version check

[anan]

How do I:
1) Get app2date to check the actual versions of the software I have
installed and compare with the latest versions on the web sites?
Or:
2) Set the installed versions in a table (or somewhere) so that
app2date can access it and compare with the website versions?

[Scott Miller]

app2date doesn't scan your machine for installed software. It only
monitors websites for changes. To create entries, you'll need to add
them in app2date using the "add" button in the toolbar (green "+"
button). If there's a specific website you wish to monitor, please
reply and I can help write the matching rules.

sm

[anan]

Thanks for getting back to me quickly. I have added a few websites
and can generally get by with the regex matching strings. But, I note
that after scanning a website it makes a comparison with something to
determine if the version is "current"or "stale". What does it compare
with? I would like to set that to the versions of my installed
software.
(quick secondary question: what is the <id> tag in the a2d file?)

anan

[Scott Miller]

app2date stores the last version it has parsed in the a2d file (in the
<lastVersion> element) and uses it do determine if the parsed version
is current (parsed version matches last version) or stale (parsed
version does not match last version).

When a website is added for the first time, app2date has no way to
know what the previous version was, so it stores the parsed version as
the last version and marks the website as "current." Thus, only new
changes will be detected. If you want to set the starting version,
you would need to manually insert the starting version number in the
a2d file (in <lastVersion>). I will modify app2date in the future
release to allow setting the initial version in the UI.

The <id> tag is a random UUID used as a unique identifier within
app2date. It is created internally via
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/UUID.html#randomUUID().

hope this helps,
sm

[anan]

That solved my problem. Thanks.
(Yes, to be able to set the currently installed version in the
<lastVersion> tag,
in a user friendly manner, would definitely make life easier)
anan

On Feb 19, 11:09 pm, Scott Miller <scottmiller...@gmail.com> wrote:
> app2date stores the last version it has parsed in the a2d file (in the
> <lastVersion> element) and uses it do determine if the parsed version
> is current (parsed version matches last version) or stale (parsed
> version does not match last version).
>
> When a website is added for the first time, app2date has no way to
> know what the previous version was, so it stores the parsed version as
> the last version and marks the website as "current." Thus, only new
> changes will be detected. If you want to set the starting version,
> you would need to manually insert the starting version number in the
> a2d file (in <lastVersion>). I will modify app2date in the future
> release to allow setting the initial version in the UI.
>
> The <id> tag is a random UUID used as a unique identifier within

> app2date. It is created internally viahttp://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/util/UUID.html#randomUUID().