Live Update for OTTD? And more...

[arielb_86]

Any chance to get some kind of Live Update function (as in TTDP), where if someone uses the nightlies they will get updated everynight automatically instad of having to download the new version every time?

No idea about bandwidth requirement and practical use for the stable version but i guess for the nightlies it would be quite benefitial for some.


I also have several questions:
When someone propose an idea, someone likes it and implements it, how does it get to the trunk? What does it take to something in truck to appear in the nightlies/stable versions?

Should there be some sort of voting system for the patches/suggestions/grfs etc. So like as a community we vote on what should be developed first instead of having hundreds of little things all over the net

UPDATE:
forgot one more thing and will not create a new post for it....
Is it possible to increase in a single player mode the amount of AI companies playing, specially for big maps it would be cool to expand from 7 all the way to 16(which i think its a good number and as many colors as you can get)

[PikkaBird]

Any chance to get some kind of Live Update function (as in TTDP)

What? There is no live update function in TTDP; possibly you're thinking of TTDXC, which is a completely separate program.

When someone propose an idea, someone likes it and implements it, how does it get to the trunk?

An OTTD dev with trunk access must accept the patch and put it into the trunk.

What does it take to something in truck to appear in the nightlies/stable versions?

The nightly is compiled from the trunk, so they are the same thing. Features in the trunk may be migrated to the stable versions when they are completed.

Should there be some sort of voting system for the patches/suggestions/grfs etc

No. That is to say; start paying me, then I'll start doing what you want instead of what I want.

[arielb_86]

Totally agree with the fact that the people who actually programmed this game have all the rights to accept/refuse.
So well yea i was just wondering the procedure.

About the live update. I believe not sure which(3rd party) program that used the patch had an auto update that will check for newer versions. Anyhow the point is. Can a live update for the nightlies be implemented? Or is it not going to be THAT useful? I am using stable .5.2 but i was wondering about it for the people who like using nightlies

[Bilbo]

Actually, there is program to update the openttd to latest version automatically.

Just type "svn update && make" in the right directory :)

[Touqen]

I'll give a go at creating an application to download nightlies this weekend.

[belugas]

To implement such a live update tool, you will need an external program, like the one that TTDPatch uses. The reuqired informations are right there, already

1) Version of the latest nightly available on file http://nightly.openttd.org/latest/.rev
Contains (as I write these) :

Code: Select all

10532
Thu Jul 12 20:00:04 CEST 2007

First line been, of course, the last revision number used whil compiling the nightly.

2) Version of the latest nightly used :
File changes.log, in the root of the last installed nightly.
Second line contains the last revision number:

Code: Select all

------------------------------------------------------------------------
r10532 | miham | 2007-07-12 19:08:56 +0200 (Thu, 12 Jul 2007) | 6 lines

3) if versions do not match, get the nightly package using the number collected in step 1)
Example:
http://nightly.openttd.org/latest/OTTD- ... STEP1>.zip

4) activate an automatic download request
5) unpack the archive and install it to the appropriate location.

Of course, 4) and 5) are a little trickier, but that's the fun of programming : challenges

This does not help much when it comes to releases, of course. Only nightlies can be processed this way.

[arielb_86]

To implement such a live update tool, you will need an external program, like the one that TTDPatch uses.

Is it hard to implement it to be part of the core in OTTD instead of an external program? I am just wondering, not really going to affect much but it is nice in fact when software updates by itself without any efford:p

This does not help much when it comes to releases, of course. Only nightlies can be processed this way.

And im agree there, it will only help for nightlies, but it would be nice to have it to auto update the files every night or well whenever you click on Update or so.

It can also be the way to let people know aobut new versions of stable releases maybe?
Im just throwing ideas....not sure whether or not they can be implemented and/or be useful

[Rubidium]

Ofcourse there are the issues of how to relaunch OTTD properly when you've downloaded the new nightly. Furthermore this feature is totally annoying when you've got OTTD managed via a package manager. So I think the best way to go is writing a simple external application to do so, just like the configurators for TTDP. Maybe even make it automatically download the latest nightly every night or so.

[Zuu]

To implement such a live update tool, you will need an external program, like the one that TTDPatch uses.

Is it hard to implement it to be part of the core in OTTD instead of an external program? I am just wondering, not really going to affect much but it is nice in fact when software updates by itself without any efford:p

Would be much simplier to make the update-program execute OpenTTD after it have updated OpenTTD. With a changed shortcut on your desktop/start menu (to the auto-update-program instead of openttd.exe) the result would be the same as you are wishing for.

Edit: Or at least closer to that. If you are a 24/7 player who never exits OpenTTD you might would wish to get a notification in OpenTTD when there is a new update

[arielb_86]

HAHA i wish i could be 24/7 with that game.....its been so long since i played it for more than 2/3 hours.....Remember the good old times where i was able to play 6 hours straight knowing that school and work can wait a little bit longer:p

but sure i would definetly go for what you described above.

[CMircea]

OK, I'll give it a try tomorrow (Windows-only as usual, since on Linux you can quickly recompile it). Make a list with some start features you want (more will get added over time) and I'll start coding it.

[Touqen]

Not if I do it first! Muahahahah... Actually you'll probably be done before I will because I have a bunch of crap to take care of tomorrow.

[Moriarty]

This current thread has a similar theme:
http://tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=32764 - Automatic NewGRF downloading.

Ofcourse there are the issues of how to relaunch OTTD properly when you've downloaded the new nightly. Furthermore this feature is totally annoying when you've got OTTD managed via a package manager. So I think the best way to go is writing a simple external application to do so, just like the configurators for TTDP. Maybe even make it automatically download the latest nightly every night or so.

How many people use a package manager? And I can't see why you couldn't have a confirmation screen/request before making the update.

As to re-launching - other applications do it in windows, so it is possible. No idea as to other OS's.

Also - why can't this be done for proper releases too? If you're going to do it for nightlies, why not talk the extra few hours and make the regular releases compatible. Ensure that all releases have a URL stored in them which contains the official download location.

[Zuu]

Most information about OpenTTD Auto Update including the attachments have been moved to http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=36759

----------------

I've coded a small application that basically follows the steps that belugas wrote earlier in this thread.

• It depends on Info-Zip exe-file which is included in the zip-file. (as allowed by the Info-Zip license)
• Put it in your OpenTTD-directory or tell it where OpenTTD is installed using the browse button.
• It should not depend on .NET as far as I am aware.

[CMircea]

Aww come on, that's all you can do? I went on an unexpected trip today so I couldn't do much, but tomorrow it'll be finished.

[benc]

I agree that this should be an external program, not part of OpenTTD proper.

As OpenTTD is, well, open source software, the external program really should be FOSS as well. Preferably GPL -- just be consistent.

If it turns out to be a popular app (I think it would, if properly implemented), it could eventually be "officialized" as a sub-project of OpenTTD. If the nightly autoupdate turns out to work extremely well it could be extended to autoupdate the stable releases, too. The average Windows/Mac user neither knows nor cares whether he has 0.5.2 or 0.5.3.

Also if there is any concern about bandwidth, it should be relatively straightforward to integrate a lightweight GPL bittorrent engine.

[CMircea]

OpenTTD Updater 0.1 is here. This 1.75 MB application (I'll make it smaller when it hits 1.0) can be put anywhere on your system and simply browse for your OpenTTD folder (by pressing the "Browse" button) or you can put it in your OpenTTD folder (where's OpenTTD.exe).

Currently it does not detect your current OTTD revision, but the next version might, or at least it will know the last revision you updated to. I haven't tested it but there shouldn't be any bugs.

http://rapidshare.com/files/42998974/Op ... r.exe.html

[Zuu]

Aww come on, that's all you can do? I went on an unexpected trip today so I couldn't do much, but tomorrow it'll be finished.

Now, what is so wrong with my application? No reason to be rude.

[Bilbo]

UPDATE:
forgot one more thing and will not create a new post for it....
Is it possible to increase in a single player mode the amount of AI companies playing, specially for big maps it would be cool to expand from 7 all the way to 16(which i think its a good number and as many colors as you can get)

Perhaps you should post a new post with your new question, since if you update your post that is "all the way up", people are less likely to notice that.

As to the AI - There is limit to number of companies, so once someone raise the limit, it would be possible to have more AI's

[CMircea]

Aww come on, that's all you can do? I went on an unexpected trip today so I couldn't do much, but tomorrow it'll be finished.

Now, what is so wrong with my application? No reason to be rude.

Sorry if I was rude, but it looks so bald...

Anyway, OpenTTD Updater 0.2 is here. This will get the current revision number from the changes.log file. It's 1.73 MB now, so you save 20 KB of downloading

Anyway, in the next version I'll make an installer that's use LZMA compression instead of this simple ZIP SFX archive. That should cut the size quite a bit, and you'll then only need to download a very small patch to update to the latest version of OpenTTD Updater.

http://rapidshare.com/files/43078109/Op ... r.exe.html

EDIT: 0.3 is out now. This doesn't include any major changes, except that it has an installer, thus is much smaller to download than the old ZIP SFX archive. The next versions will include a patch only until 1.0 (yep, no installer 'till 1.0, so you must download this installer and apply the patch after installation).

To orudge: Any chance you could add .exe to the uploadable extensions list? Somehow I can't upload any .exe files.