Greetings Folks!
Would you mind taking a look at the following layout for a Form Scanning Server application that I'm working on? This application will run on both Mac OS X and Windows platforms and the purpose of it is to interface with both Scantron scanners and NCS/Pearson scanners. It will drive the scanners, reading and parsing the scanned form data, and transmit the data to a client application which may or may not be running on the same computer.
My goal with this layout is to allow this application to update itself with updates from a web site that we maintain. The updates will be enhancements or bug fixes. I want to be able to update all parts of the application, as necessary. It is my understanding that will require TWO separate executables because a running application cannot replace itself.
So, here is a sample layout on the Mac OSX Side:
Scanning Server.app (this is the application bundle)
Contents
MacOS
Scanning Server (this is the MachO executable. it
has a splash screen stack and the runtime)
Plugins (this is a folder that holds other stacks used
by the application)
MainApplication.rev (This is the stack that is
opened by the splash screen)
stack1.rev (sample other stack)
....
updater.rev (this stack has the logic for the
download updates code)
Updater (this is a MachO executable. it has a copy
of the runtime and calls the updater.rev stack
to do its work)OK, here is how it works. The "Scanning Server" mach-o executable that contains the splash screen and the RR runtime loads the main application stack.
If you want to check for updates to the application, it loads the updater.rev stack and does it thing. If it finds any updated stack files, it downloads them (compressed, with the .gz extension, to the plugins folder).
If we find an update to the "Scanning Server" mach-o executable, the one that contains the splash screen and the RR runtime, then we startup the "Updater" executable. When it starts, it tells the "Scanning Server" to quit. Then it downloads and installs the updated "Scanning Server". When the updated "Scanning Server" has been installed, the "Updater" starts it and then quits.
So, under normal circumstances, the "Scanning Server" mach-o executable that contains the runtime is the one that loads the other stacks that the application needs to function. One other function of the splash screen stack is to replace any old stack files with newly-downloaded stack files before invoking the main application.
So the normally-functioning application uses the RR runtime that is bundled with the splash screen. If that splash screen / runtime needs to be updated, it uses the second application (the "Updater", also with a bundled runtime) to do that job.
Organization on the Windows side is similar:
Installation Folder (holds everything)
Scanning Server.exe (splash screen and runtime)
Plugins (folder)
MainApplication.rev
stack1.rev (sample other stack)
...
updater.rev
Updater.exe (the other executable)
So, what do you think? Does this make sense or am I way off base????
Thanks a bunch!
--gordon _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
