[Sparkle] Sparkle Prefpane Interface

[Simone Manganelli]

It seems to me that the best way to implement the interface would be  
to just have a faceless background app that's launched when the  
prefpane loads (and have it automatically add itself as a login  
item).  Then, an update interval can be set in the Sparkle prefpane,  
and the background app would check for updates according to the set  
interval.  Or perhaps a specific weekday/time could be set instead of  
an interval.

 From then on, it would work pretty much like Sparkle does for  
individual applications.  If the background app finds an update, it  
will pop up a window listing all of the available updates to Sparkle- 
aware apps, with buttons to install all updates or checkboxes to  
allow installation of only some specific updates.  There'll also be  
skip/postpone buttons in the dialog -- to keep it simple, these  
buttons would apply to all the updates that are presented in that one  
dialog; the checkboxes would only apply to installation.

Since it's the background app doing the updates, not any individual  
application, this dialog box wouldn't necessarily come up when  
Sparkle-aware apps are launched.  (Although, I suppose, it might be  
advantageous to have certain apps trigger the background app to do an  
immediate update check; I could see the prefpane showing a list of  
all Sparkle-aware apps living on the system, and a flag which could  
tell Sparkle that it's an important app -- meaning that the user  
wants the app to trigger an update for that specific app when launched.)

I could also envision a NSStatusItem living in the menubar for those  
users that would prefer, which would show the Sparkle logo and a  
badge of how many updates are available.  This way the user would  
simply have to glance at his menubar every so often, and wouldn't be  
interrupted by an intrusive dialog if he doesn't want to.

Growl notifications should not be an integral part of Sparkle.   
Sparkle can use Growl if the user has already installed it, but I  
don't think it should be absolutely necessary.

Any thoughts?

-- Simone


Il giorno 2007-08-04, alle ore 20:38, sparkle- 
request at lists.andymatuschak.org ha scritto:

> 1. What kind of interface is appropriate for notifying the user of
> updates? A lot of the time, they don't care at all that something's
> been updated?a tiny bug fix, a small new feature, whatever. I don't
> want to be intrusive. Here are the options as I see them:
>
> 	a. Don't do anything to notify the user.
> 	b. Just basic notifications, like Growl, in the upper-right when an
> update's installed. If you click a bubble, you see the release notes.
> This is hardly elegant. Maybe something a little more... Delicious?
> 	c. When you start the app, it says "Hey, this is a new version! Wanna
> see what's new?" and offers to show release notes. This is just as
> obtrusive as the current system, really. So probably not.