Upgrade Windows Desktop Clients and Standalone Apps

Whilst all new versions of our software are given extensive testing, every live environment is potentially different. It is therefore important that you test any existing Solutions with a new version in a test environment BEFORE you upgrade your live systems.

This topic provides information about upgrading existing versions of the Digitise Apps Client, Digitise apps, MX Client and MX apps on Windows devices to new Digitise Apps versions.

From MX v10.3, two versions of the MX Client and Standalone Apps have been available for Windows devices - Windows Desktop and Windows Universal Platform versions. Versions of MX before v10.3 only had the Windows Desktop versions. Digitise Apps supports both formats and the latest software allows you to upgrade existing Clients and apps for both, as required. This topic covers upgrading Windows Desktop versions. To upgrade Windows Universal Platform versions see: Upgrade Universal Windows Clients and Standalone Apps.

The latest Digitise Apps software is generally supplied as a download from our web site. The Product Download can be used to upgrade versions of the standard Windows Desktop Client. Pre-configured Clients and Standalone Apps can all be upgraded by first upgrading your development PC(s) and then generating the required Clients and/or Standalone Apps from within the latest Digitise Apps App Studio.

The latest version of the Windows Desktop Client can be used to upgrade an existing Digitise Apps Client or MX Client v7.0 or later by installing the latest version over your existing versions. If you have an earlier version of the MX Client, you will need to uninstall it before you install the latest version. For details of how to install the Windows Desktop Client refer to Install Windows Desktop Clients and Standalone Apps.

Existing Digitise apps and MX Windows Desktop apps, v7.1 or later, should continue to work with the latest Digitise Apps Windows Desktop Client and the latest App Server without requiring any changes.

If you are upgrading an MX Windows Desktop Client from MX v7.0 or earlier, you should be aware of the following points:

The latest Digitise Apps Client has slightly larger buttons than were found in MX v7.0 or earlier, making them easier to use on touch screen devices. However, this means that the space available to display the rest of a form is correspondingly reduced and may result in existing apps no longer fitting on the screen and displaying scroll bars after the upgrade. Consequently, you may want to check any existing apps and adjust the form size/layouts if required.
If you have used images within Ink Picture Controls, these will now be displayed at their actual size whereas previously they were auto-sized to fit the size of the Control. If you have any apps using images displayed in Ink Picture Controls, you will need to check the display of the image after upgrading and adjust if necessary.
The Windows Start group from which the Digitise Apps Software is launched has changed to ndl Software Digitise Apps from the previous NDL Software MX or ndl-metascybe MX.

If you want to make changes to existing Windows Desktop apps, you can edit them in the latest App Studio by simply opening the app in the Digitise Apps App Studio as in your previous version of App Studio.

The Digitise Apps App Studio allows you to build pre-configured versions of both the Windows Desktop Client and the Windows Universal Client. You can install and run both versions on the same device, if required.

If you are upgrading from MX v10.2 or earlier and you upgrade Windows Desktop versions of the MX Client or MX Standalone Apps to Windows Universal versions, the Device ID registered with App Manager and returned by the GetDeviceID Scripting Method will change. If you use the Device ID to restrict access to an app or to check for a particular device within your Scripts, you will need to make the necessary changes to allow for the change in ID.

You can register a device by connecting to the App Server, but to do this you will need to set up your App Server to allow access to any device and then once any new devices have registered you can set up your restrictions again. Alternatively, you can manually register your devices as new devices and then configure the restrictions before the devices attempt to connect to the App Server. If you want to manually register a device, run up the Client on the device and you can find its new Device ID within Settings in the Client or Standalone App. Once you have connected all your devices and their new IDs have been registered with the App Server, you can delete the old IDs within the Device category in App Manager.

In addition, if you have used the GetDeviceID Scripting Method in any of your Scripts to check which device the Script is running on, the value returned will also change to the new ID format. If you do anything with the returned DeviceID, you will need to check your Scripts and, if necessary, make any appropriate changes to allow for the new DeviceID returned.