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kwe

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  1. Folks; I've been learning Linux lately and one of the intriguing capabilities that Linux has that Windows doesn't is the idea of a "software repository" which includes client software that can automatically download and update software selected from a pre-defined repository of Linux software. Multiple repositories can be used, the client interface can be used to select software to install, and the client automatically keeps the installed software up-to-date from the repository. I've looked for such software capability for Windows and have found none. An important limitation for my application is that software updates should be accomplished on limited user accounts (as Linux does). Surun.exe solves this problem for Windows by allowing limited users to run selected applications with admin privilege (as sudo does for Linux). I'm thinking of ways to use Ketarin.exe to build a software repository for multiple limited users to use to update applications on multiple Windows workstations. Has anyone already built something like this? Is there interest in making Ketarin work more like a Linux software repository? While you might not be interested in creating a general repository for Ketarin users due to shareware issues, the idea of refining the contributed templates into something more like a repository seems like a good idea to me.
  2. Thank you, appyface. Rather intimidating learning curve on regular expressions if I am to judge from this example, but I should be able to make very good use of your expression, which gives me this expression ---> :-)
  3. I haven't tried this yet, but would it be possible to run a command batch file (eg, install.bat)? If so, would you run those commands through a parser so that your Ketarin variables can be used in the batch file or could you make the Ketarin variables DOS environment variables? It doesn't really matter since all these variables can be re-created in commands in the batch file. If it is possible to run standard command batch files, then I can post examples of how to run installs from batch files that check installed version number, use msi transforms, uninstall previous versions, and on and on. I know you don't want to turn Ketarin into an automated updater, but there is a lot you can do with batch files to automate installation after you download a new file. In fact, once you see how it's done with DOS commands or if you want to use VBScript or PowerShell, automated installation follows one of a few standard templates. I know, you can always launch the installer manually and click buttons, but most of your users are pretty geeky and might enjoy automating the installation process. :-) It would also make it easier to share the app with grandma. Windows Steady State is a Microsoft application for managing public workstations that permits running custom update scripts. I plan to see how Ketarin works with Steady State, probably next month. That would be a hands-free update process capability.
  4. What I do is create a {version} variable from one of the download site pages, or I use {version} if I am using FileHippo and then I define a target file (not folder) and name the file GoogleChrome_installer-{version}.exe Seems to cover the situation for me. I've gotten pretty good at extracting version strings from web pages using the buttons in the Edit box. I always create a {version} variable even if I don't use it in the download target so that I can display the version number in the custom column. Helps me keep track of what I need to install.
  5. Wow, you've been busier than this new user. I just wanted to comment that the most useful regular expression I could use right now is one that matches a particular string and then matches another string to start the variable selection, followed by the string to demarc the end of the variable. This works just like the current buttons except that there is a new first button that says in effect "start looking for the demarc string only after you find this string". Very useful for example to find the part of the web page that refers to Windows rather than Linux and then to search for the version number. Anybody using any variables other than {version} and {url}? I could think of {appname} but Florian already agreed to define that per-app from the name that you put in the Edit box. I'd love to see your configs. Do they use a lot of FileHippo or "straight to the source"?
  6. Yup. Works fine with 0.9.9.10. @floele I'm using 0.9.9.19 and I see a variation on this bug. If I change the target path and move the download folder to match the new target, Ketarin will still download the file even if the version is the same and the file is exactly where the target path says it has been changed to, and even if the filename is unique to each version. This only happens if I use FileHippo with "no beta versions" and it only happens the one time after I change the target path and only if I spec a target folder, not a filename. I don't suppose this is a big deal, except that the filename is unique (it includes the version in a different format than you extract from FileHippo.com), so you aren't matching and retaining the FileHippo version to the unique filename. If I spec the filename using the FH {version}, this problem doesn't happen because the version string matches exactly. I only mention this in case it turns out useful to match the unique filename to the FileHippo version string. Of course, if the filename is not unique per version, I suppose using the MD5 is the best alternative. Nevermind. :-)
  7. I like your advice about {root}. I'll have to experiment a little more and see if that can help me use the same XML config file on both my desktop and USB drive by using the pre-defined {root} global variable. So I'm thinking {root}{repository}\{category}\{appname} would be a good name for the application folder. {repository} could be a user-defined global variable and the others are pre-defined. If {root} varies by the location of ketarin executable as I think it does, then I wouldn't have to worry about USB drive letters changing from one machine to another.
  8. I'd like to define the global variable {root} as something like D:\Downloads and override the default. Then I could define my download path as {root}\{category}\{appname}\ if {appname} existed for each database entry. Would it be possible to create a pre-defined variable like {appname} that corresponds to the first field in the Edit box? It would be nice if you could define some buttons so I could easily paste these pre-defined variables into the Download Location with a few clicks. Thanks for a great tool.
  9. I'm a new Ketarin user and I've been having fun importing and creating my software installers and I had a nice idea for how to manage the location of the download folders. I want to use Ketarin on my desktop and my USB drive and one way to do that using the same xml config files is to define a global variable that I called {Repository}. Each of my download folder locations looks like {Repository}\<appfolder>\filename. For my desktop the Repository variable is one value (eg, D:\Downloads) and for my USB drive it is another (eg, K:\Ketarin). If you need a tool to make sure that your USB drive letter remains the same, use usbdlm (USB Drive Letter Manager). Or just edit the one global variable once for all your apps whenever you update your USB drive. Ketarin is going to be great for keeping my malware remover tools up-to-date on the USB drive.
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