Hello,
Joplin does check for plugin updates, but that info is not well exposed to the user. So when I just looked into my settings to do something unrelated, I've found that I have updates:
Would it be a good idea to show this to the user in a non-obtrusive way? Ex. in the top, just like when we're prompted to supply the decryption passphrase?
Ex.:
Fooplugin has a new version available (
n.n.n.->m.m.m), update? [LATER] [UPDATE]
Afaik the request to gh are only made when you open the Plugins window in the configuration screen. But I might be wrong when it comes to checking for plugin updates.
Otherwise such a banner in the main app would indeed be useful.
This is actually one failure that prevents me from suggesting Joplin to non-technical users. I don't think they'll remember to check for updates to their plugins occasionally. There could even be a plugin to check plugins for updates. Keepass password safe has such a plugin and it is very useful. It checks for updates to the program and plugins once a week at startup.
On the other side, most plugin updates are probably not essential (meaning security related) so as long as things are working for people, there really isn't a reason that plugins have to be updated.
Except, I guess, if an update to core breaks a plugin. So perhaps short of a real solution there could be a reminder when Joplin updates to update your plugins as well.
I can imagine that for non-technical users frequent plugin updates could be annoying.
Rather than whether the user is technical or non-technical, I feel it's more how it is implemented. A discreet notification icon in the app may be far more acceptable than a warning dialog box that appears every time Joplin is started and needs the user to click a button to get rid of it.
@uxamanda and @ajay discussed plugin updates last year. It looks like they never managed to get started on it but the initial post proposing the idea did get a reasonable number of "likes".
I think a plugin would be perfect for that. I find pop-ups and notification banners highly annoying, especially when they are forced onto me without having an option to disable them. (I am not talking about a Dismiss button.)
Yep, unfortunately didn’t get around to building it, and I don’t have time to try at the moment. Still think a plug-in works, although reading about the non technical use case, having something automatic that you could turn off might be better.
For this and other notifications I thought about adding an icon in the bottom right corner next to the Synchronise button, and it will have the red dot when there's something new.
The issue however is that the sidebar can be hidden which would make the notifications invisible, including potentially important ones. But not sure where else to put it without cluttering the UI.
I would personally quite like the following:
Alt)It has the downside of cluttering the UI a little more for macOS (and for those who keep the menu bar un-hidden) but it is certainly keeping with some other applications.
Or to go really mad replace the native title and menu bar with a custom title/menu bar combo which would allow theming support as well as just doing whatever you want with it.
Create a settings cog/burger etc. in the top right corner that can show a coloured notification dot on the button which, when clicked, opens up the config page (or even shows separate links to each config page subsection which would take you directly to it) or replicates the entire menu bar inside it (Firefox style).
Hmmm... something like what Chrome/Brave do when an update is staged, but the user has not restarted the browser? But instead of expanding the burger with a label with changing colors, just add a dot or something?
I like this idea, because it is already in the user's best interest to keep an eye on the sync / watch for issues there. You could allow people to turn on (or have on by default) "notify me of updates with popup". This would keep the existing behavior (but add plugins to the alerts), and allow people like @tessus to turn it off in favor of just having a badge.
I think we'd need a full spec first. At least for me it's not clear what needs to be done.
I would definitely like this, or even better, an option under Plugins to have Joplin automatically check for plug-in updates, download all available updates, and automatically install those updates on next app re-launch. Or to do this when one updates the app itself.
Seems like a pretty straightforward feature request - I am not sure how to complex to code it but on the functionality side clear, we would like to have option to have plugins auto-update or at least, update in same step whenever we update Joplin or if not that, then, notify users when plugins that are active do have an update available. Particularly as much functionality in Joplin relies on plugins that would help. Please elevate so it can get on roadmap.