Open TTD on Steam?

[planetmaker]

Anyhow, OpenTTD has a very user-friendly interface for graphich and AI updates already. Is it possible to expand this interface to selecting game updates once you launch the game?

That could also be interpreted as "OpenTTD phones home" which some people would be concerned about when that is done automagically without user interaction. Besides the main menu has a button to go directly to 'online content'.

[Yexo]

I think Hyronymus suggestion was to have an easier way to update OpenTTD, not the content.

[Hyronymus]

I think Hyronymus suggestion was to have an easier way to update OpenTTD, not the content.

Correct and of course always with prior consent. I hate automagically updating programs.

[planetmaker]

I think Hyronymus suggestion was to have an easier way to update OpenTTD, not the content.

Correct and of course always with prior consent. I hate automagically updating programs.

Right, then I misunderstood, sorry.

It could make sense in a FF or VLC way which tell that an update is available and ask whether it should be downloaded and installed - when an appropriate adv. setting is activated.

[Hyronymus]

Hehe, it could make sense?

We'll see what OpenTTD 1.1 brings us .

[Rubidium]

There is somewhat of a problem with those update "features". They have the (nasty) side effect of somewhat failing on Windows when another instance of OpenTTD is still running; you can't delete/rename a file while it's opened, as such replacing is quite hard.

For Firefox they would mostly work because they enforce that there is only one instance running. Nevertheless (some) Linux distributions seem to be removing the update feature from Firefox as it might cause problems with other components of the system, or is it just installed in a non-default location.

Then I haven't even talked about the cases where the application isn't installed by the current user and writing to the files is forbidden.

On top of that is the question: what is the newest version we want to give our users? Stable, but what about downgrades? Testing, but... should that update to stable and what when it has become stable? What about patched builds? What about those patch packs in the development forum?

How would it actually know which binary to get exactly? Especially in cases where there are shared libraries, i.e. Linux. It's all nice to send a binary linked to libpng 1.2, but if it's not installed on the user's computer it's going to fail horribly. Ofcourse, this is especially fun with those fancy distros that want to be (arterial) bleeding edge.

Finally, what to do with the (un)installer? OpenTTD itself is totally unaware of the (un)installer and as such doesn't know whether it has to update that to remove some other files. Actually, how to handle the removal of files from the archive? Does OpenTTD need to remove them from disk? Or should it leave them? But if it leaves them, can't that mess up the uninstaller? But if it removes them, does that mess up other stuff, e.g. other OpenTTD installs?

As you can see there is a load of tricky questions and issues that I don't fancy to endeavour into. For example, something much simpler as the actual loading of fonts need to work differently on some Asian versions of Windows, which was only discovered long after it was implemented. Given the tricks we would be trying I think we would only be risking more issues that I rather would not work on. Offloading all the installer trouble to the Linux distro packagers and the NSIS developers is something I favour over inventing yet another installer for OpenTTD.

[Hyronymus]

Programs like Ccleaner and FileZilla succesfully know how to update themselves on Windows (I know from experience they do under Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7). And I understand the far-from-ease there is in implementing this feature.

[Rubidium]

Programs like Ccleaner and FileZilla succesfully know how to update themselves on Windows.

Have you tried to update them when another instance was running as well?

[Hyronymus]

I.e. Ccleaner: I start it, and while it's launched it notices a new version is available. You are prompted if you wish to install the update and when clicking No nothing happens.
And if you click yes it closes Ccleaner, updates the program and relaunches.

[Zuu]

On top of that is the question: what is the newest version we want to give our users? Stable, but what about downgrades? Testing, but... should that update to stable and what when it has become stable? What about patched builds? What about those patch packs in the development forum?

My solution to this issue was Release targets, eg "Last nightly", "Last stable", "Last stable (including testing)" etc. which independent of what edition you have installed indicate what you want to update to if it is not already what you got.

That said, making the updater as a separate optional program for those that want it, gives more freedom to experiment with concepts.