Auto-Update Resource Fixes and Enhancements

So, as you all know, there was a resource made available a while back that allowed developers to patch non .exe updates for their projects using a simple TCPObject overlay to download and replace content based on an MD5 file check.

This resource I found had problems with it's stream object, especially when it came to downloading two files at once, when one file had a smaller size and was "overcome" by a larger file and then ignored by the downloader object. This caused a deadlock in the download process and would miss any additional files after this problem. To address, I had to make some updates to fix this.

Thanks go out to Tom Bushby for the original resource that got the ball rolling here.

Now Requirements:
* Updated TCPObject to handle binary transfers (see this)
* File MD5 Calculator for C++ (either use this or my resource (if you are using xxz568))
* Web Capable Server with PHP installed

Now, the fixes. First of all, I handle my patcher in a significantly different route than the original one. My route specifies it as a separate directory of the game itself, instead of migrating in with the client or server scripts. Also, I've made a major amount of changes to the original resource (you might say it doesn't look anything like it), these are mostly enhancement and bug fixes that I've made to the code to get it to function correctly.

So, in the top directory of the game (where tools is), create a "patcher" folder, and load in the contents of the patcher folder of this zipped archive to it.

Then, on your web server, load the contents of the phpcode folder from that above zip archive on your server somewhere, be sure to note the directory scheme on it. change the gvars in the php files to match the needed details on directory schemes, ect.

Sample:

/home/
   /mygame/
      /patches/
         /game/
            *all game files needed to have updates and suchz0r
         *php files from resource

Now let's tell your game to load the patcher module, in the head folder, open main.cs change the following gvars

$dirCount = 3;
$userDirs = "tools;patcher;" @ $defaultGame;

Now, at this point, we just need to tell the client to initiate a download check, however you need to set the server settings. Go through the serverSettings.cs file and set the variables as necessary.

Lastly, when ready to perform an update check: call this: updateClientDownload();

Final Notes:

You should no longer have any issues downloading multiple files at once with the large file overcoming problem. Also, you can now define a $developerMode variable to help in your development process. This variable if set to true will disable the patcher system so you don't need to upload your changes every single time you make one. I put my $developerMode in main.cs at the top for easy access, you can do the same if you want.

You may also notice there are some missing variable/object stuff in the console, this is what I used for my "GUI" in the auto-update process. If you make one, see there to make adjustments.

Good luck!