2

I develop a Joomla component. At the moment whenever I release a new version I ask the user to download a zip file and to manually upload the changed files via FTP. While this is ok for small releases, when a lot of files have been modified it is a slow, painful and error prone process. As alarming as it may be, many users installed Joomla via Fantastico one-click install and are not familiar with or comfortable using FTP.

I have recently added support for Joomla 1.6 which seems to provide a nice update facility for automated updates. Unfortunately the documentation seems to be lacking, e.g. what is the tags element, can the download type not be "full" and if so what would that look like?

Can any one explain the update process better or provide any good examples?

Joomla 1.5 is going to be around for a long time, is there a similar update process for 1.5?

row1
  • 5,568
  • 3
  • 46
  • 72

1 Answers1

1

For Joomla 1.5 at least, there is no need to use FTP for updating. In your XML manifest you can set the component to update. Rather than download, upzip, and FTP up, all your users would need to do is download the entire package, then install via the Joomla admin.

I am not sure about 1.6, your best bet would be to take apart a 1.6 component. It is my understanding that it is a rather simple process.

Brent Friar
  • 10,588
  • 2
  • 20
  • 31
  • Thanks. For 1.5 I have seen the update attribute in an undocumented example, but I wasn't sure how well it works with partial updates or if it still requires a full install. My component includes templates and I encourage users to edit or add new ones, so a full install would not be suitable. I will now look into it and perhaps provide a warning for users with modified files. For 1.6 I would still like to see some documented examples with any tips or warning. This time I would like to implement it the right way on the first attempt. – row1 Mar 20 '11 at 15:19
  • 1
    Assuming your template is in Joomla MVC and the templates can be overridden, then full installs should not be an issue as the update will only overwrite the files in the package. Override folders should remain untouched. If your template files are commonly edited, then it would be as easy as leaving the templates out of a package and offering a full install package in addition to an upgrade package. – Brent Friar Mar 20 '11 at 19:10
  • Can anyone point to documentation or using the Joomla 1.5 update attribute for extensions? I'm finding it quite difficult to dig this up. – EFC Apr 04 '12 at 14:45
  • If you just need to know what to add, it should look like this `` – Brent Friar Apr 04 '12 at 15:48