Check Boxes to Select Specific Packages for a Specific Software

[JohnBoyTheGreat]

I have not learned everything about Ketarin, so perhaps there is a function like this that can already be implemented, so please forgive me if I missed it.

The idea is that we might have a particular software that we want to download which comes in several flavors, based upon architecture, portability, slim vs full, LTS, and other types, and it would be nice to not have all the possible downloads in the listing, but rather that we could open an individual template and select the specific flavor or flavors of that software which we would like to download.

For example, for 7-Zip there are 32- and 64-bit install EXEs, MSIs, source code, Windows/Linux/Mac versions, console versions...and so forth. There are fifteen different choices for the most recent version of 7-Zip!!!

A person could make fifteen different entries and individually select each one, or if one entry had a way to allow someone to checkmark just which ones they wanted to save, it would tremendously reduce the number of entries in the list and simply things considerably.

This is a similar idea to my bundles idea that I just posted before this topic, except just for one piece of software. In fact, bundles could hold these individual software "bundles" complete with the checkmarked choices.

Maybe this could be implemented by giving people the choice to make an entry for "application" or an "application family". Or, even easier would be to give all the entries the option to include various flavors of a package, by selecting the option "application family" or something like that, which would then allow for multiple flavors which could be selected by check boxes.

The rest of the templates wouldn't have to change much to implement this. Variables would just be labeled with a trailing number to indicate that they represent the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. option in the list. Maybe a button next to each flavor of a package would open up individual settings for that particular flavor.

When setting up the application family, perhaps there should be a checkbox indicating whether the settings should be duplicated from the first entry, saving time entering them all in. Most of the time, I think that the variations for a particular software package live on the same download page and might only require minimal changes. The download locations should allow each flavor to go to a different location, too.

[shawn]

Templates are ideal for this purpose. Lots of examples listed here.

The biggest benefit of templates is that inevitably when a website changes how it works or even moves a period in the content that ends up messing up your application, all you have to do is fix the template itself then drag it back into Ketarin for Ketarin to update all applications based on the template. 

[JohnBoyTheGreat]

On 11/9/2025 at 5:19 PM, shawn said:

Templates are ideal for this purpose. Lots of examples listed here.

The biggest benefit of templates is that inevitably when a website changes how it works or even moves a period in the content that ends up messing up your application, all you have to do is fix the template itself then drag it back into Ketarin for Ketarin to update all applications based on the template. 

Yes, I understand templates and use them...but again it's the same problem as with my other post regarding bundles/collections...there are just too many entries in the Ketarin apps list that could be significantly reduced by having better selection/multiselection options for apps.

Rather than having a half dozen versions, including various versions for architecture and other features, we could have just a single entry for something like 7-Zip, in which you could checkmark boxes for those items you wanted downloaded, installed, updated, or whatever.

For example, for 7-Zip, it could look like this:

Update / Check for Update / Download / Install / Update & Install
□ / □ / □ / □ / □  7-Zip latest, 64-bit Windows .exe, x64
□ / □ / □ / □ / □  7-Zip latest, 32-bit Windows .exe, x86
□ / □ / □ / □ / □  7-Zip latest, 64-bit Windows .exe, ARM64
□ / □ / □ / □ / □  7-Zip latest, 64-bit Windows .msi, x64
□ / □ / □ / □ / □  7-Zip latest, 32-bit Windows .msi, x86
....etc.

That could be in a single application line, rather than the fifteen possible latest 7-Zip packages that are available. It could save a ton of time when selecting packages, and could be implemented in templates.

Ketarin users could then choose to have apps listed individually or could add them in such a app grouping. In fact, this would basically accomplish the same thing as I suggested for bundles/collections. It could just be labeled differently, with this being the default for a single app, and the other allowing people to drag apps into the bundle without removing the app from the main list.

The app groupings could nest within a bundle, same as an individual app.

I find it a bit frustrating to have fifteen different listings for the same software for each particular architecture and variation, when it could be compressed under a single app listing for each app. That's the difference between having 500 entries in Ketarin and 100, which makes a significant difference in time and effort.

[shawn]

I consider all the entries in the online database as "starters." It's a good place to begin, but if you want to control how it really works or do anything more than simply download or install then you're going to end up editing it for your own use. 

Please check out the templates. There are some pretty extensive ones that demonstrate exactly how you could do that. Others, like my WordPress example, allow you to pull down plugins or themes from WP with just a couple details from the website. @CybTekSol wrote a great tutorial on how to use them.