Packaging Your Application For Distribution

Open The GLX Application Packager

Launch the Revolution IDE and then open the glxApplicationPackager.rev stack that came with the GLX distribution files. You should not open any of your application stacks in the IDE while packaging an application. The application packager would ideally run as a standalone application but during the packaging process some scripts are modified which exceed the 10 line limit. So for the time being you must package from within the IDE.

Tip: Use a Second Copy of Revolution

I like to work on my application in one copy of Revolution and have the application packager open in a second copy of Revolution. That way I don't have to quit and relaunch Revolution each time I want to build an update. On OS X I just make a duplicate of the Revolution.app file and launch that.

Load Your Application Stack

Click on the Load Application button to load your application stack.

Selection the application.dat file for your application. This file contains all of the settings for your application.

Select a Build Profile

Select the build profile you want to package the application for. The build profile affects the auto update urls used as well as the parameter passed to glxapp_build handler in the application stack script.

Build

To build a set of files for use with auto update click Build Updater (1). To build a set of files for use with an installer click Build Installer (2).

Select Build Folder

When you click one of the build buttons you will be prompted to select a folder to build in.

Build Complete

After the application packager has finished with the build a message is displayed.

The Result

Here is a list of files that are produced when performing a build for an installer (1) and an auto update (2).

The installer files are ready to be packaged up using your favorite installer program. Stacks have been cleansed of any development custom property sets and password protected (if you have set a password).

The auto update folder contains a folder with the auto update files as well as an update.txt file. These files should be uploaded to your server. If you had set your "Base Auto Update URL" to http://www.myserver.com/test_application/auto_update and you packaged your application using the Development profile then you would upload the 1.0.1d1 folder and update.txt to http://www.myserver.com/test_application/auto_update/development. When checking for updates your application will read the update.txt file. The update.txt file will then point the GLX auto updater towards the files in the 1.0.1d1 folder.