Graal Update Packages!
 

GUPD's, Graal Update Packadges

Since no one posted any "FAQ" about them before and little playerworlds are using them I decided to type up a small guide so that people/servers will use them more oftenly.

What are gupd's?
gupd's are basicly packadges containing info needed to automaticly run updates and/or show updates in the Graalv4 "Update" tab.

Every time a Graalv4 client logs onto any given server it will check if the file basepack.gupd excists on the server and attempt to run it.

You can edit/create gupd files with any kind of word/text editor. Best would be to automaticly assign them to the editor of your choice for fast editing.

Be sure to add file *.gupd to your server's folder configurations. You could also put it in a more private folder to prevent other staff from editing them.

gupd file example:
This gupd file can be found in your Graal game folder within the subfolder updatepackages

Most of the actions inside of the gupd are pretty easy to understand;
NAME, will display the name of the packadge. Giving the "basepack" the name of your server would be wise I guess, since it will show up ontop of the "tree" in the update tab.

PLATFORM, will allow you to limit files for a certain system. Possible flags; any,win,linux,mac

VERSION, Increase this number wich each update you make to a specific package. This way players can see if the package has been update, they can click "Update" if a packadge version is diffrent from the one they downloaded before.

SUBPACKAGE, list the files you wish to be added into the tree. You can use this to split up your gupd files instead of making one "huge" file containing everything that needs to be updated. (Not a great way of putting it =P)

Item description, example:
MODE ,available package modes: base - updates are checked at each login (can be slow if it contains many files), required - updates are checked if the local version differs, optional - only downloaded if the user downloads it, we will improve this soon though to display a special window where it tells you about optional updates (like new RCs)

FLAG popupforoptionalpackages=false/true, Putting this in a optional pack (When the MODE isn't set to required) will create a popup where the player can choose to download it. Cancel/Ok

FILE FOLDERNAME+FILENAME, these are basicly the files that the packadge downloads. You are required to list the exact location on your server.
e.g FILE levels/images/block.png
Do every "FILE ..." on a new line
The files are put in the same folder as on your server. It might be wise to use nicely arranged foldernames containing your server name; e.g levels/Npulse/images/ ect
But than again that is totaly up to you, also try to prefix your server files (See "Lance's sticky post")

PS: Note that that there are functions that I did not list thats either because
1) I'm not 100% sure of their function
2) I'm not aware of these functions

Also note that I am not an expert just a goofball trying to get people to use gupd's more extensively. Imagine a server like unholy nation having a optional update for the heads that where added for Each Month (wow... that would save us some ingame lag now)

Looks quite good, may be we should add this on wiki.graal.net.
Two things:
- with the update packages people can only download files which they normally can do too, so it should not be any security problem
- available package modes: base - updates are checked at each login (can be slow if it contains many files), required - updates are checked if the local version differs, optional - only downloaded if the user downloads it, we will improve this soon though to display a special window where it tells you about optional updates (like new RCs)

Thanks for the additional information, anyhow my goal was just to post it and get people that manage a server to actualy be aware that the automatic/optional updates also work on their server. Since I noticed that not many of the "Classic/Hosted" server staff where aware of the gupd's.

Can you select it to download the whole contents of a folder?

IE the contents of folder levels/images/ ???

That way it wont need to have like 3000 lines for 3000 files.. can just put them in one folder.

I am not sure a player will want to download a 3000 file update. And it'll be pretty harsh to force them to do it upon logon.

Was just an example >_>

Bad example. Not a bad idea.

I like Warcaptain's idea because you can just put files to be part of an update package in (for example): levels/updates. And instead of editing .gupd files everytime you add/remove files, you can juse edit what are in folders.

I posted a small tutorial on the Graal bible for this a while back.
http://wiki.graal.net/index.php/Crea...pdate_Packages

How did you yourself learn how to do it if no one uploaded a FAQ? o_O

Graal/updatepackages/, all of the options are pretty straight forward.

Above your post (around 3-4 months ago :O) he posted a wiki on it which helped me to on how to do it aswell. Read

So, i've been playing around with the update packages, they seem pretty simple to understand. However, how do I download the G2K2 music files? I see there are three kingdommusic subpackages in there, but I don't know how to use them, or where to enter them...

Uhm...

Go on Graal --> Click Start --> Click Start --> Click Install Packages

look for GK Music (1/2/3) and click Install on each. Now wait o.O

Uh....wow I feel like an idiot. I never even saw that damn button there. Thanks!

Hehe yeah :p