaneous information about the program.

In the ideal case of a dcupdate-supported program, the author of the program does the following:

* Creates a .dcupdate file in the program's directory, which is installed with the program and always specifies the current installed version of the program.
* Creates a version.xml file which is a tiny file placed on the server which only holds version # of the program.  This is the file normally checked by the dcupdater, and the fact that its so small is good because it minimies bandwidth when thousands of people are constantly checking it every day.
To support a program that is not "made for dcupdater", then dcupdater will have to do something like this:

* Let the user ask to create a new entry, which will result in a new .dcupdate file being created on their pc (or they can download a dcupdate file from a friend or forum).  If the user has the url of a pad file, nearly all information dcupdater needs to make a new dcupdate file can be found in the pad file.
* This dcupdate file will describe the program and where the PAD FILE of the program is located (or it might even have a regular expression designed to parse version number from a program web page).  The point is the dcupdate file will have instructions on how to figure out the current web version of the program.  Dcupdater will be able to parse a pad file to get the web version and download url and webpage, etc, so a pad file is ideal for this.  But I may add code that minimizes bandwidth by checking http headers, etc.
* The dcupdate file will also contain information on how to locate the locally installed version of the program.  Since the program isnt made for dcupdate, it won't have a dcupdate file in its directory which is kept up to date.  So dcupdater will have to get the version # from the exe file, OR by having dcupdater manually update it on install of new version.

Tekzel:
It sounds like you have really thought this thing out!  The hardest part will be supporting non-dcupdate programs, but your scheme sounds like it would work.  I think for situations where you are checking PAD files for version info, it might be a good idea to make it so it will only check those once per day at the most frequent.  You really don't need to check more frequently than that anyway.  There are a number of very important programs for me that I would like to use DCUpdater to keep an eye on for me.  I could approach the authors about including DCUpdate support since it would ridiculously easy to do, but would like an alternate way to do it if they wont or cant for some reason.

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