Universal HISE Downloader/Installer

[d.healey]

A couple of years ago I proposed making a general purpose downloader/installer app. In the time since I've created a downloader/installer for my own libraries and it works really well. I thought I'd see about adapting it to be an option for more developers.

I'm currently prototyping some things but before I get too deep with it I want to know if any of you would actually use it.

Unlike other similar apps (Pulse, Conduct, etc) what I'm creating is decentralized. Your customers will log into the app using the account they have on your website and downloads will be served from your servers. The app will of course be free software.

The app is more limited in scope than those other options. I don't intend to include an integrated shop and I don't plan support for non-HISE formats - but who knows what the future will bring.

The benefits for you is it's very cheap (you don't need to pay a middle-man), you don't have to develop your own downloader, new customers will discover your products when exploring other plugins available through the app, it's HISE focused and will support expansions and additional presets, etc..

The app supports serial keys to limit access to downloads. It does not (and cannot) provide any DRM but you can include this in your plugins if you wish.

It can integrate with any website, you just need to setup some endpoints and make sure they return the correct data. If you're using a Wordpress/WooCommerce site I can (for a fee) supply you with a Wordpress plugin that will integrate seamlessly with the app - this is the plugin I'm using on my own site.

So is this something any of you would use? If so I'll continue developing, if not then I won't bother, I don't want to be the only one using it :)

Here's a preview of where I'm at with it.

[whereami518]

@d-healey FOR SURE!!!!

[trillbilly]

@d-healey This is awesome!

[whereami518]

@d-healey You made the Mntra plugins??

[Matt_SF]

@d-healey I've already started to build my own downloader but I've been too busy to go deeper, and I'm sure you'll do a better job than me. I'm all in

[d.healey]

@whereami518 said in Universal HISE Downloader/Installer:

@d-healey You made the Mntra plugins??

I did a lot of work on the back end and the downloader. Overall it's very much a team effort.

[Lindon]

@d-healey well I'd be in for the CR products - but I built my own installer because these products have a set of meta data files that need installing along with the std HISE files - can you config your system to do that?

[d.healey]

@Lindon Yes

[Lindon]

@d-healey said in Universal HISE Downloader/Installer:

@Lindon Yes

count me in then.

[DanH]

@d-healey potentially in - I too just built my own installers but not as sophisticated as these.

Any security issues? As in, if this were to get broken open, is everyone at risk or...?

[d.healey]

@DanH

Any security issues? As in, if this were to get broken open, is everyone at risk or...?

An advantage of it being open source is you will be able to audit the code yourself. As far as I'm aware there are no security issues because everything that needs to be secure is handled server side.

[DanH]

@d-healey Ok. So is it one app for everyone? How do we edit code if others also need to do the same? Can you use the app to download products from to or more different devs?

[d.healey]

@DanH It's a single app. Each developer is listed in the side bar. The user selects the developer(s) they have an account with and login. Then they'll have access to the products they've purchased from that developer.

I'll post the code to a public git repo (github most likely) and if others want to contribute code they'll be able to make pull requests.

[DanH]

@d-healey Ok so we don't need to change any code in the app if we don't have to?

[d.healey]

@DanH That's right. You just let me know you want to be included in the sidebar and I'll add you in. It's also possible for a user to manually add developers by editing a config file.

I'll document a list of the server end-points and data to be returned so you can make sure it works with your server.

[DanH]

@d-healey how about expansions? I think I saw you were using .hr1s for these. I had problems with permissions when I used this method previously and ended up doing a zip download / install and a separate system files installer.

[d.healey]

@DanH I don't use hr1s, they are too limited. Everything is delivered in zip files.

[DanH]

@d-healey ok, my mistake! So any system files come down in a zip too?

[d.healey]

@DanH Yeah everything is in zips and will be extracted to where they're needed.

[DanH]

@d-healey nice. And is it made with HISE?