Transparent auto-update

[AaronTraas]

One of my Macs is only used about once every week. Every time I use it, it seems that Alfred needs to update.

 

Now, I'm completely grateful that Alfred is a well-maintained app, and I rely on it for my workflow. It absolutely makes my life better in measurable ways. The powerpack, also, is well worth purchasing. However, being nagged constantly to update stinks.

 

Why not do this:

 

- without prompting the user, download updates in the background. 

- whenever alfred is restarted, if there is a downloaded update available, install it silently.

- when a downloaded update is available, update the menu bar icon to have a red exclamation point on it, and add "restart to upgrade"

- add "Update available. Click here to restart and upgrade." or similar on the search bar.

 

This is the direction applications like Chrome and Firefox have take, and it works very well. Of course, major version upgrades, such as those that would require a new PowerPack license, would not work this way. 

[Vero]

One of my Macs is only used about once every week. Every time I use it, it seems that Alfred needs to update.

 

Now, I'm completely grateful that Alfred is a well-maintained app, and I rely on it for my workflow. It absolutely makes my life better in measurable ways. The powerpack, also, is well worth purchasing. However, being nagged constantly to update stinks.

 

First, I'd suggest checking in the Update tab that you're only set to get notified on "Updates" not "Pre-releases", as pre-releases are more frequent by nature. If you wait until the general updates are available, you'll see by looking at the dates in the change log that these happen on average once a month.

 

Keep in mind that Mavericks was released a few weeks ago, so a second update was needed to make sure we provided users with the best compatibility possible, so last month included two updates instead of just one.

 

The main reason we show some details about what the next update contains is to let you know if something has changed. It's been rare but there have been occasions where changes to OS X have required a little change in hotkeys in Alfred, for example when iTunes 11 was released.

 

Having said that, you can easily turn off auto-update in the Update tab on the Mac that you use less frequently and do the updates manually when it's convenient for you

[pkmnct]

I hate to dig up an old thread, but rather than making a new one I thought it would be better to bring up discussion on this suggestion. Nearly seven years have passed, and it is very expected in 2020 for applications to just automatically update.

I too have a few older macs that don't get used often. It is wonderful that many applications will just auto-update these days. As useful as it is, I wish Alfred were one of them.

As for the update details, a little notice where the current "Update Available" tab is that says "See What's New" would be much nicer than through an installer, in my opinion. Maybe something a little more invasive if there is a breaking change.

[deanishe]

6 hours ago, pkmnct said:

it is very expected in 2020 for applications to just automatically update

 

Which applications do that? Chrome? Firefox? Any others?

[Mike Fisher]

On 7/11/2020 at 1:42 AM, deanishe said:

Which applications do that? Chrome? Firefox? Any others?

Pretty much anything installed from the App Store. Microsoft Office.

[pkmnct]

Adobe Creative Cloud is another good example. There are quite a few apps that use the open-source Sparkle framework to handle one-click updates, too, including:

Itsycal

iTerm

Transmission

Cyberduck

Carbon Copy Cloner

VLC

Wine

Hex Fiend

ImageOptim

Bartender

BetterTouchTool

Geekbench

 

and these are just what I can think of off the top of my head. 

[deanishe]

2 minutes ago, pkmnct said:

There are quite a few apps that use the open-source Sparkle framework to handle one-click updates

 

They're talking about zero-click updates. Chrome and Firefox download & install updates automatically by default. Next time you launch the app, you're using the new version. The App Store and MS Office can also be configured to do that.

 

Sparkle-based apps show you an "update available" window and give you the option to install the update or not.

 

Personally, I prefer the way Alfred works to the way Sparkle works: Alfred lets me know there's an update without popping up a new window that interferes with what I'm doing.

[Vero]

3 minutes ago, deanishe said:

Personally, I prefer the way Alfred works to the way Sparkle works: Alfred lets me know there's an update without popping up a new window that interferes with what I'm doing.

 

Precisely why we do it this way - if you're in the middle of something, we don't want to interfere. Back in the day when I did presentations a lot, having a Sparkle prompt in the middle of a talk was enough to throw me a bit out of the flow  

 

At this point, there are only a few Alfred updates a year for non-pre-release users (7 in the past 12 months), unlike many of the apps named above who do updates on a weekly basis as a matter of course.  If you're seeing more frequent updates, check that you haven't selected the pre-releases option in the dropdown menu.

 

As such, the effort it takes with a couple of clicks at a convenient time is very low - and hopefully you'll take a moment to glance at the change log. This change log is our only opportunity to communicate significant changes and new features to Alfred, so it's a chance for you to see what lovely stuff we've added for you to use.  

 

Cheers,
Vero

[dsc]

I much prefer Sparkle, updates can be performed with one click or automatically instead of clicking "Alfred Update Available", then "Download update" and finally "Update and restart Alfred". Sparkle also offers the flexibility to ignore updates, I would almost prefer hiding the "Alfred Update Available" button link altogether.

 

Even without integrating Sparkle, one click updating would be a welcome change. Alfred remains one of the most cumbersome macOS apps to update.

[ctbeiser]

I think it's very reasonable to add a checkbox to allow auto-updating Alfred. Right now, my alfred setup is mature, and outside major releases, I don't see any reason to change it. Between several computers, I find myself having to press "update" and then "download and restart" more often than I'd like.

 

Note also that when I invoke alfred, I was trying to do something. Even if it's not so frequent, it feels frustrating to have to manually intervene to get rid of the notice.

[msdisme]

At this point it looks like it has been 6 updates since July (5 if GM is not counted, but I had to upgrade to that.)

 

I take updates without even looking through the release notes is a testament to the quality of the code you all release.  I suspect most users do the same.   If something is behaving odd then I look.  (this, btw, is not my normal behaviour - but you guys really do a great job.)

 

In fairness to your priorities, apparently only a small number of have cared enough to post here 😞

 

Is there some way we users could automate it via workflows?