Add automatic checking for engine updates #75916

KoBeWi · 2023-04-11T00:21:19Z

The PR adds update checks in a form of a label on the bottom of Project Manager and editor. See #75916 (comment) for more images.

The update checker will check for newer version and tell you when one is available. Clicking the button will open the download page for this specific version. The checker can check updates in 3 modes: "Newest Unstable", which checks for newest official version, "Newest Stable", which checks for newest stable version and "Newest Patch", which checks for the newest patch of the current minor version. "Newest Stable" is the default for stable versions, "Newest Unstable" is default for preview versions.

Note that updates are disabled by default due to network mode being offline by default. There is also a setting to disable updates separately from network mode.

For version checking I'm parsing the version YAML from Godot website. The editor will make many assumptions about structure of the file (such as it's sorted from newest to oldest version), so hopefully it won't change 😅

You can test the PR by modifying version.py file. Compiling with allow_automatic_update=false scons option will disable the dialog completely.

Calinou · 2023-04-11T00:40:22Z

Remember to add a SCons option to allow disabling update checks at build-time, as the Flatpak (and other Linux distribution packages) must not display in-app update notifications by design. It's expected that these packaging systems handle update notifications on their own instead.

Saul2022 · 2023-04-11T05:30:16Z

This is looking pretty cool, but i think the check for updates should be only in the project manager and not in the editor as it can be distracting as users could enable it by accident there. Also maybe an option to replace the current version with the newer one so you don't have to uninstall a old version you don't want to use for a more stable one.

KoBeWi · 2023-04-11T08:06:32Z

This is looking pretty cool, but i think the check for updates should be only in the project manager and not in the editor as it can be distracting as users could enable it by accident there.

The popup appears on first launch and then only when there is an update available. Other than that the dialog will check for new versions in the background and you won't see it very often.
I added it in the editor too, because it's possible to open the project directly, and while probably rare, some people don't use Project Manager very much or at all.

Also maybe an option to replace the current version with the newer one so you don't have to uninstall a old version you don't want to use for a more stable one.

This is not that simple, because you can't replace an executable that is already running (at least on Windows). The implementation would be a bit involved. For now only version checking will be available; actual update can be added later.

capnm · 2023-04-11T09:13:55Z

This is looking pretty cool, but i think the check for updates should be only in the project manager and not in the editor as it can be distracting as users could enable it by accident there.

I think also for privacy reasons the connection to the Internet should be a by default disabled option and/or selectable in the project manager.

KoBeWi · 2023-04-11T09:50:56Z

The dialog that appears is the same both for Project Manager and editor. Before making any HTTP requests it will ask you if you want to enable it (unlike AssetLib btw). The setting is disabled by default.

capnm · 2023-04-11T10:48:42Z

The dialog that appears is the same both for Project Manager and editor. Before making any HTTP requests it will ask you if you want to enable it (unlike AssetLib btw). The setting is disabled by default.

Why not just integrate the (annoying) dialog into the manager? Then you don't have to bother about dev builds, e.g.:

+ dialog - links / buttons ... below

RedworkDE

Not sure how much traffic this causes, but I would probably work on a document just listing the interesting versions to minimize it and possibly simplify this PR a bit.

editor/engine_update_dialog.cpp

xix-xeaon · 2023-04-29T13:41:17Z

I like being notified about updates. I do not like to be interrupted by dialogs. I think a passive icon should show up in the top right corner (or on the bottom, next to the display of the current version) when there's a new update.

jordanlis · 2023-06-30T07:42:00Z

I like being notified about updates. I do not like to be interrupted by dialogs. I think a passive icon should show up in the top right corner (or on the bottom, next to the display of the current version) when there's a new update.

I agree with Xix, even if I realize that this pop-up has been developed.
I imagined something way less distracting

The mockup is not perfect, but the idea is here.

Anyway, it's still a great feature that is really good, even in a pop-up.

KoBeWi · 2023-07-28T23:28:39Z

Ok I have an idea how for alternative implementation (which is similar to above comments). This is what would users see by default:

The [ Auto-update is disabled ] (style TBD) would be a clickable button, which would open a dialog similar to the currently implemented popup. Until the user enables auto-updates, Godot will not do version checks of any kind.

If the update is enabled, the text will change depending on version status:

[ No update available ]
[ New stable version available: VERSION ]
[ New unstable version available: VERSION ]
[ Failed to check for updates ]

The stable/unstable text could have different tints. Failed text would allow retrying the check.

I'm not updating the PR yet, because the future of this feature is actually uncertain right now.

KoBeWi · 2024-02-26T17:09:15Z

I pushed a WIP update. It does more or less what I described in the above comment:

Clicking it opens the version page in download archive. I also changed how version is determined using the YAML file from Godot website (my code makes many assumptions about it's format, but that's probably ok).

If the user is in offline mode, updates are disabled:

If there is no update:

Also this mostly works with official versions. In custom builds it can fail if it can't determine newer version:

I still have a cleanup to do and I plan I plan to add an editor setting. The setting would have 4 values: "Disable Update Checks", "Check Newest Unstable", "Check Newest Stable" and "Check Newest Patch".

Also the update checker is only in project manager right now. I will probably add it to EditorNode next to the version label, but it'st going to behave a bit differently to not take space.

EDIT:
Forgot to remove the old dialog. If you want to do a preliminary test, don't start the editor D:

Calinou · 2024-02-26T17:12:37Z

The new button looks good, but I'd make the "Current version up-to-date" text gray like the offline mode text so it doesn't take as much attention from the rest of the dialog. Only "update available" and "failed to check for updates" should really stand out from the rest.

KoBeWi · 2024-02-26T22:42:17Z

Ok I changed the up-to-date text:

Also added the update label to the editor:

However it will only be visible if it's currently checking for updates or an update is available. If there is an error or no new version, the label will be hidden to save space. In project manager it's always visible.

I also added the "Newest Stable" and "Newest Patch" update modes.

Newest Stable is the default.

With this the PR should be ready to go.
(ignore the inconsistent underline, I made it hover-only, but after taking the screenshots)

Calinou

Tested locally, it works as expected.

However, when running a self-compiled development build, you'll always see this at the bottom of the project manager:

The red color can make people think it's an error, leading to false bug reports as update checking for these builds isn't supported by design.

To handle this particular situation (unnumbered dev/beta/rc builds), I suggest displaying a message in gray of the form:

Running a development build.

KoBeWi · 2024-02-26T23:28:46Z

btw I just had an interesting idea. Say we merge this for some dev version. Since "Newest Stable" is the default setting, when a beta appears, users will still see that there is no update, which might lead to bug reports. What if the default was different for stable versions and unstable versions? This way if you have unstable version, you will get updates until stable, then in stable you will only get info about next stable, unless you again go to unstable build. Does that make sense?

Calinou · 2024-02-26T23:31:50Z

What if the default was different for stable versions and unstable versions? This way if you have unstable version, you will get updates until stable, then in stable you will only get info about next stable, unless you again go to unstable build. Does that make sense?

Stable versions should only inform you about other stable versions by default, while unstable versions should inform you about unstable versions as well (while including stable versions).

timothyqiu · 2024-02-27T02:26:48Z

By the way, I think the network request should also utilize network/http_proxy/{host,port} editor settings.

akien-mga · 2024-04-15T11:59:49Z

Tested briefly, looks good to me!

Small nitpicks:

When in offline mode, the message about it still has link styling, but does nothing. Would it be possible to make it open the PM's Quick Settings dialog to allow going online? (Or retrigger the dialog that asks about it maybe? Or was it a full screen thingy in empty assetlib?).
In self-compiled dev builds, it currently shows "Running a development build." as discussed above. That's fine when compiling latest master for dev purposes, but I wonder about users who have soft forks of the engine and might e.g. be still on 4.2.beta because that's when they branched off. Should we still check for newer dev snapshots or stable releases that are strictly newer than any 4.2.beta commit (i.e. 4.2.rc1 or 4.2.1.stable)?
I see there's a interface/editor/engine_version_update_mode setting which allows disabling the check, which is good. How about moving it to the PM's Quick Settings dialog next to Network Mode? For consistency with network/connection/network_mode, maybe it should be named network/connection/engine_version_update_mode?

KoBeWi · 2024-04-15T12:15:37Z

(Or retrigger the dialog that asks about it maybe? Or was it a full screen thingy in empty assetlib?).

That dialog is removed.

akien-mga

Quick code and doc review.

SConstruct

doc/classes/EditorSettings.xml

editor/editor_settings.cpp

akien-mga · 2024-04-15T12:15:44Z

editor/gui/editor_bottom_panel.cpp

+#ifdef ALLOW_AUTO_UPDATE
+	EngineUpdateLabel *eul = memnew(EngineUpdateLabel);
+	eul->set_v_size_flags(Control::SIZE_SHRINK_CENTER);
+	eul->enable_compact_mode();
+	bottom_hbox->add_child(eul);
+#endif


I wonder if we even need it in the editor. I think having it in the project manager might be good enough.
If a user chooses to stay on an older version for one reason or another, but still wants to keep track of the latest, it makes sense to me to see the update message in the PM but not to have it nag you constantly during development in the editor.

We're also constrained in width in the editor bottom panel, this message being constantly there will quickly become a problem on smaller screens.

This option is for users who don't use Project Manager. But I guess not using it at all is not that common 🤔

Yeah I thought about that too. It's true alternative project managers like godots are rising in popularity and likely imply skipping the default project manager. But those alternative PMs also do their own update checking logic, so it might not be much of a problem.

What I mean is launching project directly, like directly from the folder or using e.g. VS Code. Personally I open projects with VS Code most of the time.

KoBeWi · 2024-04-15T13:36:27Z

Updated.

I made Offline label open settings dialog.
If version index can't be determined, the checker will now assume newest version and only show dev build label if no newer version was found.
Renamed editor setting and macros.
Removed version label from editor.

I didn't add the update setting to quick settings dialog though. After #89788 I realized the dialog needs some major refactoring, but refrained from doing it, because we won't add that many settings anyway (it's supposed to be small). Now I don't feel like touching it at all.

akien-mga

Looks great to me!

akien-mga · 2024-04-15T16:15:31Z

Thanks!

akien-mga · 2024-04-15T16:18:36Z

editor/engine_update_label.cpp

+	if (p_result != OK) {
+		_set_status(UpdateStatus::ERROR);
+		_set_message(vformat(TTR("Failed to check for updates. Error: %d."), p_result), theme_cache.error_color);
+		return;
+	}
+
+	if (p_response_code != 200) {
+		_set_status(UpdateStatus::ERROR);
+		_set_message(vformat(TTR("Failed to check for updates. Response code: %d."), p_response_code), theme_cache.error_color);
+		return;
+	}


Just thought about this, but I wonder if we should future proof in case we ever refactor the website and no longer have https://raw.githubusercontent.com/godotengine/godot-website/master/_data/versions.yml

Maybe we should just print verbose these messages, and not show anything in the PM when requests fail?

So people can keep using e.g. Godot 4.3-stable without being nagged if in a year the website has been ported to a new framework and this file no longer exists.

Otherwise, we need to make sure the file we use for these checks will always be online (but that's hard to future proof).

WDYT @Calinou @coppolaemilio?

This is a valid concern because we might lose control of githubusercontent.com. However it can be debated we can also lose control of godotengine.org.

The update checker also makes many assumptions about the file's structure.

I think the most reliable way to handle it would be adding a dedicated page on the main website, which would provide a raw text dump of version data (it would be hidden/not linked in any page; only for the purpose of accessing it by the engine).

Yeah I was thinking the same.

We currently add .json files to https://godotengine.org/mirrorlist/ (e.g. https://godotengine.org/mirrorlist/4.2.1.stable.json) for each release, but it's not the most convenient to parse.

It should be fairly easy to add a build step for the website to generate e.g. https://godotengine.org/mirrorlist/versions.json that would include all versions with their respective blog post.

Yes, we shouldn't use this file. I would go with our website. We can serve a page like versions.yml in a domain that we control so that if we change servers or things like that we still have the same response from the same address.

This could be versions.godotengine.org/yml or godotengine.org/versions.yml. Anything like that will be better.

I can make the changes needed for getting that address up.

Edit: not sure why github didn't show me last messages when I replied, but we could also go with what akien proposes of https://godotengine.org/mirrorlist/versions.json and/or https://godotengine.org/mirrorlist/versions.yml as well.

BTW when we implement that, the description I amended in https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/75916/files#diff-52f0c165415d19abd2d5586c8a168169a8d39716be86688a9117125409b421f0R878 should be changed to remove explicit mention of GitHub.

KoBeWi added feature proposal topic:editor labels Apr 11, 2023

KoBeWi added this to the 4.x milestone Apr 11, 2023

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YuriSizov mentioned this pull request Jan 21, 2024

Improve layout and UX of the project manager #87443

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Add automatic checking for engine updates

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Change update checker version source #90742

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add C# version in steam godotengine/godot-proposals#9713

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Add automatic checking for engine updates #75916

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