Development - (how) should my tools create FARR alias files?

[justice]

I'm working on a 'helper program' for FARR. This program relies on a FARR alias. I don't want the person to edit the alias and change the path to my helper tool, if possible. Are there best practices regarding  creating / adding my alias to FARR?

What I've tried is looking at the alias file in a text editor, it's XML. I can write a xml reader / writer in AHK parsing the alias file and adding my alias to the custom aliases, this is a lot of work. if FARR supports extra custom alias files (for example 'myhelpertool.alias') and would these be overwritten / deleted when FARR is updated? Any experience and guidance would be appreciated.

(I'd use IRC but my workplace blocks ident requests and now I can't connect to the donationcoder channel -- it used to work a week or so ago).

[mouser]

One of the big changes to version 2 of FARR was specifically to make it easier for people to write and share alias files.

So as you surmised, the solution for you is to create your own xml alias file.
If you want you can even add your own icons for the items in it, and place the alias file and icons in their own subdirectory.

Then you can distribute this alias file (or subdirectory) that the user should place in their "FindAndRunRobot\AliasGroups\Installed" directory.

It will not get erased or modified when the program is updated.

[mouser]

Note:
you can also put a .dcupdate in your subdirectory and have FARR check for updates to the .alias file.

[justice]

One word: Amazing.

[mouser]

What i should add is a command so a user can "install" an alias file or pack from the program, without having to copy the files manually to the alias directory.