Upgrade Universal Clients and Standalone Apps
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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 the latest 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 a Windows Platform, which became known as the Windows Desktop Platform from v10.3 onwards. 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 Universal Platform versions. To upgrade Windows Desktop versions see: Upgrade Windows Desktop Clients and Standalone Apps.
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The Digitise Apps software is generally supplied as a download from our web site. Therefore, before you can upgrade to the latest version, you will need to download it from the web site. You, or someone in your organisation, should have received an email, when the Software Licence was purchased or renewed, providing full details of how to download and unzip the software.
The Product Download can be used to upgrade versions of the standard NDL-signed Windows Universal Client. Pre-configured Clients, Universal Clients signed with your own Certificate 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.
If you are upgrading from an earlier version of Digitise Apps or from MX v10.3 or later, you can upgrade existing versions of the Windows Universal Client and Windows Universal Standalone Apps in the same way as you would install new versions. You can install over the top of your existing versions; you don’t need to remove your current version before performing the upgrade. Refer to Install Universal Windows Clients and Standalone Apps for details of how to install the latest Client and Standalone Apps. Note, however, that if you want to upgrade an app which was originally sideloaded to devices with a new version available from the Microsoft Store, you will need to uninstall the original app from your devices before you download the new version from the store.
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Existing Windows Universal Platform Digitise and/or MX apps will generally work with the latest Windows Universal Digitise Apps Client and the latest App Server without any modification. This means that after upgrading, you should be able to continue to run existing Windows Universal versions of a Client, together with it's existing apps, and existing Standalone Apps in conjunction with the latest version of the App Server.
You may also be able to do the reverse, i.e. to run apps created with the latest version of Digitise Apps with earlier versions of the App Server, providing that the apps don't contain newer features, introduced since the version of the App Server you are using, that are incompatible with your version of App Server. In addition, if you have an app which was created using MX or Digitise Apps from v10 onwards, you may also be able to run that app using a different version of the Client than that supplied with the product version in which the app was created, e.g., to run a v10.9 Digitise app in a v10.4 MX Client, providing, once again, that the app doesn't include any features which are backwardly incompatible with the version of the Client you are using.
If you are upgrading from MX v7.0 or earlier and you have used images within Ink Picture Controls, at runtime 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 which have images displayed in Ink Picture Controls, you will need to check the display of the image after upgrading and adjust the app if necessary.
Read the information under Edit Existing apps After Upgrading below for further details about compatibility issues which might arise after upgrading.
As always, when upgrading, we strongly advise you to test all apps in a test environment before you upgrade live systems and users, especially if you want to mix and match components from different versions of the product.
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After upgrading your development PCs to the latest version of Digitise Apps, existing Digitise and MX apps can be edited in the latest App Studio as before. Simply open the app in App Studio in the usual way.
If you are upgrading from a version of MX which didn't support the Windows Universal format (MX v10.2 or earlier), the latest App Studio now automatically includes forms for both Windows Desktop and Windows Universal Platforms, if your app has one or more Windows Target Platforms. When you publish an app with a Windows Target Platform, both versions will be registered with the App Server, you don't need to choose which to include. When you build a Standalone App version of the app, however, you must choose which version you want - you can build both versions, if you need to, you just have to build them separately. Likewise, you can generate pre-configured Clients for both Platforms from the latest App Studio, but when you request a Client, once again you will have to specify whether you want a Windows Desktop or Windows Universal version for that build.
This means that if you load a Windows app created using MX v10.2 or earlier into the latest App Studio, Windows Universal forms will be added to the existing Windows forms and you can easily convert the app to use the Windows Universal Platform, if you want to, for example, to enable you to download the app from the Microsoft Store. If you want to convert it, check the form layouts for the Windows Universal Platform and, if necessary, adjust the positions of any Controls, check your Scripts for anything which might need adjusting to take account of the new Platform, such as a change in device IDs (see below), and then republish and, if you want to run the app as a Standalone App, rebuild the app for the Windows Universal Platform. You can then download and run the app from within a Windows Universal version of the standard Client or download the new Standalone App to your devices.
One thing you might need to watch out for when converting your app from the Windows to the Windows Universal Platform, is the fact that the Device IDs registered by your devices with App Manager and returned by the GetDeviceID Scripting Method will change. This will be true, whether you run your app from within a standard Windows Universal Client or as a Standalone App. 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 IDs.
If you restrict access to your apps by device, you can re-register your devices with App Manager by connecting them to the App Server using a standard Windows Universal Client or a Windows Universal Standalone App running on each device. This, however, will require you to set up your App Server to allow access to any device and then once your devices have re-registered you can set up your restrictions again, using the new device IDs. Alternatively, you can manually register your devices as new devices in App Manager 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 or Standalone App on the device and you can find its new Device ID within Settings. Once all your devices have been re-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.
See also:
Upgrade to the Latest Version of Digitise Apps