Improvement - Plugins - Not allow updating to a non-compliant version

Features
1

A minor point regarding plugin updates and Joplin versions.

I am using Joplin v1.7.11 and the Note Overview plugin 1.3.4. Upon looking at the plugins settings page I am shown that there is an update. I had not seen the post for the plugin where it states 1.8.1 is required and the update notice itself does not tell me.

before

I updated and I am then informed that a newer version of Joplin is needed to run it. There is not currently a newer version as 1.8.x is in beta / pre-release. The plugin now cannot be reverted or even deleted using the plugin settings. It can be disabled.

after

The solution of course is to quit Joplin, delete the JPL file out of the plugins directory, go to GitHub for the older plugin, download the older version, place it in the plugins folder and start Joplin. Just suggesting that a non-technical user should not have to find out how to do this for this or any other plugin.

Ideally users should not be able to update a plugin that does not work with the installed Joplin version when the previous version did.

Just one for the wall of "things to consider" post-it notes :slight_smile:

Edit: Didn't place this on the plugin's post as it seems this may not be unique to that plugin, rather a weakness with Joplin's updating system.

3 Likes
2

This I have also unfortunately discovered :frowning:

This is the correct behavior if the plugin was installed by manually.
But I think with an update this should be checked before and then the update should not be installable.

I think for usability the behavior should be changed.

3

Yes it indeed should be fixed, for example by disabling the update button and displaying a message "Joplin v1.8 is required to update this plugin". Actually @dpoulton, would you mind adding this as a bug on GitHub?

1 Like
4

#4801

1 Like
5

Let the extension declare a field engines to identify the lowest compatible version, just like the vscode and jetbrains plugins

6

This field is called app_min_version.

7

I'd like to look into this improvement. I found app_min_version in plugins' manifest file, and I assume this will just come down to adding an additional check in PluginService to ensure compliance on install or update, and add an error message if the check fails. Let me know if you think I'm on track to a solution or if it's actually more complicated under the hood.

8

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