Update process is tedious

Features
1

This has been discussed seemingly at length in various other threads, but it seems that right now the only offered solution for users being frustrated by the pop-up update dialog is just to disable auto-updates.

I don't really like this solution because I want to receive regular updates at the frequency they are delivered, but I don't want an intrusive pop-up appearing on my desktop every time, and I don't want to have to download and run the msi installer every single time an update is available.

Is it possible to compartmentalize the update functionality in the actual app itself? Perhaps give the user some sort of banner notification or indicator in a corner that an update is ready, and handle the patching process directly in the app?

I think there are a lot of users like me who would rather just disable updates entirely than to deal with the update dialog, which causes us to miss out on new features and fixes.

If there's an open issue for this I'd be happy to work on a PR!

2 Likes
2

I would like this! I'll check about having an issue created tomorrow.

Note that because we already use electron-builder, it might make sense to also use their auto-updater (as compared to the built-in Electron auto updater).

3

I talked with @laurent22. It seems that

  • we used to use electron-builder's auto-update service, but disabled it due to bugs (see commit and commit),
  • Joplin might migrate away from electron-builder to electron-forge at some point in the future.

As such, it seems that Electron's autoUpdater is probably a better choice.

If there's an open issue for this I'd be happy to work on a PR!

I've created an issue for this Support auto-update · Issue #8958 · laurent22/joplin · GitHub.