U++ forum: Welcome to the forum

Wed, 19 May 2010 11:24

Mindtraveller
Messages: 917
Registered: August 2007
Location: Russia, Moscow rgn.

Experienced Contributor

I think it is time for U++ to become more mature and more "industrial standard" as a tool for making not only effective, but full featured modern level apps.

Initially U++ is bundled with Updater package, which is discussed in one of parallel topics. Updater is intended to run only on LAN in controlled environment. This is good, but today's applications undoubtedly require auto web-update function.

OK, so the idea is to make WebUpdater package to make app updatable from parent web resource.

So, my ideas:
1. WebUpdater should work through HttpClient (with standard http request).
FTP fits less here as it requires adding anonymous account which is not good generally. Using HTTP makes it possible to download in a way everybody does, so, i.e. these downloads may be counted and added to stats with engines like Drupal. Also HttpClient supports proxy settings which is very good too.

2. Parent web resource should contain rather small file with sizes and MD5 hashes of all updatable files. WebUpdater checks current MD5 of local copies, then download MD5-file and compares. And all this in background. This file may also contain short description of new version to be displayed in the host app.

3. WebUpdater should support partial downloading to minimize potential traffic for users. Of course, this could be done with comparing current temporary downloaded file sizes with ones from downloaded file.

4. WebUpdater should contain global object which optionally executes WebUpdater.exe after host program is closed. WebUpdater.exe is simple tool which checks downloaded files' MD5. If everyone is OK, just moves them into working dir.

5. Under POSIX systems, if app was installed from system software manager, WebUpdater just downloads new version package and executes system manager for it. It is much better here, because this will solve many issues like required root access or packages management.

What do you thing about it?

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