RocketTheme Blog

RokUpdater is the newest member of the RocketTheme family of extensions for Joomla. It is an answer to our member's desire for an easier method to update club and free extensions.

RokUpdater takes care of authentication for you so Joomla can download and install the new file(s) without any further action required on your part.

With RokUpdater, we've made the update process for RocketTheme extensions transparent to the normal Joomla update process. In fact, once you're logged in to your RocketTheme account using RokUpdater, you don't need to do anything more than select the RocketTheme extensions you wish to update from the Update Manager list and hit Update.

How RokUpdater Works

RokUpdater works with Joomla 2.5 and 3.x, allowing you to log in with your RocketTheme credentials once to establish your membership with RocketTheme. You don't have to be an active member to use RokUpdater, though you won't be able to update paid (Club) extensions without an active subscription. Free extensions supported by RocketTheme will continue to be updated using RokUpdater in these cases.

RokUpdater uses OAuth 2.0 under the hood. This makes it easier to establish secure authentication between your Joomla site and RocketTheme, and grant access to updates, without having to log in each time you need to do so. This is handled by way of a token, rather than having your username and password stored on the site.

Google protocol buffers are also in place to manage data for backwards compatibility. This is all done over SSL unless the site's PHP settings don't allow for SSL. In these cases, RokUpdater can still function in a non-SSL capacity.

RokUpdater establishes a unique ID for each site once you log in. You can log in to as many sites as you want.

Future Development

RokUpdater is currently being utilized as a method for updating Joomla extensions supported by RocketTheme. In the future, we plan to expand its capability to include Template updates, and potentially even support for WordPress and other CMS platforms.

RokUpdater is not the only way to install or update a RocketTheme extension. You can still update by downloading the latest version of an extension and upload it manually. This is simply another method for doing so, designed to make it easier to keep all of your RocketTheme extensions up to date.

Where Can You Get RokUpdater?

RokUpdater is being rolled out along with the latest versions of our existing line of extensions. Installing RokUpdater takes just a matter of few minutes. In most cases, RokUpdater will be included in extension packs. You can, however, opt to download and install RokUpdater independently in order to start using it with existing supported extensions.

The first thing you’ll need to do is download the latest version of RokUpdater. The package you will download is a bundle containing all the required plugins to get RokUpdater up and running and it is compatible with both Joomla 2.5.x and Joomla 3.x. It does not need to be uncompressed.

As RokUpdater continues to roll out across RocketTheme's line of products, it is our hope that it will become an easier and more efficient method of keeping these products up to date. It's our intention to continue to evolve our offerings to make them more useful for site administrators and end users alike.