Sparkle auto-update dialog popup interrupts workflow

[rogerso]

When the auto-updater detects a new version and shows the update prompt, I'm almost always in the middle of doing something else. The prompt steals window focus, which is super annoying.

Can syncthing notify the user using Notifications instead of popping up a window? Thanks.

[xor-gate]

Dear @rogerso, thanks for reporting. I understand the workflow is interrupted by this nag dialog. Currently there is no option in syncthing-macos to disable update checking and only do manual update. There are two options:

• The Sparkle updater (library) must add the suggested notification area feature. I started a discussion about this here. The library is 3th party and not maintained by the syncthing-macos project
• As a "quick fix" we should look into adding a disable update checking checkbox in syncthing-macos. And then enable it by default (for the masses). As disabling updates is a bad idea. The problem we introduce when people disable auto-update checking is they can lag behind, but people can control updates by hand.

Let me known what you think.

[bencaf]

While I'm not original poster, I'd really appreciate a checkbox to disable update checking, so that I can manually update syncthing. I use it on a remote computer I have limited access to, and it seems the auto update popup prevents the sync from starting when the computer restart or stops the sync while it's running, which is inconvenient as it require manual intervention on the computer.

[xor-gate]

Thanks @bencaf for the extra information, this is indeed a different case and a serious problem and should not block starting syncthing.

[rogerso]

@xor-gate, thank you for your reply. Given the technical limitations, a checkbox for disabling the auto update check as a workaround would be great. Much appreciated, and thank you again for your work.

[bencaf]

@xor-gate I guess so, do you want me to open a New issue instead ?

[xor-gate]

Thanks @rogerso for the idea, we will see what the people at Sparkle say about the notification center feature. But this is will take some time and maybe will not be implemented.

Controlling the auto-update enable/disable is now not possible and should not be to hard to implement. I have created issue #182 for this.

I will leave this issue open because this is about suppressing the popup with a notification instead.

[xor-gate]

It seems since Sparkle 2.2 there has been introduced a new feature called "Gentle Update Reminders" which probably is a solution to the problem you @rogerso are facing.

As of Sparkle 2.2, Sparkle prioritizes showing scheduled update alerts for regular (non-backgrounded) applications at opportune times when:

• The user just launched your app or interacted with the updater recently (for example, granting Sparkle permission to allow automatic update checks)
• The user’s system has been idle for some time and no power assertion has been made by your app to prevent display sleep while your app is active
• The user comes back to your application from another application (instead of showing an alert when a user is actively using your app)

[xor-gate]

Sparkle 2.2 mentions posting update notifications to the notification center:

Posting a user notification to Notification Center Note posting a notification to Notification Center is an auxiliary but not definitive way of notifying users of updates. There is no guarantee the notification will be delivered and that the user will see the notification. It is also common for a user to not approve your app from delivering notifications.

This is a unreliable way to post updates to the user.