LazAutoUpdater

Lazarus Auto-Updater

SourceForge Project

• Project Page
• SVN HTTP Checkout

Workflow

The Laz AutoUpdater workflow for updating a running application is as follows:

• App downloads a small 'version.xml' file from sourceforge with version info (it can do this at start-up)
• App compares with its own internal version
• If new version available, App downloads it from Sourceforge into an /updates folder
• App uses TProcess to start the console updater, passing it info in the command line
• updater copies a downloaded 'whatsnew.txt' into the App folder and enters Sleep for a few seconds
• Meanwhile App has entered loop checking whether a 'whatsnew.txt' file has been copied into it's directory
• App detects 'whatsnew.txt' and Closes. (in other words the TProcess has started successfully)
• Updater copies /updates/UpdatedApp to App directory.
• Updater uses TProcess to start the updated app
• On Form.Show, App displays 'whatsnew.txt' then deletes it

Version.xml

The format is as follows: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<APPCONFIG>
  <ProgramInfo>
    <Version GUI="0.0.2" OtherModule="0.1.0"/>
  </ProgramInfo>
</APPCONFIG>

And the code to create it:

uses XMLConf

Var XMLConfig1:TXMLConfig; 

begin
 XMLConfig1.Clear;
 XMLConfig1.RootName := 'APPCONFIG';
 XMLConfig1.Filename := 'version.xml';
 XMLConfig1.OpenKey('ProgramInfo/Version');
 XMLConfig1.SetValue('GUI', '0.0.2');
 XMLConfig1.SetValue('OtherModule', '0.1.0');
 XMLConfig1.CloseKey;
 XMLConfig1.Flush;
end;

Location of files

• In your SourceForge Files section, make a folder called 'updates'
• Upload 'version.xml' into it
• Upload the zip file containing your updated EXE and the file 'whatsnew.txt'

• The application installer (Inno Setup?) goes into your Files section as normal
  • The Users should only have to download the installer once. All the subsequent versions will go into the /updates folder as above

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Work-In-Progress...

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