Understanding how SetupCast is designed to help you manage your distribution files and generated content will allow you to make informed decisions as you setup your projects.
Dynamic v.s. Fixed Publishing
There are two ways that SetupCast can publish the content it generates for your project and your software distribution files.
Dynamic Publishing
When you use the default Dynamic Publishing method, SetupCast does all the work of managing the files uploaded to your webserver. It also automatically creates the URLs needed to access them.
If you do not have a predefined directory layout on your webserver that you need to keep, Dynamic Publishing makes it very easy for you to have a well organized web site that is simple to manage.
For new projects we suggest that you use Dynamic Publishing option, accept the default values for directory and filenames and you'll be up and running in no time!
Fixed Publishing
If you have already have a publishing structure on your website that you like and want to keep, use the Fixed Publishing method in SetupCast. This requires that you tell SetupCast exactly where to upload the files and how to link to them. It is a little more work when you set it up, but it gives you the ability to easily integrate SetupCast into your existing website.
Using Fixed Publishing is as easy as selecting the option and then entering the URLs that you want SetupCast to use as shown here for a Web Update publish type:
Fixed Publishing is selected on a per content type basis by clicking the File Publishing option on the sidebar menu.
Note: You can even mix the two publish methods in the same project!
This is an example (Publish Layout View) of a project where both methods are used:
In the example above, the URLs for the Links page, Full Installation and Web Update are generated dynamically (and the files are managed in a logical fashion). The RSS feed is published to and linked from a fixed location.
If you are planning on using Dynamic Publishing then the following information about webserver directories and filenames is very important to you. If your going to use Fixed Publishing then you need only pay attention to the section on filenames.
Webserver Directories
SetupCast is designed to group all of the related distribution files and generated content for your software product. It does this by using a directory structure that looks like an upside down tree. This makes for a very organized distribution of file assets, takes care of any problems that could arise with duplicate filenames for different installer types and makes file management easy.
If you are not using a similar tree directory structure, don't worry. SetupCast is quite flexible in how you can configure the file asset locations. However you should really consider using the default structure.
There will be a section in the main help file on how to convert your current distribution to the new format and SetupCast makes it easy.
For all new projects, you should definitely use the tree structure to get the maximum benefit from SetupCast.
So how does this upside down tree structure work?
The idea is a simple one. You start out with one directory on your webserver called the "Base Directory". Then all other related directories branch out below that directory. The result is that all the related files "hang" like branches below the base of the tree.
Here is a representation of where SetupCast publishes files for the distribution of the CoolApp sample program:
This example has all the installer types (plus some extra features) enabled.
The "Base Directory" in this example is called "coolapp".
All other types of content and distribution files are in a directory that matches the name of the type of content that hangs below the Base Directory. For example, all of the distribution files and generated content for the "Full Installer" of the product "CoolApp" go into the "coolapp/full" directory.
In general, the suggested distribution is always like this: