• Autoupdate application:     Never     Every time program starts     On demand
• Distribution URL

Select Never if you do not want your customers to retrieve updates automatically from your web site. If you do not supply free updates, then you probably want this option.

Click the Every time program starts radio button if you want your app to first check with your web site and verify it has all the latest files before your application really launches. If JExpress discovers that any files that aren't current on your customer's system, then it automatically updates the files before starting your app. If the user's system is unable to connect to your web site, then your application proceeds as if every thing is up-to-date.

Use the On demand radio button if you'd like the user to decide when to get updates from your web site. The user simply selects the Update menu item whenever they'd like to verify all their files are current. If JExpress discovers any of the files on their system are older than the ones on your web site, then JExpress installs the new or more recent files.

You can leave this field blank if you filled in your web site on the Welcome panel. JExpress defaults the URL to your web site followed by your application's name.

If you want to manually set the distribution URL, then enter the complete http:// style URL where you'll store your distribution files on your web server. Or, if you are distributing your updates via a local drive, then you should add the prefix local:// to the full pathname. If your distribution directory includes a drive letter, then change the : (colon) to | (vertical line). Autoupdates must be accessible from your web site or a local hard drive, not an ftp server.

The distribution URL and the ftp directory on the Distribution panel must reference the same place on your host, but you do not want to enter the same data in both fields. To clarify this let's look at an example:

• your web site is known as www.company.com;
• your distribution files live in a ftp directory on your server called /var/www/Application
• your web server maps the /var/www/Application ftp directory to http://www.company.com/Application

In this example, you'd enter /var/www/Application in the ftp directory field and http://www.company.com/Application in the download distribution URL field. Both fields actually point to the same place on the Internet; you simply use different formats for ftp and the web.

The distribution URL must start with http:// or local://, but not https or ftp. You do not want the same string in the ftp directory field and the distribution url field. Instead, you want both fields to point to the same place -- the same directory -- on the Internet. When JExpress uploads your files to your web site it uses the ftp directory name. When the autoupdater downloads updates to your customer's system, it uses the distribution URL.

If you're using JExpress' autoupdate feature, it is critical that this URL include the directory name where the updates subdirectory resides on your web site. You do not want the distribution URL to include the updates subdirectory name. For example, http://www.company.com/Application would be correct if updates is a subdirectory of Application. It would be incorrect to set the distribution URL to http://www.company.com/Application/updates.

If you did not configure your project to automatically distribute your files online, then you need to copy the directory tree from your build directory to this URL if you are auto-updating your customers. For more information about your distribution files, click here.