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Here's a tool to inform all users of your skin of an update

Skins that control functions in Windows or Rainmeter
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Virginityrocks
Posts: 478
Joined: February 26th, 2011, 10:22 pm

Here's a tool to inform all users of your skin of an update

Post by Virginityrocks »

Here's something I cooked up. It's a simple tool for anyone wondering how to display notifications to users that their skin is out of date. You can have text or an image appear on your skin whenever the current version of the skin they are using is of a lower number than one posted online. Here's how to do it.

Image

A) Go to Google Drive and sign in using your Google account.
B) Create a new folder. Call it "UpdateXML". Right click on the folder and select "Share"
C) Change the share setting from Private to Public on the Web.

D) Open up the ZIP file and edit the .XML file. You can see in <version></version> the number 12. This is to be the version number of your most recently released skin.
E) Save the .XML file and drag and drop both the .XML and the .HTML file into the folder you created.
F) Open the .HTML file and press the preview button. In the url box, change "ExampleUpdate.html" to "ExampleUpdate.xml"

G) You will see the XML file displayed in your browser. Copy the entire URL and paste in Url= of the [VersionRSS] config of the CheckUpdate.ini file.
H) Change ["http://www.example.com"] to the URL of where the user can download your skin, IE, DeviantArt or your website.

You can put this code in any of your skins to inform users when the version they are running becomes out of date. When you change the value of the <version></version> in the XML file, it will instantly display an update notification to all users in the world using your skin.

Whenever you release a new version online, reupload ExampleUpdate.xml to the Folder in Google Drive with a higher <version></version> number, and delete the previous ExampleUpdate.xml file from Google Drive.

And before you package your RMSKIN and share it online, change the value of #SkinVersion# to its proper version number. (The same version number as you've put in ExampleUpdate.xml)
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Droptop Four
Dropdown menu bar & app launcher for Windows & Rainmeter
dragonmage
Developer
Posts: 1270
Joined: April 3rd, 2009, 4:31 am
Location: NC, US

Re: Here's a tool to inform all users of your skin of an upd

Post by dragonmage »

Clever!
Basya Lanti
Posts: 7
Joined: October 7th, 2012, 10:39 am

Re: Here's a tool to inform all users of your skin of an upd

Post by Basya Lanti »

Nice Idea !
I like it and it rocks.

I had an idea of doing something like that myself too in the past but I didn't give it any further thoughts since I'm often too lazy to put the pieces in place.
When I'm in the coding mood, I will have a more closer look at your code.
In my future skins I might be coding something similar too.
Thanks for sharing.

Basya Lanti.
User avatar
Virginityrocks
Posts: 478
Joined: February 26th, 2011, 10:22 pm

Re: Here's a tool to inform all users of your skin of an upd

Post by Virginityrocks »

Thanks. The instructions aren't as clear as they could be. It's built into my current version of Desktop+, so that once I release a new version, those users will know.
Droptop Four
Dropdown menu bar & app launcher for Windows & Rainmeter
User avatar
Arlan2309
Posts: 7
Joined: February 13th, 2013, 5:02 am
Location: Indonesia

Re: Here's a tool to inform all users of your skin of an upd

Post by Arlan2309 »

Thanks for sharing! :great: :thumbup: