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[WIP] Release Manager. (Installer, Patcher, Launcher)

Discussion in 'Works In Progress - Archive' started by Travis-Bulford, Mar 25, 2015.

  1. HitsuSan

    HitsuSan

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    I'm glad to see there are still plans for Html5, i'm sure you won't have any money related problems once you launch this on the asset store ^^
     
    Travis-Bulford likes this.
  2. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Trial Version of Release Manager

    Download Trial

    We have made a trial version available for evaluation. If you have been watching this thread but have been unsure if the product will work for you, download the trial and see for yourself.

    Please feel free to give feedback and suggestions even if you only have the trial version.

    We look forward to hearing from you.
     
  3. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Hi @Maffew,

    Happy to put it in 0.1.8 you keen to test for us?
     
  4. tubbz0r

    tubbz0r

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    Well I just purchased the product on the website but there is no download link anywhere?
     
  5. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Hi Tubbz, what email address did you use for your purchase? I am looking now. Email me at travis@celestial-games.com

    Regards
    Travis
     
  6. tubbz0r

    tubbz0r

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    Sent you an email.
     
  7. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Hi @tubbz0r ,

    Sent you what you need in email, please do give feedback good or bad, we need to know.

    Travis
     
  8. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Hello everyone watching the thread,

    We are looking more closely at how we could tie ReleaseManager and your application together. In particular user authentication has come up.

    We are considering a few ways to make release manager handle user authentication but would like to hear your thoughts too so we can get a good coverage.

    So if you do use an authentication solution please let us know what it is and how it would integrate so we can get a few ideas of how to cover this issue well.
     
  9. Maffew

    Maffew

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    Hi @Travis Bulford,

    I'd love to test it sure. I'll keep an eye out for the update.

    Thanks
     
  10. bis-obinna

    bis-obinna

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    Hey @Travis Bulford ,

    Authentication integration sounds amazing. In our case, it'd be nice to send a POST request (+ ability to add hidden fields) to our server to perform the validation and on the response, we can either deny or confirm authentication before allowing the client into the game.

    One more thing...

    Another thing that would be nice is to be able to script the release process (via command line or something). Integrating the creation of new releases and patches into our CI workflow, would be grrreat.

    Thanks for all your hard work and great product.
     
  11. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Cool, well we currently looking at a few models.
    • A Post/Response system that is reasonably configurable.
    • Our own solution that hooks into the pin/account system we use for ReleaseManager now.
    • PlayFab integration.
    • Custom HTML5 version.
    By hidden fields I assume you mean fields posted that the user does not enter.

    We have this on the cards, what CI tool do you use? We use Jenkins and the Unity build servers (no idea how to bind into those).

    The current thinking would be a single instruction to
    1. Open a project.
    2. Compile all releases up to date.
    3. Upload all releases.
    4. Make latest release Live.
    Option would be
    • Patch or Full Releases.
    • {actually cant think of any more}
     
  12. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Release Notes
    Unity store support, better downloading, some bug fixes and splash images replaceable.

    General
    • You can now replace the splash images for your packager.
    • Can now register with a Unity Asset store invoice number.
    • Fixed a bug in trail mode that stopped the trail version from working.
    Launcher
    • More robust downloading of images for Launcher.
    Launcher Updater
    • More robust downloading of Launcher updates.
    • Now supports replaces splash images (requires a new installer).
     
  13. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Splash Images - New Feature Highlight

    So as some of you know Release Manager has a little splash screen that shows up when there are some bits that need to be downloaded before your launcher is shown.

    The splash will show in one of the two following situations.

    A new Launcher
    If you push out a new launcher it will download about 1meg to patch the launcher. This is good since it allows you to bug fix anything we might pick up in the launcher after your client has installed, but of course it requires a download. (We did notice a bug that was making the new Launcher download more often the needed and that is fixed now).

    When a new Launcher was downloading it shows a grey box with 0101010101 and a loading bar. This box is displayed by the LauncherPatcher that is the actual initial launching application.

    A new Launcher Design
    If you create a new design for your launcher and push it to your customers they will download it and cache it locally. This displays a gray box with a colorful stripe over it and a progress bar.

    Many have been asking for a way to change this boxes and it makes sens you really want to own your digital identity. We have added the boxes to the same screen you do packaging and icons on. Unfortunately for now this change goes out with a new installer, this is because the bit that shows that bar is not updated after installation.

    The new bar looks like this

    upload_2016-4-28_17-41-32.png
    The system automatically calculates the left to right changes between your images and scans across that range as a progress bar.

    With the changes we will latter be able to change these images on the fly from the Release Manager front end.

    Happy Releasing.
     
  14. Maffew

    Maffew

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    Hi @Travis Bulford,

    Sorry to keep bugging you. Any idea when you'll look into exposing that S3 URL? I can't deploy my application until I can edit the account info.
    I can use my FTP in the short term but ideally I'd like it to be on the clients S3 bucket.

    Thanks,

    Matt
     
  15. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Sending you a pm @Maffew.
     
  16. omerelfassy

    omerelfassy

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    I must say that it's working great!
    I've tried the trial version and after 2 hours of watching the 7 tutorials i've successfully released my first Installer/Launcher for my game using AWS S3 Bucket.

    I have few questions though, that I haven't seen in the tutorials.

    1. When will i be able to release a version for MAC?
    2. Instead of using 2 different buttons for Update & Play, is it possible to do it on the same button?
    3. i've tried to replace the Splash images and it doesn't work, i've tried to create a new package like i've red below and it still doesn't work... When i restart the program, for some reason it ignores my images and it uses the original once that you provided.
    4. How do i upload a new font?
    5. On the button designer you have click-normal, click on hover and click-disable. please add click-press (it means that the png will be changed when the button is pressed/clicked).

    2016-04-30_012428.jpg


    Thanks,
    Omer
     
    Last edited: Apr 30, 2016
  17. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Hi Omer,

    Thanks for trying Release Manager and for the feedback. Also that's a great looking launcher BTW love the graphics.

    Good to know it all went well, ease of use has been a drive for some time.

    MAC has been a thorn in our side for a while (mostly because we not MAC users so its an environment we just unfamiliar with, all the tech we using works on MAC). We hoping it will make it into 0.1.9 the next release. 0.1.9 is a big feature release.

    Not yet, we are planning to add light scripting (JavaScript) to the buttons and displays so you can turn buttons on and off as the state changes. Having said that I think the requirements for an Update/Play buttons might be enough to create a special type of buttons that dopes that. I will add that to our backlog.

    The splash images currently are pushed out with the installer, they are not update able after installation in 0.1.8. The ability to update them after instillation is planned for 0.1.9. I will retest that this morning and make sure it works again.

    Just drag a font into the resources view and when you describe what font to use write its name in the font selection.

    Will add that to the designer backlog its not too much effort and we agree it should be there, will be added with click sounds.

    Regards
    Travis
     
  18. ToshoDaimos

    ToshoDaimos

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    Does it support P2P patching? Do you have to download everything from the main sever?
     
  19. omerelfassy

    omerelfassy

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    Thank you for your answers.
    I've purchased Release Manager in order to use it when I release my game.
    I'll come up with some questions from time to time.

    1. Is it possible to digitally sign it using a code signing certificate?
    If so, how?

    2. I use 2 different computers (2 different locations - office&home), is it possible to sync between the programs? is there a configuration file that i can copy-paste?

    Thanks,
    Omer
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2016
  20. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Thanks for getting Release Manager and all questions and suggestions welcome.

    You means to sign the Windows executable? I have not investigated that yet. I suspect it could be done with WiX the tool we use for compiling the installer. I will add it to the backlog in the mean time. We have some other security tickets I will make this part of.

    We do this with Dropbox, it works perfectly that way and also we then have a backup of the full project. Release Manager currently doesn't have any special support for synchronization.
     
  21. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Just did a quick search looks like WiX has support for signing so that's good news.

    http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/overview/insignia.html

    We will be making the WiX templates configurable so people can customize the installer but I suspect doing so is a bit hard but will be available before we integrate the signing ourselves.

    My main concern would be to figure out how to do this with minimum support. Security concepts are confusing at the best of times.

    We too would like to sign our installers will try figure that out first then see how to put it into the solution.
     
  22. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Hello,

    Currently everything is downloaded from your server, P2P support is not currently planned in any large way only in the on lan way latter.

    Will investigate and see if there is a suitable P2P solution we could consider.
     
  23. SubZeroGaming

    SubZeroGaming

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    holy S***...well done.
     
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  24. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Thanks, still some key features to get done.
     
  25. omerelfassy

    omerelfassy

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    great idea.
    so you actually installed Release Manager into Dropbox? or just created the project in it?
    Anyway, I'm trying it at the moment.

    Do you also offer custom made changes service? (for payment of course).
    For example: that update/play button I've mentioned above.
    If it's not the right place to talk about it, here's my email: omer@runewards.com

    more questions:
    1. Is it possible to add "Login/Password" window in the Launcher? (like blizzard's battle net launcher).
    2. is it possible to make "Install" button instead of "Update" for the first run?
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2016
  26. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Just the project, try make sure you only open it on one machine at a time, we are thinking how to make this work better, but its worth noting for now to only have it open from one instance at a time.

    I will mail you about this, however the button change you suggested wont be something you need to worry about we have already planned it for 0.1.9.

    We have taken this on as a task, its no small thing since there are so many ways for this to work and so many systems it could work with. It also requires some serious updates tot eh designer since flow features will be needed to make this effective.

    Oh nice suggestion, will look into that, should be pretty easy to do.

    Thanks for the great suggestions.

    Travis
     
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  27. Ajsoman

    Ajsoman

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    Hi, is it possible to create an offline installer.
    We have clients with bad or no internet connection so we need an offline version too.
     
  28. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Hi Ajsoman,

    We have completed that feature in the 0.1.9 stream that is currently in development. We also wanted that feature for potential disk installations. This version is due towards the end of next month.

    Regards
    Travis
     
  29. Ajsoman

    Ajsoman

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    Compile ERROR:
    5 files will require disk to compile they can not be processed

    What does it really men? And how to fix it?
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2016
  30. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Hello,

    That happens when there is not enough ram available to compile the current file (currently Release Manager is only using about 4-5g ram no matter how much you have. The next release 0.1.9 includes tools to let you configure that)

    You can allow the system to use disk when ram is low. On the Manager tab there is a drop down with the number of threads to use when compiling, below that is a check box that says Use Disk. It defaults to off, check that and try compile again.

    Also let me know the size of the largest file you are trying to compile, typically the system requires about 12x the volume of ram to process a single file. Release Manager does have a physical limit for a file of 2gig.

    Regards
     
  31. Ajsoman

    Ajsoman

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    the file was around 6gb its a sharedassets from my unity build data folder.
    I checked the box for "use disk" but in the compile process the RM app is constantly not responding.
     
  32. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Wow, that is one huge asset.

    Currently we can only cater for 2gig files due to the index able size of a 32bit signed number.

    Looks like we might need to address this earlier then we had anticipated. I will start looking at how we can handle larger files.
     
  33. Ajsoman

    Ajsoman

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    I looked at my sharedassets in data folder, and the largest one is 660 mb.
    Sorry for the miss information i was being dumm :D.

    I started whit disk memory a second time and it seems to be working.
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2016
  34. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Ok thanks,

    a file that size would need 6-7gig ram to process in ram. I sort of started building the 6g file processor as a knee jerk reaction anyway :D

    The compile process is very memory hungry and on disk its VERY very slow so please get comfortable.

    Out of curiosity how much ram does you machine have?
     
  35. Ajsoman

    Ajsoman

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    6gb of ram, but i am now transfering RM and all data to machine with 16 gb of ram. I am testing your product for now, is it suitable for our needs, so i am using the trail version. But i am happy with product and the support too, so we are probably going to buy RM.

    This asset file is an exception in our products because of an sprite animation system that it is using .
     
  36. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Hi Ajsoman,

    You may still end up at disk with a 600mb file. The next patch includes the ability to configure the memory for execution. I am happy to make that stream available if needed so you can test. Alternatively use disk it will just take longer but will work.

    Regards
    Travis
     
  37. Ajsoman

    Ajsoman

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    I would be happy to test new that. Just a small suggestion, it would be great to have a testing version like you have a current version, So we do not need to make to projects (one for testing, one for releasing).
     
  38. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Hi Ajsoman,

    We considered creating a beta and a live stream in one version, but inevitably decided having two projects was easier to manage. We ended up wanting to have two sets of icons two installations and two launchers. We are building features in so the Live project can copy a version from the test one. That way you achieve the same thing but have different streams.

    This way you could have a Test, Beta and Live stream as apposed to just two.

    Alternatively if you want to you can release a single project with both the beta and the live in separate folders. With different Launch buttons for both.
     
  39. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Unity Asset Store Update

    After a few discussions with Unity we are sad to announce that Release Manager will NOT be coming to the Unity Asset Store.

    This is due to the fact that Release Manager does not meet the Unity Asset Store requirements. As a separate application that is only integrated partially into Unity we can not sell Release Manager from the Store.

    We will of course still be selling it from our own Store. We hope and trust this will not deter you from using the product.

    Without access to the store discovery is a huge challenge for us, we ask that if you like Release Manager please tell your indie friends.

    We remain as committed to Release Manager as ever and 0.1.9 is still on track for end of next month.


    Best Regards
    Travis Bulford
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2016
  40. DomDomDom

    DomDomDom

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    Hey Travis!

    The updates have been looking amazing, and I love using Release Manager!

    Quick suggestion and question for you. First, would it be possible to schedule patches/releases? For instance, I have a build ready to push but I go away or whatever and want to schedule the patch/release for a specific date and time.
    And going back to authentication, I want to create a leaderboard for one of my games but need to keep track of their data via user & login. With the Post/Response option you mentioned would/could I tie this into a PHP script to talk to a database of some sort for getting and posting? And, when the user logs in successfully could the credentials be passed to Unity?

    Thanks again!
    Dom
     
  41. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Thanks Dom, nice to hear the updates are working for you.

    There is no scheduling system you can of course push the update out and only do the bit where you make it current latter. I will add this to the backlog, but I don't think we will get to it soon.

    We building just that set of tools for your own customized account system some other commercial ones.

    Pleasure and please keep the ideas rolling in.
     
    Last edited: May 12, 2016
  42. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    0.1.9 Feature Highlight

    Memory configuration
    Since we have had a few people with large enough projects that they need more RAM allocated to Release Manager we have focused on memory allocation.

    You can now set the Stack and Heap space Release Manager will use when running. This should help people get the most out or Release Manager for larger files.

    upload_2016-5-12_14-40-0.png

    Import
    We have completed the import function, this is used to copy files from existing folders into a version. Useful if you always build to the same folder.

    First select the folders for each platform.
    upload_2016-5-12_14-43-0.png

    The hit import
    upload_2016-5-12_14-45-31.png

    We will continue to keep you up to date as we build new features.

    Regards
    Travis
     
  43. Ajsoman

    Ajsoman

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    Can i have your email or skype, we decided to buy but i need to ask you some questions first, that would be better to discuss in private.
     
  44. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Hello,

    I have send them in a message.

    Travis
     
  45. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Hi All, we away for this week updates will follow next week :)
     
  46. auroxi

    auroxi

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    Travis,

    There appears to be an issue when uploading a design. My upload is LocalFolder and when I try to upload a design it sticks at the very last file. 1.2mb/1.3mb Files(33/33) @ ?kb/s

    Could you push out a fix please?

    Looking in the output folder, there is 33 files in there. When I have compiled and uploaded the .msi installation and install my game, whenever I launch the MyGame.exe, I get the message:

    You must be connected to the internet to complete the installation.

    Is this because of the uploader issue, or is it something else?

    I've noticed in the Package/Win64/Package folder (where the installer package is created), in the config.properties file, the url section appears weird:

    url=http\://MyGameHere.com/Downloads

    I have tried changing it to:

    url=http://MyGameHere.com/Downloads however it still hasn't resolved it (could it be because it has complied with the first line instead?). Don't really understand how it's working behind the scenes but hopefully this will help? When I configured LocalFolder, I tested it all successfully when going through the wizard.

    Thanks :)
     
    Last edited: May 21, 2016
  47. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    Please email me your log files from the \Program Files\ReleaseManager\base\app\ReleaseManager.log

    My email is travis@celestial-games.com I am not aware of a problem with local patching.

    The next planned release is 0.1.9 what I can do for you if we solve this is give you access to the beta stream so you have early access.

    Typically this happens because the Launcher can not find your online files. Are there any highlighted issues at the bottom of the Release Manager console. Have you taken a version live and have you uploaded your design? Have you moved those files to the online location?

    The \: is not a problem we are using the Java standard for property files. In that standard an = or a : can be used for association. For this reason : is proceeded with a \ for clarity. It wont matter that you have changed it though, but I would prefer you can solve any issues without tampering with those files. So if there is a need will will fix it.

    So its downloading from that URL exactly what it puts into the local folder. Of course you must put all the local files online before you try.

    You should be able to download a file from
    http://MyGameHere.com/Downloads/releases/releases.xml

    And also one from
    http://MyGameHere.com/Downloads/launcher/launcher.version

    Please feel free to email me directly for support or post here both are fine.

    Regards
    Travis
     
  48. auroxi

    auroxi

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    Travis,

    Thanks for the reply. I have just sent the log file over to you.

    I have actually found the issue now, I had to add a MIME handler for .version on the web server as it wasn't serving those types of files.

    The next issue now is that the launcher loads but it's now stuck on Downloading manifest...

    Which file is this trying to access?

    Thanks
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2016
  49. Travis-Bulford

    Travis-Bulford

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    I will take a look there and see if we might be holding that file open ourselves or if it is something in the OS. Will respond in email to what we find.

    That would be trying to download the versions/versions.xml

    I think I need to extend the downloading test to test the different types we add. Some of the types are often blocked by servers.

    We need to be able to download

    *.xml
    *.zip
    *.html

    And any types of images you may have added to your resources.
     
  50. auroxi

    auroxi

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    No such file exists on my local computer...

    What part of the process creates this file? How can I get it to create it?