Question

I would like to see if there is a way to create an install4j configuration that allows me to push both stable and unstable releases in such a way that the majority of clients will get the stable upgrade path (1.0.0->1.0.1->1.1->1.2->2.0 etc) and a selection of “beta” customers will get more bleeding edge versions: (1.0.0->1.0.1-beta-1->1.0.1-beta2->1.1->1.2-beta1 etc)

The only way I can think of right now is by creating 2 completely independent installers and update.xml locations – maybe this is the only way

Thanks in advance
-A-

Answer 1

You just need two different versions of updates.xml which are downloadable from different URLs. You just update the stable version of updates.xml whenever you release a stable version.

By default, the “Check for update” action in the updater downloads the update.xml that is defined on the Installer->Auto-Update options tab.

To make this location variable, add a “Read a key from the Java preference store” action with variable name updatesUrl to the startup node of the updater, then you can use ${installer:updatesUrl} in the “Check for update” action.

You then set the initial value to ${compiler:sys.updatesUrl} in the installer with a “Set a key in the Java preference store” action. In your application, you can easily offer a way to switch update channels by writing the value in your own code.