Basics
In order to get started with Ketarin, we'll show you how you can make Ketarin download applications for you with a couple of examples.
If a software package, like CDBurnerXP, is always downloadable from a fixed URL which automatically points to the latest version, it's rather simple.
Add a new application, enter a name and enter the URL. CDBurnerXP can always be downloaded from https://cdburnerxp.se/downloadsetup.exe, so this is what we are going to use in this example. Since the downloaded file name actually varies (it includes the version number), save it to a folder so that this file name is used instead of a fixed one. You probably also want to delete previously downloaded files (advanced settings), otherwise you'd keep an archive of all versions of CDBurnerXP.
Note: You can also use a PAD file URL as download URL (for example https://cdburnerxp.se/rss/padfile.xml). Ketarin will then automatically extract the actual download URL from the PAD file data. Just make sure that the PAD file is kept up-to-date by the author though.
Note: For more advanced scenarios, URLs using the HTTPX protocol (as mentioned in Troubleshooting downloads) may be required.
FileHippo is a frequently updated website which lists all kinds of software packages. It also provides a download opportunity. Ketarin can make use of this information.
Let's use SmartFTP in this example. As in example 1, add a new application and enter a name. Instead of an URL, however, copy and paste the URL of SmartFTP on FileHippo (https://www.filehippo.com/download_smartftp/) into the FileHippo ID text field. It will automatically extract the corresponding ID from it. In this case I'm using a fixed file name, since I download both the 32 bit and 64 bit version of SmartFTP.
Using FileHippo is quite convenient, however, they only list English language software packages. So if you want to, let's say, monitor the German version of Firefox you can't use it. Also, there is no fixed direct download URL available for Firefox.
So what do we do? First of all, let's download the desired version of Firefox from https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#product-desktop-release. Once the download has started, determine the location you are downloading from. Depending on the browser you are using, you can possibly right-click on the active download and choose Show source URL or Copy source URL to clipboard. The actual URL could be this one for example:
https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-111.0.1-ssl&os=win64&lang=de
From this URL, we can probably figure, that we'd only have to replace the version number 111.0.1 with the new version number as soon as an update for Firefox is available. So let's use this one as URL:
https://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-{version}-ssl&os=win64&lang=de
Now we only have to define where to get {version} from. To do this, click on the Variables button next to the URL.
Press Enter or click the +-Button. Enter version (without quotes) as name. For Contents of URL enter https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/. Click Load. In the field below, enter German and click Find. Scroll a bit down if necessary, until you see
<td class="curVersion" >111.0.1</td>
This seems like a nice portion of the site to extract the latest version number from. Select the text before 111.0.1 and click Use selection as start, then select the text after 111.0.1 and click Use selection as end. Now 111.0.1 should be highlighted, as well as the text before and behind the version in a different colour.
Note: For the start selection, Ketarin will always use the first occurrence of the string, and for the end selection the first occurrence after the start selection will be used.
Click OK. Now Ketarin will always replace {version} in the URL with the version number written on the website, which should lead to a valid download URL.
Enter the remaining information (save path and any other options) and click OK.
Note: You can use F2 to rename a selected variable. Don't forget to change any references to it!