The Project Wizard |
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The Project Wizard |
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The Project Wizard |
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The Project Wizard |
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User's Guide - Chapter 2: The Project Wizard
Every journey begins with a first step. In Visual Patch, this first step is easily accomplished through the Project Wizard. In this chapter we will walk you through opening Visual Patch for the first time and creating a project using the Project Wizard.
Everything has to start somewhere. In Visual Patch, the design process starts with the creation of a new project.
A project is simply the collection of files and settings and everything else that goes into building a patch. A typical project will contain all of the files that you want to patch, some screens that inform or gather information from the user, and maybe a few actions to take care of any "extras" (such as storing the patched version number in a registry key for future patches to use).
The project file
Each file that you add to a Visual Patch project has individual settings that control where, when and how the file will be included in the patch at build time. Likewise, each screen that you can display has its own properties that determine everything from the text that appears on the various parts of the screen to the color of the screen itself at run time.
These settings are all stored in a single file called the project file. The project file contains all of the properties and settings of a project and the list of source files that need to be gathered up each time the project is built.
The project file is automatically created for you when you start a new project.
When you start a new project, Visual Patch’s project wizard walks you through the first few steps of project creation. This helps you get your project started quickly without missing any of the basics.
Let’s open the Visual Patch program and start a new project.
Use the Start menu to launch the Visual Patch program.
By default, you’ll find Visual Patch under:
Start > Programs > Indigo Rose Corporation > Visual Patch 3.0
The Welcome dialog appears whenever you run Visual Patch. It not only welcomes you to the program, it also lets you easily create a new project, open an existing one, or restore the last project you worked on. (Restoring the last project automatically opens the project you were working on the last time you ran Visual Patch.)
When you click on "Create a new project," the Welcome dialog closes and the project wizard appears.
First, the project wizard asks you for three pieces of information related to your project. Simply enter your company name, product name, and your company URL in the appropriate fields.
When you’ve entered all your information, click Next to move to the next step in the project wizard.
Tip: At any step in the project wizard, you can click Cancel to go straight to the program window with all of the default project settings untouched (i.e. to start with a "blank" project).
The next step in the project wizard is to specify which type of user interface your patch executable will use.
The most common patch user interface is the default Wizard style. A Wizard style interface presents the user with a series of screens that they can navigate through by clicking Next and Back buttons. Wizard interfaces are considered very user friendly because they present and request information in discrete, guided steps, which makes the overall process easier for the user to understand.
The other two interface styles are Dialog and Silent. A dialog user interface uses popup dialogs or "message boxes" as opposed to screens to guide the user through the patch. A silent patch runs entirely in the background, and has no user interaction whatsoever. It’s a great choice for unattended or automatic patching preferred by network administrators.
This step determines whether or not your patch will have a background window covering the user’s desktop.
Note: If you choose to have a background window, you can customize its appearance using the settings in this step.
If you select the background window style, you can specify how you want the background window to look. It can display a solid color throughout, a top-bottom gradient, or an image of your choosing.
This step allows you to pick a visual theme for your wizard-style patch. Each theme applies a different overall appearance to the patch.
Once you’ve selected your project theme, click Next to proceed to the next step.
Use this step to add versions to your patch. Clicking on the Add button allows you to add a version to your patch. To make adding versions to your patch as easy as possible, store each version of your software in a separate folder on your development system. Then, using this step, add those folders one by one. For each version added, you can opt to add the folder recursively, which means that all files from that point downward in the directory structure will be added.
Once you have added a folder, you must specify a key file. This is the file that Visual Patch will use to determine if your software exists on the user’s system, and what version is already installed. It is important to select a file that is version specific, such as your program’s executable, or a DLL.
Note: You can skip this step and add versions after the wizard is completed. You can also make changes to these versions, or delete them entirely in the design environment. For more information on key files, see Chapter 1.
Once you have added all of your product’s versions to the wizard, click Next to continue.
Visual Patch must be able to find your existing files on the user’s system in order to patch them. There are a number of ways that Visual Patch can do this. Your patch executable can: search for the files in the location from which it was run, retrieve a value from the registry, and search either specific folders or entire drives on the user’s system.
Enabling the Current folder option creates a "failsafe" patching method: if the user has your software installed, but the patch can’t find it, you can direct them to copy the patch to the install location and run it. This option by itself, however, is not sufficient as many users have no idea where your software is installed.
Retrieving a value from the system Registry is by far the best locating method, though it does require some forethought on your part. In order to use this method, your software installer must create a registry value during installation. Then, it is a simple matter of configuring Visual Patch to inspect that registry key so the value can be retrieved. This is the most efficient method as accessing a single registry key is quick and not resource intensive.
If neither of the previous methods has located your software, a file search can be performed. This option scans the entire system looking for your software. It is a rather intensive and lengthy operation, but is an excellent choice of last resort.
Visual Patch can retrieve your software’s installation folder from a specific registry key. Use this step to specify the location in the Registry that contains the path where your software was installed.
Visual Patch can search all or part of a user’s system for key files. Use this step to configure specific locations to search, as well as whether or not entire local and networked drives should be searched if key files are not located in the specified folders.
This option searches the user’s system for a file known to exist in your product. If found, the software’s version number is determined from key files located within the found file’s path (a VisualPatch.CheckFolderVersion action is used).
Note: Searching a user’s system for a file can be resource intensive, especially if searching entire drives. This should occur only as a last resort. Retrieving a value from a registry key is much more efficient.
There are several optional features that are useful, though not required. Creating a log file while patching is an excellent tool for diagnosing potential errors that may arise. Additionally, warning the user if they do not have Administrative privileges is an excellent way to prevent patching problems resulting from the user not having the correct permissions.
In addition, requiring that the user closes your application before the patch will continue is an excellent way to minimize ‘locked file’ issues.
Enabling the Backup patched files option creates a backup copy of any file modified during the patching process. Enabling rollback support allows files modified to be ‘rolled back’ to their unmodified versions should an error occur while patching or if the user aborts the patching process.
After you click Finish, the project wizard will close and the design environment will appear, complete with scripts, screens, and folder structures configured with the settings you chose in the project wizard.
At this point, you could build the project and generate a basic patch for those files. Of course, you’d probably want to customize the screens before distributing it. To learn how to customize the screens in your installer, see Chapter 5.
Tip: Once you’re in the design environment, you can start a new project by choosing File > New.
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