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Easily create a self-installing updater for an existing A5 application

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    Easily create a self-installing updater for an existing A5 application

    Here's a problem. I have a customer using a large complex A5 application of mine that I have now produced an substantial update for. I want to deploy this update by way of a self installing executable that I can send to this customer who can run it to update the application but at the same time not destroy existing files and data.

    Unfortunately this is not something the A5 Installmaker can do for me. So I set out to do this myself, and while I was doing it, to include a range of nice features too, for example:

    o quick and easy to create the updater,
    o produces a self installing executable less than 10 MB in size (my full install is 120 MB in zip format).

    I have included my solution here as a fully documented zip file that contains:

    o a UDF Xbasic script to run from the autoexec script of my application, and
    o an A5 application update template for use with Inno Setup from which to generate the application updater.

    For those not familiar with Inno Setup, it is a free-for-commercial-use setup compiler that generates the setup installer for any application from information you specify in an .iss file. This file is just plain text so you can edit it in Inno Setup or alternatively in your favorite text editor. The Inno Setup web site is at www.jrsoftware.org/isdl.php.

    Documentation for use of my template is included in the supplied .iss file so that it can be modified to meet your own requirements.

    So now I can produce my application update in the blink of an eye, well almost. Furthermore the update installer produced is less than 5 MB in size so I can now send it to my customer (500 miles away) via the Internet rather than on a mailed CD which I have been doing previously.

    PS: My thanks to Cal Locklin for some of the ideas and code incorporated here.

    #2
    Re: Easily create a self-installing updater for an existing A5 application

    Hi Brett,

    That must have been quite some development with a serious time investment !

    I downloaded the zip and studied it.

    Your efforts demonstrate the need for a better updating tool for distributed Alpha Five applications. I personally think this should be addressed inside Alpha Five itself. In third party products almost everything is possible, but at what expense with regards to efforts ?

    Also in your solution principally all *.dbf files are excluded. Although I fully understand your motivation (protecting data already there) it is also because of that not a full updating program, because in the actual update, tables might be added based on which also forms, reports etc. could have been added to the original distribution. This solution does not take care of that, often occurring situation. Although you might state that in that case we do not speak of an update but of an upgrade, it would be nice if the solution could simple compare the new app with the old app and just send the sync files, leaving data already there untouched.

    This is not so simple to do as it sounds, because an upgrade might also introduce new fields in excisting tables, new field rules in excisting tables or whatever.

    Those things you will not be able to track down automatically and taken care off by any third party solution.

    I think Alpha probably is the only party who could create a solution that does all that ?

    Regards,

    Marcel

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      #3
      Re: Easily create a self-installing updater for an existing A5 application

      Hi Marcel. Thanks for your comments.

      Surprisingly enough it did not take me too much time to develop and test, maybe half a day. It had always been in the back of my mind to develop something and I had been thinking it out for maybe a few months. What was preventing me from doing it was a couple of problems that I could not solve that lead to two questions I asked when Cal Locklin placed a reply in this A5 forum post. With his reply I was made. :)

      Yes, I agree with you. This functionality should be in A5. This is not a problem for me personally because I now know everything I need to enable me to do it myself. The added benefit is that I get to work with some really good 3rd party setup install creators that have a lot more features than in the A5 one.

      The install creator I am working with at the moment is Inno Setup. It's free for commercial use and about the most comprehensive shareware product I have been able to find. It's downfall is the user interface is little more than a text editor, even with its 3rd party add on. Others such as Astrum Install Wizard and Tarma Expert Install are superior in this respect. However the latter two have limited or no condition checking. I want to check that my A5 application's .adb A5 database file exists at the installation folder and abort the install with a meaningful error message if not. I can't do this with any of these products - Inno comes closest as I can output the error message, but not abort. I have a later version of my Inno Script that now does this.

      Bear in mind too that there are some things the A5 InstallMaker can never do. Adding and changing fields in an existing table is one of these, more particularly if you want to add new field rules and populate the fields too. There are times when these can only be done by an installer in conjunction with your own code.

      And here's the way to handle table field changes so the user's data doesn't get overwritten by your application installer. You can add fields to and delete fields from an existing table using A5 xbasic code in your application's autoexec script. For example, adding a field to an existing table can be done using 'a5_add_fields_to_table()'. So you check for the field's presence and if its not in the table, add it. You may also need some code to populate a new field too. Easily done. Cal Locklin's post at the above link also has some example code there.

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