Helios Archive

A Helios Archive is a compressed file containing some Helios files. Usually it will include some profiles and their associated files, mainly images.

The current file format is .helios16, which is a zip archive with folders inside. Contents for Helios need to be located at relative paths Helios/Profiles/, Helios/Images/ etc. or alternatively with one arbitrary directory above them, for example: MyProfileName/Helios/Profiles/, MyProfileName/Helios/Images/ etc.

For archives containing multiple versions of a profile, a JSON file called Profile16.json should be placed at the root of the zip archive as a type of manifest, allowing the users to choose to install just one version. This file has the following format, by example:

{
    "Choices": [
        {
            "Options": [
                {
                    "Description": "Profile laid out for 16:9 Aspect Ratio (for example: 1920x1080)",
                    "Excludes": [
                        "FA18C_V3.0/Helios/profiles/FA-18C_V3.0.hpf"                            
                    ]
                },
                {
                    "Description": "Profile laid out for 16:10 Aspect Ratio (narrower)",
                    "Excludes": [
                        "FA18C_V3.0/Helios/profiles/FA-18C_V3.0b.hpf"                            
                    ]
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

The .helios16 extension is associated with Helios Profile Editor. Opening the archive launches Profile Editor. For each "Choices" element in the manifest, a dialog is presented. The user must choose one of the "Options" items. The "Excludes" list from that option is then added to the list of files that won't get extracted. The intent is that the user will end up with only one version of the profile in their Profiles folder, instead of being confused by the multiple files.

Files for Helios/Profiles are never overwritten, as new versions of profiles are expected to rename the file.

Other files are overwritten only if they are marked as "read only" in the file system. Non-profile files installed by the Profile Archive installation process are marked as "read only" after extraction. This way, if the user edits some files, they won't get replaced.

When an archive is installed over files that are writable (more than 10% of overwritten files do not have the 'read only' file system attribute) then the user is prompted whether they want to overwrite all files. This allows for migration from copying files from non-archives to using archives and resetting all the files to a clean state.

Finally, installation of a Helios Archive may trigger Profile Installation Mode.

JSON Schema

Authors
License
Description
Version
VersionsRequired
   Product
   Minimum
   Maximum
Choices
   Message
   Options
      Description
      Info
      Excludes
      VersionsRequired
         Product
         Minimum
         Maximum