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Auto Updater

Application developers often release new versions of their applications. Neutralinojs offers a simple and extendable software updater for all supported operating systems. As you already know, Neutralinojs bundles all application resources to the resources.neu file. The auto updater basically replaces the existing resources.neu with the latest application resources over the network.

Creating the update manifest#

When you ask Neutralinojs to check for updates, it will check the update manifest via the network. Update manifest refers to a JSON document which has the following format.

{
"applicationId": "js.neutralino.sample",
"version": "0.0.2",
"resourcesURL": "http://example.com/updater_test/update_res.neu",
"data": {
}
}
  • applicationId String: Application identifier. You need to use the same name you used in neutralinojs.config.json. Otherwise, the update check operation will not proceed.
  • version String: Application version.
  • resourcesURL String: A link to download resources.neu. You can use any file name as you wish, but make sure to serve data with the Content-Type: application/octet-stream header.
  • data Object (optional): Additional data about the update. Accepts any JSON value.

Hosting the update manifest and resources#

Host the application manifest and resources file on the internet or a private network according to your access requirements. You can test auto updater locally by setting up a static server or placing update manifest and the resource file into your application's resources directory.

Also, you can setup a DevOps pipeline to automate your application updates if you need. If you release a new application version by upgrading Neutralinojs server, users have to download/install the app again since the auto updater only update application resources (including Neutralinojs client).

Writing code to update your app#

Call the following function whenever you need to check for updates.

try {
let url = "http://example.com/updater_test/update_manifest.json";
let manifest = await Neutralino.updater.checkForUpdates(url);
}
catch(err) {
// Handle errors
}

Next, you can use the manifest object to compare versions.

try {
let url = "http://example.com/updater_test/update_manifest.json";
let manifest = await Neutralino.updater.checkForUpdates(url);
if(manifest.version != NL_APPVERSION) {
await Neutralino.updater.install();
await Neutralino.app.restartProcess();
}
}
catch(err) {
// Handle errors
}

As shown in the above code snippet, you can call Neutralino.updater.install to perform the update based on the downloaded manifest. Later, restart the application with the app.restartProcess function.

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