Using configuration.xml to support multiple AIR help versions and automatic updates?

Report · Nov 16, 2011

I want to make sure I'm understanding all this correctly.

I think this is in line with the solution on configuration files and versioning on Peter Grainge's site:

http://www.grainge.org/pages/authoring/air/9/air_rh9.htm

I'm tinkering with the configuration.xml file to try to control automatic air help updates for different language installs of our software so that when an auto update takes place it doesn't pull down info from a different language location. I also need to make sure that if a someone has Version 1 of our software installed that they don't pull down the Version 2 updates and so on.

Right now, suppose we have an English and a German help and our software is at Version 1.

The English help is getting installed to
"c:\program files (x86)\Portable AIR Help English\"
The German help is getting installed to
"c:\program files (x86)\Portable AIR Help German\"

In the configuration.xml file, I need to specify a different location for each language that will be receiving internet updates to the help, right?

For example, in my config file for our English help, I'm thinking of having this setting:

updatexmllocation="http://<our website location>/updates/english/v1/updates.xml"

And in my config file for our German help, I'm thinking of having this:

updatexmllocation="http://<our website location>/updates/german/v1/updates.xml"

This should force them to pull from diff locations, right?

Then when Version 2 of our software comes out, I'm thinking we would update the configuration.xml location so it pulls updates from v2:

updatexmllocation="http://<our website location>/updates/english/v2/updates.xml"

updatexmllocation="http://<our website location>/updates/german/v2/updates.xml"

Now, what about a customer who wants to install Version 2 but wants to keep his Version 1 AIR help's Favorites, Comments, etc? It sounds like we would just need to install the Version 2 config file where the AIR help expects it to be, overwriting the Version 1 config file, and then the Version 2 automatic updates would take place leaving the customer's favorites etc intact?

Report · Nov 22, 2011

In the configuration.xml file, I need to specify a different location for each language that will be receiving internet updates to the help, right?

Putting the help for different languages into a path that indicates the language is what I would also do. You will need a different configuration file for each version with the parameters required.

The update XML will, as you indicate, need to be specific to each language and be in a folder just for that language.

Each update will then keep the favourites and comments for the previous version for that language.

See www.grainge.org for RoboHelp and Authoring tips

@petergrainge

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