As Joplin is well updated, it became a bit annoying to clic to download, go to the download folder, clic on the new zip file, quit Joplin, open the dmg (on a mac), drag and drop the new version, and relaunch Joplin. More annoying when Joplin become your daily note app.
It could be great to make this process fluent and not workflow breaking. May I ask for this ease ?
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This has been explained a while back in one of the github issues. Due to the fact that the application is based on Electron, there were several issues that made this task impossible, or very, very complex.
Iām not sure whether this has changed But Iām sure @laurent would consider adding this functionality, if it were easy to accomplish. Otherwise there are more important things to tackle.
Could it be an extra script to do it not from the app itself? Of course, and I said it first, this is not a priorityā¦
It seems like updates still has to be done manually, but why is the option to auto update available in settings? Checking it simply enables update notifications that provides the link to the latest installer.
Windows / 1.0.179 (or rather prior version)
This has been explained a while back in one of the github issues. Due to the fact that the application is based on Electron, there were several issues that made this task impossible, or very, very complex.
Why does it still say āAutomatically update the applicationā when itās not able to? Shouldnāt the label be āAutomatically check for updatesā?
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Oh, you mean the text? Hmm, good question. This is something Laurent will have to answer.
But hereās my take: Itās rather complicated to change text after the fact. This part is now translated for probably all languages by now. If we were to change the text in the code, the translations are gone. And if we changed the source in all translations, it would basically be ok in English but all other languages would still use the translation for "Automatically update the applicationā.
But I agree, the text should read: āCheck for updates automaticallyā.
Will deselecting āAutomatically update the applicationā stop the ānew version alertā popups?
I think it will, Iāve got it turned off and donāt get the popups. But Iām on Linux, not sure if thatās different.
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I think the most annoying part about updating is that on Mac the .dmg file is not signed properly and you have to go to the Security & Privacy each time to allow opening the application.
That unfortunately is Appleās policy of ānot trustingā apps not notarized by them. It is rather expensive and will require the latest version of Mac OSX. So we canāt really help this
I think the technology has changed. From the https://electronjs.org:
"Automatic software updates
Send out software updates to your macOS and Windows users whenever you release a new version with Electron's autoUpdater module, powered by Squirrel."
Many people using an open source, independent app like Joplin are drawn to it precisely because there are not abhorrent things like automatic updates. To many of us they massively impede workflow and I find them to be anathema (see Evernote!).
Seeing as this option is actually enabled by default, it would be horrendous if it started automatically updating the app. So you'd have to relabel it and add something else. All just seems a bit unnecessary. As others have said, Laurent surely has far more important and interesting Joplin issues to work on.
Overall, you know, if you want to update it, just do the few clicks necessary! 
There are two things being discussed here as far as I can tell: automatic updates, and update installation that happens in the background, and just because you (_Ben) don't want one specific feature doesn't mean it doesn't have merit, and doesn't mean that if it were implemented that it would be forced upon everyone. Software can give users the option to turn features on or off, after all.
Automatic Updates
- Updates without any action required by the user is clearly appreciated by many people and present in an awful lot of software. Also just as clearly, some people don't want their software updated automatically without their consent. Simple solution: make it a feature you turn on or off. Neither is inherently better or worse than the other, but it does become pretty irritating when Joplin has updates as frequently as they do, requiring users to go through this full process every time.
Background Updates
- This would be pretty nice. My biggest gripe about Joplin is that we seem to get a minimum of one update per week, requiring you exit whatever full-screen app you're using to close the update notification and then go fully download an entire dmg or exe when the update is probably just a few files to begin with. Is there truly a compelling reason why we can't allow updates to happen in the background (the app downloads just the files that need to change, launches a separate process to close itself, installs those updates / does whatever cleanup it needs, and re-launches the process) without the user having to do every bit of it?
Absolutely !
It depends... For me every update is a joy... I'm waiting them like a new epiode of a tv show...
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Obviouly.
But there's another point than the simple control of the background. I suppose that if you have so frequent updates it's because you use beta versions... Do you realize that one day some new upgrade will stop your workflow because of new issues ? The most of the time, no but sometimes yes.
For some reason one day you will not be able to do something... At this moment you will be furious of automatic updates in the background even if it's an option you choose. At this moment you will ask devs to fix the issue immediately, and you will not be the only one. Of course you will not remember it's your fault and you will have no mercy... Imagine the stress and the work for the devs !
When we have to install a new version we think twice if it's really necessary to do it or not and if there's an issue we accuse only yourself and will not ask an immediate fix...
So it's not so simple...
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I repackage Joplin and have had to rebuild stable like 5 times the past two weeks, sometimes there's actually just a lot of updates, but each update is tiny, it's more common after a new minor release to see a load of smaller patch releases in succession.
The updater for Windows really needs a way to say whether an update is critical or not, such as, did everyone on Windows get an upgrade prompt to 3.3.9 when it wouldn't have effected them?
I thought that for Windows we had the auto-update process working? Or is it not enabled by default?
In the configuration screen, under Application, could you check that you have the setting "Enable auto-updates" and that it is on?
If we have a look at the new features and fixed issue of the new version, we can usually have an idea if it's critical or not... But I agree it's not for the basic user...