Hosting Content

As mentioned in the Additional Content section, you can extend Aurora by including content using index files. You can also host these files much like the main repository content is hosted by making use of an index file that you can share. You can then keep you files up-to-date and add new files over time. You can host the files anywhere you want, your own hosting, or a public place such as GitHub. All you have to do is to share the URL and make sure the link is to the content of the file.

This short guide assumes that you are already familiar with creating content files.

Index File

This simple example is of one index file that has two content files listed, one separate file for your source and one for your homebrew items. The sample assumes the files are all stored in the http://hosting.com/files/ remote directory.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<index>
  <info>
    <update version="1.0">
      <file name="sample.index" url="http://hosting.com/files/sample.index" />
    </update>
  </info>
  <files>
    <file name="source.xml" url="http://hosting.com/files/source.xml" />
    <file name="items.xml" url="http://hosting.com/files/items.xml" />
  </files>
</index>

When Aurora updates the content it creates a folder with the same name as the name of the index file to store the listed content.

Instead of the <elements> tags you use <index> tags. The index file can’t contain elements (content).

Info Section

<info>
  <name>Sample</name>
  <update version="1.1">
    <file name="sample.index" url="http://hosting.com/files/sample.index" />
  </update>
</info>

The info section in each file is key to the update process. The update element is required. The name element is optional and is the name that is displayed during the loading of the file in the splash screen. The version attribute in the update node should be increased when you change the file so Aurora knows when to update the files.

The file should have the name of the file and the url of the file. An info section should also be included in each content file that you link to from your index file.

When a file is obsolete, perhaps due to merging two files, it’s better to empty one of the files before removing them to avoid duplicated content. You can also mark a file obsolete by renaming the file entry to obsolete like so:

<obsolete name="items.xml" url="http://hosting.com/files/items.xml" />