Component options

Update streams

Update Channel Name Short name for the main XML update channel. Use a-Z and 0-9 only.

Update Channel Description Longer, human-readable descriptions of the main XML update channel.

Show Checksums Should the update information include the MD5 and SHA checksums for each file? Please note that if Joomla calculates a different MD5 sum than the one defined in the download Item it will refuse to extract and install the update. In some cases this calculation may be buggy and lead to update failure.

Compact Update Streams Should we try to remove as much whitespace as possible from the update streams? Depending on the stream, it can reduce its size by 10% to 70% before you even apply GZip or Brotli compression on it.

Updates use Version Compatibility Only applies if you have installed our Version Compatibility component and you've set up a Version Compatibility section for each and every update stream. If this option is enabled, ARS will check which versions are listed by Version Compatibility and only include these versions in the XML update document. The reasoning is that only these versions are the latest for any combination of, say, Joomla and PHP versions. Any other version would never end up being installed by Joomla. Not listing the versions which cannot be selected for updates further reduces the size of the update XML document.

These latter two options can make a massive difference in your expenses if you are charged by the volume of the data you are sending over the wire (as is the case for most CDNs, e.g. Amazon CloudFront). Reducing the update information size from 200KB to under 10KB for a big extension with a long history like Akeeba Backup can save you hundreds of dollars every year and make update discovery faster and more stable for your clients. It's a win-win proposition.

Frontend

By default, releases in Bleeding Edge categories automatically generate a CHANGELOG and save it in the release notes based on the changed lines between the CHANGELOG files found in a release which is about to be published and the previously published release in the same Bleeding Edge category. You can customise how that works with parameters found in the component Options page.

Generate changelog for Bleeding Edge releases
When it's turned off the CHANGELOG will not be created and saved in the release notes.

Colourise Changelog
By default ARS adds some class names to each CHANGELOG line to allow color-coding each line based on whether it's an addition, deletion, modification, bug fix and so on. When this option is disabled these classes are not added. This could allow, for example, a content plugin to perform its own custom formatting of the CHANGELOG.

Maximum age of BleedingEdge releases (days) Only keep BleedingEdge releases up to this many days since they were created. After this many days they will be automatically deleted. Type 0 to apply no age limit on BleedingEdge releases.

Since BleedingEdge (Development) releases are meant to be temporary snapshots of your work in progress it makes sense to have a limit around 90 days (3 months) to prevent really stale development versions confusing your users looking into your work in progress.

No Access URL
When a user tries to access a category, release or item that he has no access to he normally gets a standard-issue Joomla! 403 Forbidden page. Not really user-friendly. Sometimes it's best to direct them to a page explaining why they have no access and give them instructions to subscribe to your services. That's what this option does. Give the URL where the visitors will be directed when they try to access a category, release or item they have no access to.

We strongly recommend using the respective Category, Release or Item option instead.

Show downloads counter Should the number of hits (downloads) be displayed in the frontend for each item?

Show file size
Should the release display the file size for each item?

Show MD5
Should the release display the MD5 sum for each item?

Show SHA1
Should the release display the SHA1 sum for each item?

Show SHA-256
Should the release display the SHA-256 sum for each item?

Show SHA-384
Should the release display the SHA-384 sum for each item?

Show SHA-512
Should the release display the SHA-512 sum for each item?

Show environments (compatibility)
Should the release display the environment (compatibility) badges for each item?

ARS is excellent for distributing subscription-based software. However this requires the users to log in to your site, download the file to their device / computer and then use it. This is just fine when your users are using a full-blown computer, e.g. a desktop or a laptop. This doesn't really work when they are using a mobile device like a smartphone or a tablet. In those cases it would be much better if you could just give them a "pre-signed" URL which allows them to download the software directly, without having to log in. If you are in the business of distributing Joomla! extensions (like us) this direct link can be used with Joomla!'s "Install from URL" feature to allow your users to easily install the extension on their site.

And that's exactly what the Direct Link is: a link (URL) which can be used with Joomla!'s "Install from URL" feature to install subscription-based extensions. Of course you may find more creative uses for it!

Show Direct Link
When it's enabled a "Direct Link" link will be shown next to the regular download link of each item.

Direct Link extensions
A comma-separated list of file extensions for which we should display Direct Link links. Do not include the dots. Do not leave spaces between the comma and the extension. We recommend using zip,tar,tar.gz in here.

Direct Link description
The tooltip for the Direct Link links. It's a good idea to use this to explain to your users what the Direct Link is all about.

If you want to fully customise the display of the component you have to do template overrides. But for simple stuff, like defining if the MD5 sum should be shown or to define what the users see when they are not allowed to access an item there are much simpler and more user friendly options.

Backend

Date format PHP date format for the displayed dates.

Ban unauthorised downloads When enabled any unauthorized download is recorded as a blocked URL in Admin Tools Professional, if it's installed on your site. Please use this option with caution. It could block legitimate users from your site if they have the wrong Download ID and keep trying to download an update of your software.