Visual APL supports Click Once Deployment

With Click Once your clients can use your application without ever installing it!

Visual APL builds ClickOnce applications!

Microsoft's new ClickOnce is a deployment technology that allows you to create self-updating Windows-based applications that can be installed and run with minimal user interaction. ClickOnce deployment overcomes three major issues inherent in deployment:

1. Difficulties in updating applications. With Visual APL and ClickOnce deployment, you can provide updates automatically. Only those portions of the application that have changed are downloaded, then the full, updated application is reinstalled from a new side-by-side folder.

2. Impact to the user's computer. With Visual APL and ClickOnce deployment, each application is self-contained and cannot interfere with other applications.

3. Security permissions. Windows Installer deployment requires administrative permissions and allows only limited user installation; with Visual APL and ClickOnce deployment allows non-administrative users to install and grants only those Code Access Security permissions necessary for the application.

In the past, these issues sometimes caused developers to decide to create Web applications rather than Windows-based applications, sacrificing the rich user interface and responsiveness of Windows Forms for ease of installation. With applications deployed using ClickOnce, you can have the best of both technologies.

What is a ClickOnce Application?

Simply stated, a ClickOnce application is any Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Forms, or console application published using ClickOnce technology. You can publish a ClickOnce application in three different ways: from a Web page, from a network file share, or from media such as a CD-ROM. A ClickOnce application can be installed on an end user's computer and run locally even when the computer is offline, or it can be run in an online-only mode without permanently installing anything on the end user's computer.

ClickOnce applications can be self-updating; they can check for newer versions as they become available and automatically replace any updated files. The developer can specify the update behavior; a network administrator can also control update strategies, for example, marking an update as mandatory. Updates can also be rolled back to a previous version by the end user or by an administrator.

Because ClickOnce applications are inherently isolated, installing or running a ClickOnce application cannot break existing applications. ClickOnce applications are completely self-contained; each ClickOnce application is installed to and run from a secure per-user, per-application cache. By default, ClickOnce applications run in the Internet or Intranet security zones. If necessary, the application can request elevated security permissions.