Version info has been compiled into our .rbx plugins since .rbx came
first to REALbasic.
We have a utility on Windows for users to read the version info, but
now that we have started shipping .rbx also for the Mac and Linux then
we will update the utility to read it.
On 20.5.2005, at 22:51, Brendan Murphy wrote:
For some time I have been desiring to move completely over to the
rbx plugin format. The advantage of this is in the maintenence of
cross-platform plugin sets. Obviously I have to use the rbx format
for Windows installations, but I use the old format under OS X in
order to keep track of what versions I currently have installed.
So this forces the issue of maintaing two plugin sets with exactly
the same versions. The problem with the rbx format is that version
information is not readably available from the rbx file.
What I propose to the plugin author community is to adopt a
convension for storing and retieving version information from
plugins in the rbx format. This way, an application could be
written to access information and display it. This would allow end
users to quickly check plugins versions against the current
versions of the plugin.
I have written a prototype of such an application called
"RBVersioner". It can be download from my web site at the
following URL.
http://www.truenorthsoftware.com/Realbasic/download.html
This is stricly a prototype for demonstration puposes to
facilitate this discussion.
Obviously this prototype lacks a lot of the bells and wistles a
finished version would have, but one idea I have been thinking of
building into RBVersioner is the ability to go out and querry your
web site for the latest version number for a plugin. So
RBVersioner would scan the plugin folder for version numbers and
then querry the various web sites and report back to the user
which plugins need updating. Following this logic, it would also
be possible to make it automatic for the user to download the new
plugin etc.
I think by converting over to the rbx format you will save some
development effort in not having to produce two sets of plugins
for downloading.
So I would like to here your comments on this proposal.
Show below is the contents of the "READ ME" file for RBVersioner.
---------
To properly use RBVersioner, you must not be running REALbasic at
the same time. If you do, RBVersioner will not be able to open up
your plugins to read the version and comment information and will
mark the entries in red in the main window.
To make your your plugin RBVersioner compliant, you need to place
two files at the top of your folder hierarchy next to the "Build
Resources" folder. The two files are "comment" and "version". So
it should look like the following in your plugin project folder.
Build Resources
comment
version
The comment file is is a free form text file that contains a
comment for the plugin. You may put any information you like in
this file.
The version file will contain two lines of text. The first line of
text is the author of the plugin. The second line of text is the
version number of the plugin. For example an MBS plugin version
file may look like the following.
MBS
5.2
In this developmental version, you need to click on the "Scan"
button in the main window in order to select your plugin folder.
RBVersioner will then scan that folder and display the results.
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