Deployment of updates, best strategy

Just curious what the best deployment strategy might be. Let's assume there are four versions of software starting with version 1, 1.1, 1.2 and the latest 1.4. Our strategy at the moment is to build update patches between the latest version and ALL previous versions, this results in wyUpdate producing updates for:

version 1 to 1.4version 1.1 to 1.4version 1.2 to 1.4version 1.3 to 1.4

This is perfect from an end-users perspective as it allows a direct path from any previous version to the most recent version. The problem is the number of patches required to be built and uploaded increases with each release which is the reason for my question.

Is it possible to leave update patches in place allowing a user to "hop-scotch" a few versions before finally downloading and updating to the latest version, best illustrated with an example. A user is currently using version 1.2 and the following update patches are available on the server:

version 1 to 1.1version 1.1 to 1.2version 1.2 to 1.3version 1.3 to 1.4

What will wyUpdate do with the scenario above? Will it download the update to version 1.3 and then proceed to download install the update to version 1.4? This would avoid us having to upload an ever increasing number of patch updates, perhaps we can leave direct routes to the latest version for the last two versions, any older versions will have to upload a sequential number of updates before hitting the version which can update itself directly to the latest version.

Thoughts?

Given the above situation is feasible is there anything we have to do to the .wys file to ensure it all works according to plan?

Right now wyBuild only provides "direct patching" (A -> D, B -> D, C -> D). We're adding incremental patching (A -> B, B -> C, C -> D) to the next version of wyBuild.

Hello Sam,

Thanks for the reply. So am I correct that wyUpdate doesn't support my proposed method of updating, i.e. from 1.2 to 1.3 to 1.4 in sequence. What would happen if there is no 1.2 to 1.4 update uplaoded. Does that mean given the current functionality the program will not detect a new version?

Thanks for the reply. So am I correct that wyUpdate doesn't support my proposed method of updating, i.e. from 1.2 to 1.3 to 1.4 in sequence

Not yet. It will be possible in the next release.

What would happen if there is no 1.2 to 1.4 update uplaoded. Does that mean given the current functionality the program will not detect a new version?

Well, the user on version 1.2 won't be able to update.

Hello, Sam.

We have the same scenario than 'paligap'.Since we have a lot of versions, it takes a while to create an update for all previous versions: it takes a lot of time to create and to upload. So, it is a very good idea using incremental updates.

You say that it will be possible in the next release. Please, When are you going to deploy the next release?

Thanks in advance.

We don't have a hard release date down. We're still tracking down some rare nasty bugs.

Do I need to keep a separate folder for each Build containing all the files for the program or just the files that have changed from version to version?

Yes, you need all the files from every version of your app (you should probably have these anyway, for support reasons). See the step-by-step walkthrough for details. Step 6 covers your question.

HiI would like wyBuild to look at my release folders, then copy the files to the version folder when I do a build

This would save me a step and would be very helpful.

Thank you, keep up the good work!

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