OpenTTD Auto Update - 2.0.6

[Zuu]

It has been a while since the last release. I'm not ready to put out a new one yet, but there are a few things that I have added lately.

• Menu alternative for opening a cmd window for the installations directory. - Useful if you want to run OpenTTD with some debug arguments or grep in some files (an AI you make for example) and have grep.exe in your PATH.
• Command line arguments to OpenTTD Auto Update for opening installation directory in explorer or cmd.
• Filter the displayed OpenTTD Change Log by typing a filter string or selecting one of the suggested strings (based on change log file contents). I plan to add displaying of date of each change log item and have added support for that all way through the program except for actually extracting the date from the change log file. See Attached image:

  

  filter_log_by_string.png (31.01 KiB) Viewed 6742 times

  The three categories of suggestions supported right now are:
  • Actions (the '-Fix:' string etc.)
  • Developer names
  • Square bracket strings eg. [FS#3018] or [NoAI]

Feedback on if the suggested filter strings are useful, or if adding date to the change log view is wanted is welcome. Are there anything else you would like to see in a future release? If it isn't too much work I might add that for the next release. The process of making the releases take about 2 hours so I rather don't do them too often.

I could for example add a hard coded ban of FS#-strings if no one see any use of them.

[ostlandr]

Not working lately- I think they moved the zip files again. . .

[Zuu]

Not working lately- I think they moved the zip files again. . .

I would say it is because there have not been any win32 binaries lately:
http://binaries.openttd.org/nightlies/trunk/r17808/


Here you can see where OpenTTD Auto Update thinks the files should be.
http://users.tt-forums.net/ottdau/Updat ... tatusPage/

[Zuu]

Update - Version 2.0

===== OpenTTD Auto Update - 2.0 =====


--- Changes: ---

• Action to open a terminal (cmd) for OpenTTD directory. Good when you want to start OpenTTD with debug parameters for example.
• The Open Directory menu item has been moved from Installations to Actions menu.
• Command line arguments have been added for opening the install directory in explorer or in a terminal.
• The non-raw change log presentation has been further improved:
  
  • Dates are shown for when the commits was made (can be turned of both in the change log dialog and the options dialog)
  • New filter box where you can type in a filter or select one of the suggested filters. Only commit messages that match the filter text will be displayed. This can be useful if you just want to check out the NoAI changes or what a specific developer has done recently.
• The edit installation settings window has got a big warning about that you should not store your important documents in the #openttdcoop GRFPack directory if you let OpenTTD Auto Update to manage that directory since sometimes the directory is removed before an update is installed.

For everyone already having the program installed you can as usual grab the last update by starting the program and use the Self Update functionality. (Unless you have turned it off, it will ask you to update at startup. You can turn it back on in the options dialog and then restart the program if needed.)

For new users you can grab the zip file here below. Please follow the install instructions on the website: http://users.tt-forums.net/ottdau/ , and then the read included wizard to get started.

OpenTTDAutoUpdate2.0.zip

(490.03 KiB) Downloaded 191 times

Edit: Hope you like this update. Myself I have found some of the new features quite useful in the development of my AIs.

[petert]

Wow, I'm really happy that you added NewGRF Airports to AU, it's much easier than hg checkout. Also, I love the filter string, but I thought there were supposed to be options? ([Add], [Feature], etc...) Great work on a great program!

[Zuu]

The filter suggestions are added on the fly. So if there is no [GRF] in the change log, then no [GRF] suggestion will be shown. And if they invent or ever write [SomeNewRandomThingInBrackets] then that will show up. That is the basic idea. Also keep in mind that filtering suggestions is only available in non-raw log display. So it is mainly for nightlies.

If that does not answer your question, please send a screenshot and point out what you think is missing.


But I just saw one problem. If you enlarge the change log window in height then the filter widgets does not follow downwards.



Edit: Filtering is actually available for raw change log view, but there is no suggestions. That said the usefulness can be questioned in raw-view since then only the lines that match are displayed. In non-raw view then the whole items that match are displayed.

[Zuu]

Fix release - 2.0.1

Two issues with 2.0 was found this morning and now there is a fix release for these bugs.

--- Fixes in 2.0.1 --

• Filter widgets were not folowing the bottom of the window when the change log window was resized in the respect of height.
• Don't include a colon in the end of the -Add:, -Fix: etc. suggestions since by doing so that excludes some results where it says eg. '-Update from WebTranslators:'.

As usual, new users should go to the website and read the install instructions there and then there is a wizard included to get started. Existing users get the update through the self update, where it has been available for a few minutes more than on the forums.

Website: http://users.tt-forums.net/ottdau/

[Zuu]

Hello,

I'd like to give every Vista and Windows 7 user a warning. As you probably know you get a warning every time you start the program if you want to give approval to the program. This is because UAC does this for any exe file that does not contain an UAC manifest. So far that's not very bad. What I have discovered is however that when you give approval to run OpenTTD Auto Update in Vista/7, it will run with administration privileges. If you open a explorer window or cmd-window from OTTDAU, they will also run as admin. OpenTTD probably also run as admin. As you probably know running programs as admin is never a good idea with regard to the security of your system.

In the next release this will be fixed. After some searching online, I've found out how to add such a manifest to a Delphi 2006 application so that it can run with user privileges also on Windows Vista/7.

The next release will probably happen quite soon. (as in in a few days)

[Zuu]

Update 2.0.2

So, I decided, due to the security updates to push out this update already tonight.

Windows Vista & 7 users read this!
Be aware that you now on Windows Vista and 7 need to make sure that OpenTTD Auto Update have user-level write access to:

• its configuration files (located in the same folder as the exe-file)
• the zip cache (a folder located in the same folder as the exe-file)
• the OpenTTD installations that it manages

Changes

--- Fixes in 2.0.2 ---

* UAC manifest included so that the program will no longer require administrative rights to run in Windows Vista and 7. This should improve the security on those systems since also child processes like openttd.exe ran with too high user level.
- Note that if you previously had OpenTTD Auto Update located in Program Files it may no longer function correctly as it need write permission to some of the files in its program folder (including the zip cache).

* Escape all input that will be used as parameters to OpenTTD including data that comes from the server.

* Default installation directory was not restored properly from the options file.


--- New feature ---

* A new server passwords dialog accessible from the Edit Installation dialog for multiplayer targets. Using this dialog you can set the server password, company number to join and company password. Either type the password/company number as plain text or paste an URL that will be used to fetch the password/company number just before starting OpenTTD.

In addition to that a few minor tweaks has been made

• Display (in red) "offline-mode" when in offline-mode
• If an installation has a multiplayer server, don't ask OpenTTD to connect to it when we are in offline-mode.
• Possible something more..

Known bugs

• If you don't enter a company number for multiplayer targets, you will get an exception that it can't convert an empty string to an integer when you try to start OpenTTD. To work around this set a company number in the multiplayer settings dialog.
• The caption of the ok button in the options dialog is not consistent with the rest of the program

How to update/install
As usual, new users should go to the website and read the install instructions there and then there is a wizard included to get started. Existing users get the update through the self update, where it has been available for a few minutes more than on the forums.

Website: http://users.tt-forums.net/ottdau/

OpenTTDAutoUpdate2.0.2.zip

(488.06 KiB) Downloaded 210 times

Explanation of the new feature - MP server passwords
In the edit installation window a new button has been added. This button is enabled when you have selected either custom multiplayer target or a multiplayer server target such as #openttdcoop Public Server. From this button you access a window where you can either just make it remember plain text passwords or you can paste an "http://" URL. If an URL is given, that URL will be used to fetch the value just before starting openttd.exe. The page contents will be trimmed to remove any new line characters or spaces at the end. This means that you can not have passwords that end with any white space character if you use the fetch password/company number feature.

For #openttdcoop users you may find out more information at the autostart wiki article how the URLs for #openttdcoop are composed. Note that you probably need to be a member in order to be granted a key.

set mp server pwd.png (41.94 KiB) Viewed 6446 times

[Zuu]

Update 2.0.3

If you previously used 2.0.1, please take a look at the 2.0.2 release notes as well. Especially the notice for Vista & 7 users.

As the 28 of you who downloaded 2.0.2 at the forum and the 47 of you who got it through self update might have noticed, 2.0.2 contained a few bugs or glitches. This is an update that addresses those issues that I have found or that users have reported to me.

Fixes:

• Improved the escaping of password strings. Still not all password strings will be accepted by OpenTTD but a password URL should now not be able to execute commands on your computer.
• Edit window did not remember server password changes if nothing else in the window also changed.
• Exception when starting eg. #openttdcoop installations without company number set.
• The OK button in the Options dialog is now again consistent with the rest of the program.

New feature-ish:

• I've added client support for a secondary Auto Update server at ottdau.junctioneer.net. Currently I've not activated the server over there so at the moment it does not add any extra stability, but it could in the future. In the view menu I've added a new menu item which opens a window where you can see which server that is in use for the moment.
  
  Actually users.tt-forums.net provides quite good uptime, so this shouldn't be seen as criticism of the users.tt-forums.net server where Owen kindly hosts the Auto Update server.
• The docs has been updated regarding the TTD files no longer being the only choice for base graphics/sounds

How to install/update
As usual, new users should go to the website and read the install instructions there and then there is a wizard included to get started. Existing users get the update through the self update, where it has been available for a few minutes more than on the forums.

Website: http://users.tt-forums.net/ottdau/

[Zuu]

Background
The client program that you uses connects to a server which I call the AUServer. It is basically a file tree with some php files on a webserver. It has commands/functions that give information about things that is related to the client program, such as where is the website found or the forum thread etc. It also tells where the Update Server is.

The update server is also a directory tree with php files. The Update Server contains commands/functions for getting information needed for updating of OpenTTD and GRFPacks. Both the AUServer and Update Server has so far been located on the same webserver and will probably remain like this. When you on the client want to check if there are any updates for a specific installation, then the client will contact the Update Server which in turn knows which remote server to ask for updates to the given target. The Update Server compare the version that it got from eg. finger.openttd.org with what the client sent and sees if an update should be suggested.

Cache
Up until now the Update Server has not been caching the results it got from the remote servers that provide version info about eg. last nightly. Tonight I've changed so that the Update Server will keep a cache of the version info and only ask the remote servers if the cache is older than 5 minutes.

This should reduce the wait time for clients as well as decrease the load on the version info providers.


Currently there is no way to force a cache re-load so for eg. #openttdcoop that will mean a maximum 5 minute delay when the server updates. (other than me manually removing the cache file) Later there will probably come a solution to this.

Edit: A solution has been found between me and Ammler so #openttdcoop will initiate a cache refresh when they update their servers. (note that it is only the finger files at openttdcoop.org that will has their cache files cleared, the cache for finger.openttd.org will not get cleared)

[Ammler]

a little glitch on your homepage, either convert to utf-8 or define codepage (iso-8859-1) as today most browser use utf-8 if not defined? At least mine did.

Greets
Ammler

[Zuu]

I've now specified the 'iso-8859-1' charset. It renders fine when I demand Firefox to specifically use that charset. Hope it works for you too.

[Zuu]

After a request and some tweaking of the server to handle binaries hosted by openttdcoop.org, CargoDist and IS2 are now available via OpenTTD Auto Update.

I haven't removed Cargodest from the list, so be sure to select the one you want.

[Zuu]

As probably most users have noticed, the change log viewer have since about a month ago resorted to view update logs in the raw format. This happens when you have a OpenTTD nightly >= r21635 installed due to the fact that OpenTTD nightlies since then no longer contain the string "Development" in the version string.

Locally I've fixed this issue but before publishing this fix I will take a look at other issues. From what I remember it would be useful for some users if there was a selection for OTTDAU to download 64 bit OpenTTD. (though, they will still need to have a CPU + operating system that support running 32 bit programs as OpenTTD Auto Update will not be made available as a 64 bit application as to my knowledge there is no free 64 bit Delphi compiler.)

If you have any other issues, it is now the time to come up with them.


Edit: If I was unclear, the change log problem above requires a client change so it is not just a simple server-side fix. And since rolling out new clients takes a bit of effort on my side I rather not do it more often than necessary.

[Zuu]

Update 2.0.4

Fixed:
* Adopt to the new way of labeling OpenTTD trunk versions
- This fixes the problem that the ChangeLog has lately been displayed as raw log instead of using the filtered mode when you updated from a nightly from december 2010 or newer.
* A problem that caused OpenTTD to be updated even if there was no new version has been solved.

New:
* Implemented client support for selecting 32 or 64 bit OpenTTD download. In Options you can now select that 64 bit OpenTTD should be downloaded. Keep in mind that no detection is made if your computer is capable of running 64 bit binaries. Also, mind that if you switch bit setting in Options, that will not cause your OpenTTD installations to be "upgraded" to the new bit-setting binaries. Remove openttd.exe if you need to force update to the same version as you already got but another bit setting.
- Note however that OpenTTD Auto Update itself is still only available as a 32 bit program.

How to install/update
New users should go to the website and read the install instructions there and then there is a wizard included in the program to get started. Existing users get the update through the self update.

Website: http://users.tt-forums.net/ottdau/

[2006TTD]

I've been using your program and it's wonderful! Thank you very much!

[Zuu]

Thanks for your warm feedback

[Zuu]

Update 2.0.5

Fixed:
* Window width was not correctly set when loading
* There was a label partially covering item number 6-7 in the installation list

How to install/update
New users should go to the website and read the install instructions there and then there is a wizard included in the program to get started. Existing users get the update through the self update.

Website: http://users.tt-forums.net/ottdau/

OpenTTDAutoUpdate2.0.5.zip

(493.14 KiB) Downloaded 564 times

[MinchinWeb]

I love the idea. I downloaded it last night, and set up several installations that it installed just fine. However, today, it won't update. So I have a bug to report. I'm using version 2.0.5 on Windows 7 (64 bit). The program starts up fine, but when I click "Update and Play" on the Nightly edition (to which it says an update is available), the updater takes a moment and then stops responding, but uses lots of CPU power (70-95% of my CPU). It never does start OpenTTD.