Beta Options

First

Introduction to HPM Beta/Early Release Channel
HPM supports the ability for you to provide a Stable install channel as well as a Beta/Early Release channel. It uses some optional tags in your manifest that will help HPM know when to load the Beta/Early Release code, and provide information to users about what the beta channel does.

Second

How to use Beta/Early Release Channel
The optional tags used by the HPM Beta functionality are "betaReleaseNotes", "betaVersion" and "betaLocation". Each tag serves a specific purpose. If you decide to use the Beta/Early Release channel you are required to include "betaVersion" and "betaLocation" for the Beta/Early Release channel to work properly.
To provide release notes about your Beta package you can do one of two things. The first option, which is less then ideal, is you can include beta information as part of your standard release notes. The other option is you can add the "betaReleaseNotes" tag to the main section of your package manifest and provide dedicated release notes for your Beta/Early release channel. A example is shown below:

{
      "packageName": "My Package",
      "minimumHEVersion": "2.1.9",
      "author": "Dominick Meglio",
      "version": "1.0.1",
      "betaVersion": "1.0.2",
      "dateReleased": "2020-04-07",
      "licenseFile": "",
      "documentationLink": "",
      "communityLink": "",
      "gitHubUrl": "https://github.com/dcmeglio",
      "payPalUrl": "https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=7LBRPJRLJSDDN&source=url",
      "releaseNotes": "A standard Release Note",
      "betaReleaseNotes": "A Beta Release Note",
      "apps" : [
                {
								

In that example, a user would see the text "A Beta Release Note" when they perform the install or upgrade. The "betaVersion" tag is used heavily by HPM to know when a package is part Beta/Early release channel and if it is new. One unique aspect of the "betaVersion" is that it can be used in one of two ways.
If your application is managed by a single version value used in the main part of the manifest. You can simply add betaVersion as shown in the example below with a version number that is either the same or higher then then stable channel's verion number.

{
      "packageName": "My Package",
      "minimumHEVersion": "2.1.9",
      "author": "Dominick Meglio",
      "version": "1.0.1",
      "betaVersion": "1.0.2",
      "dateReleased": "2020-04-07",
      "licenseFile": "",
      "documentationLink": "",
      "communityLink": "",
      "gitHubUrl": "https://github.com/dcmeglio",
      "payPalUrl": "https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=7LBRPJRLJSDDN&source=url",
								

If your package has several parts like drivers that may be managed independently you can use the version and betaVersion values as part of app/driver/bundle that is being managed instead. This allows you to manage versioning on a piece by piece basis. You can see this in the example below:

      "apps" : [
                {
                    "id" : "67d9cc01-a5cb-453c-832a-e78c5a6b978b",
                    "name": "The App",
                    "namespace": "abc.theapp",
                    "location": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/user/repo/main/app.groovy",
                    "betaLocation": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/user/repo/beta/app.groovy",        
                    "required": true,
                    "oauth": false,
                    "version": "1.0.1",
                    "betaVersion": "1.0.2",
                }
        ]
        							

You do not want to have the betaVersion or version tags in both the main section and the app/drivers/bundles. That can confuse HPM for upgrades when it does upgrade checks. The "betaLocation" tag is used to tell HPM where your beta/Early Release channel is located. It is associated with each app/driver/bundle and should point to a alternate location you have setup for your package. This can be anything from a beta branch on GitHub to a whole alternate website that hosts your code. The only requirement is that it is accessible via HTTP so HPM can retrieve the code. In this example below, after creating a secondary beta branch, "betaLocation" points to the code.

 
      "apps" : [
                {
                    "id" : "67d9cc01-a5cb-453c-832a-e78c5a6b978b",
                    "name": "The App",
                    "namespace": "abc.theapp",
                    "location": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/user/repo/main/app.groovy",
                    "betaLocation": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/user/repo/beta/app.groovy",        
                    "required": true,
                    "oauth": false
                }
        ]
								

Finish

Example of a full package manifest with Beta/Early Release:

{
      "packageName": "My Package",
      "minimumHEVersion": "2.1.9",
      "author": "Dominick Meglio",
      "version": "1.0.1",
      "betaVersion": "1.0.2",
      "dateReleased": "2020-04-07",
      "licenseFile": "",
      "documentationLink": "",
      "communityLink": "",
      "gitHubUrl": "https://github.com/dcmeglio",
      "payPalUrl": "https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=7LBRPJRLJSDDN&source=url",
      "releaseNotes": "A standard Release Note",
      "betaReleaseNotes": "A Beta Release Note",
      "apps" : [
                {
                    "id" : "67d9cc01-a5cb-453c-832a-e78c5a6b978b",
                    "name": "The App",
                    "namespace": "abc.theapp",
                    "location": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/user/repo/main/app.groovy",
                    "betaLocation": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/user/repo/beta/app.groovy",        
                    "required": true,
                    "oauth": false
                }
        ]
}