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Hi, I'm starting this topic with a proposal of a deep integration with GitHub plataform, allowing to release our software using GitHub as a provider.
This include:

• Update:
  Allow to auto-update from GitHub, checking their API for new releases. This can also allow to use the generate .txt file from your Update System to connect to some inside releases link, the only limitation for that now is the use of Private repositories, that we need to provide a GH_TOKEN to access, it now only access a direct link.

• Publish:
  Allow Publishing artifacts to GitHub Releases in Public and Private mode, accepting GH_TOKEN for both of them, having some options:
  
  * repo String - The repository name. or Detected automatically.
  * owner String - The owner of the repo to create the URL, eg. github.com/owner/repo/releases/download/versionTag/buildOutput.msi
  * token String - The access token to support auto-update from private github repositories.
  * private Boolean - Whether to use private github auto-update provider if GH_TOKEN environment variable is defined.
  * releaseType String - "draft" | "prerelease" | "release" - The type of release. Allow user to specify if he wants some clients to receive a prerelease for test proposal

I would love to see this, and also some of the costumers would love too.
If this get into production, the priority could be the Update, since this should work properly with the already implement update system from Advanced Installer.

Thanks for your patience.

Hello and welcome to our forums,

Thank you for your suggestion. I've noted it down on our feature request list and hopefully we will be able to provide dedicated Git integration in the future.

Once such feature will be released we will update this thread.

All the best,
Daniel

Any updates on this feature?

Hello,

Unfortunately, this improvement has not yet been added.

I have now increased its priority and hopefully it will be added in a future version of Advanced Installer.

We will update this thread as soon as this improvement will be implemented.

Best regards,
Catalin

Great, I'll be following that thread then. The lack of GitHub integration is literally my only gripe with Advanced Installer, everything else's awesome.

Hello and welcome to Advanced Installer forums,

I will update this thread as soon as this will be implemented.

Also, thank you for your kind words. We're glad Advanced Installer has been helpful for you.

Best regards,
Catalin

Hello guys,

We've started to do some research in this matter and we would like to ask you for some more details about how you want our Updater to be integrated with GitHub (if possible, with some examples - the more, the merrier).

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
Catalin

I do not speak for marceloavf, but I also want to support this feature request, as I see great potential in this (especially for my open source project for which I need to manually provide a separated file hosting in parallel to GitHub Releases).

I can think of the following solution:

• Configure a build to have a GitHub Integration enabled (for automatic publishing through GitHub Releases API).

  

  Builds.png (107.48KiB)Viewed 25497 times

• Configure Updater to use GitHub Releases API to check for updates.

  

  Updater.png (90.19KiB)Viewed 25497 times

Note: I labeled the field "Release Name" incorrectly, it should be "Artifact Name" (the filename of the artifact associated with the release).

Having the GitHub API token, you select the GitHub project (maybe with the possibility to configure a custom hostname --> GitHub On Premise), and define the file name of the setup to be uploaded via GitHub API to the releases. The sample picture is missing the GitHub Releases key, but this could be determine using the ProductVersion and adding a "v" in front of it, as may GitHub projects using this tagging schema (e.g., "v1.2.3.4").

On the updater side, there is not GitHub API token necessary - actually it is dangerous to have it shipped to the customer, as it is an access token to the authors GitHub account.
The GitHub Releases API should always be visible to anonymous users (e.g. the Updater without an token). So the Updater checks the GitHub Releases API for versions that are higher than the currently installed version (based on GitHub Release tags, e.g. "v1.2.5.1"). It shall consider the "pre-release" flag, and ignore releases with this flag enabled.
GitHub Releases have a "description", which could be used to showcase the changes.
Regarding the "normal" and "critical" status of an individual update, Advanced Installer could search for keywords in the description, such as "#critical" or "#security" or "#vulnerability".

Please keep in mind that this are my quick thoughts about this idea, and I do not speak for marceloavf.
However, I would love to see this feature in upcoming releases.
Please consider to make this feature available also for the free edition of Advanced Installer, as this would increase the awareness of Advanced Installer in the Open Source community due to having a free-of-charge, robust installer with GitHub integration for their free-of-charge Open Source project.

Hello,

Thank you very much for your feedback and this.

I have forwarded it to our development team.

If you have any other suggestions, please let me know.

Best regards,
Catalin

Hello,

The last time I read your suggestions, it seems that somehow I overlooked this:

Please consider to make this feature available also for the free edition of Advanced Installer, as this would increase the awareness of Advanced Installer in the Open Source community due to having a free-of-charge, robust installer with GitHub integration for their free-of-charge Open Source project.

I have discussed with the developer in charge of this big improvement and, due to the work required to implement this (because we want to deep-dive into this, making it as complete as possible), we believe that this should be part of the Professional suite (where the Updater feature resides).

However, as you have mentioned the Open-Source community as being the reason of why you would like this to be implemented into the Freeware suite of Advanced Installer, please do not forget that we offer free licenses for Open-Source projects:

https://www.advancedinstaller.com/free-license.html

Please let me know what you think of this. Is there any other reason as to why you would like the Updater integration with GitHub included in the Freeware version of Advanced Installer, beside the one discussed above?

Also, if you are part of the Open-Source community, please do not hesitate to share the above information (that we offer free licenses for Open-Source projects) with other members.

Best regards,
Catalin

I totally was unaware of a free/open-source license for AI. However, I was (still am, but less active) an open source developer, and could not find such license option for AI back then.

Maybe you can advertise the option more prominent?

Personally, I own a Professional license. I just have a good experience with AI (easy to use), and want to give some hints how AI could help the open source community, and in return receive more awareness, and maybe an increase in purchases.

Hello,

First of all, thank you for your feedback on this!

I totally was unaware of a free/open-source license for AI. However, I was (still am, but less active) an open source developer, and could not find such license option for AI back then.

Well, as far as I'm aware, the free license offer is available for about 6 or 7 years now.

Maybe you can advertise the option more prominent?

This offer is described even on our Download page:

https://www.advancedinstaller.com/download.html

(scroll down --> "Free Advanced Installer license")

Though, I will further discuss this with our Marketing team and we will try to advertise the offer more prominently.

Best regards,
Catalin

Hello,

This improvement has been implemented in Advanced Installer 17.1, released on May 27th, 2020.

Best regards,
Catalin

Hi Catalin,

Thank you so much for implementing this feature, it's exactly what i was looking for!

I'm however trying to set it up and I can't seem to get it to work and the documentation is pretty vague for this feature https://www.advancedinstaller.com/user- ... ntegration

The first step in the documentation says:
1. Set "Updates configuration file URL" to a GitHub updates URL

I am assuming by Github updates URL you mean the url to an updates config file in github?
What information does that config file need to contain?
I have tried, using an empty file, using a file with just ;aiu; on the first line and using just my old updates config file.

All of the options lead to an error message when running the "Check for updates": Invalid or missing updates configuration file. The first line of the .INI file should be ;aiu;. It is possible that the content on the server does not match the updates configuration file url.

Is it a known bug or can you provide some more information about how to get this setup and working?

I'm on version 17.1.1 professional.

Thank you,
R.

Hi Catalin,

I know you’re looking into this but I was wondering if you have an update or an ETA. Our open-source project is ready to be released and we’re just waiting on this.

Thanks in advance.