Global Mapper v25.0

"Automatic" updates

STH
STH Global Mapper UserTrusted User
edited September 2009 in Suggestion Box
Seeing that updates are done everyday it might be an option to think about implementing some update function?

In that manner I would advice you to take a look at http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/04/google-update-goes-open-source.html

Advantages:
- The user can download updates directly when they are available (you can mark fixes as critical and "force" them to the user, or BETA and not force them to the user)
- A lot less stress on your download-server (not sure if this is a problem now with bandwith or costs)

Comments

  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited September 2009
    In general I don't want to push the updates between official releases to the general user population. I would prefer to defer that to official point releases so that all of the documentation can be updated etc.

    However if I've just had a release and significant bugs are found I will silently update the official installers so that anyone downloading the software will get any bug fixes. I just did that yesterday to group together all of the bug fixes since the v11.00 release.

    That being said, I have now created an automated process for creating all of my installer packages so I am thinking of doing official releases more often, maybe every 6 weeks or so, rather than about every 3-4 months.

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Support
    support@globalmapper.com
  • Bushman
    Bushman Global Mapper User
    edited September 2009
    I'm agree with Mike, new "unofficially implemented" features without documentation could cause problems, if GM is used for some strictly regulated tasks.
    It's not a problem, when documentation is automatically generated, but it requires big initial job from developers.
    But if somebody wants quick update procedure, it could be made with batch file, using cURL or Wget and some implementation of GREP for Windows.
    - get HTTP response on request of zipped update with cURL
    - filter HTTP response with GREP to get size of update, store it in temporary file and compare with previously stored size
    - if new size is not equal to previously stored, download zipped update
    - unpack update with console ZIP
    - overwrite old executable with new one