[Smithcraft]

I just disabled the 'new version check' since it does it on it's schedule.

What would 'Daily' be? A specific time?

For now it's easier to just keep a tab open to the SP page, than depend on the update mechanism.

SC

[Handycam]

FWIW I think the Sparkle (is that it?) mechanism in other apps like Vienna is better than this home-grown solution.

If we can't have that, personally I'd prefer the old method where it just tells you one is available and provides a button-link to download page. Like in BBEdit.

I've had a few downloads fail, and on some occasions it leaves a hidden disk mounted. I could only find it with Disk Utility. It's gotten better, but I'm not a big fan.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by Smithcraft

What would 'Daily' be? A specific time?

24 hours since the last time it ran.

If you want to set when it will run, perform a manual update at the time you want it to occur at and it will check again at the same time the next day, etc. It's the same as with Apple's Software update check.

[Smithcraft]

In this case, with the SP builds, that is still a poor implementation.

First, just because Apple does something a certain way doesn't mean that it is right for every company to do things in that way. With OS updates, one might prefer to let several days/weeks/months go by before checking, depending on how out of the loop/paranoid one might be.

With a small company making multiple builds of a program each day, such an update practice is out of schedule with the number of builds. Now with the regular builds, update checking at one's leisure is fine.

Also, another small company like Flip4Mac, which I believes checks for updates everytime you launch the QuickTime Player, and that seems to work fine.

And also if you consider what one's connection type might be, checking for OS updates might be better on a monthly scale if one is on dial up, versus nearly unlimited bandwidth on broadband, where hourly might be fine.

I would presume that anyone interested in downloading 18 MB files several times-a-day is not on dial up, so for the SPs there doesn't seem to be a reason to limit it to every 24 hours, instead of when the app is launched.

SC

[Vician]

Generally speaking, most applications that update on OS X do so on launch and/or Daily, Weekly, Monthly. There's no reason for Omni to change that when you consider that after the Sneaky Peak period ends there won't be daily browser updates. When you get right down to it, there probably won't even be monthly updates, so why add a feature that some user might turn on and use up server bandwidth for no reason? Now I know, they could add it now and take it out later, but you have the ability to force it to check as much as you feel the need to do.

Personally, I don't update to every single new build unless I'm filing a bug report for something and then I'll always be sure to have the latest and greatest, but other than that, there's no real reason you need to grab each and every build. Once a day is plenty.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by Smithcraft

In this case, with the SP builds, that is still a poor implementation.

First, just because Apple does something a certain way doesn't mean that it is right for every company to do things in that way.

I'm just telling you how it works, not whether I agree with it or not. Fwiw, this is how OmniGroup's update check has always worked - the changes they have implemented so far are an UI for downloading the latest update, and a background process for installing it. Part of our use of the OmniWeb and Omnifocus alphas is to test this new implementation as well. There are evidently some issues with it in terms of its reliability and how well it functions with the sneaky peek release schedule but, as Vician has written, ultimately the way it does work (assuming reliability is improved) will be more than fine for the beta and stable releases. It is just a case of whether or not OmniGroup are willing enough to expend more development time on the updater to make it more useful for the sneakypeek process.

Edit: While we're on the subject of improvements that could be made, I personally dislike the way the mounting of the disk image is hidden from the user. Especially as it sometime fails to unmount cleanly. E.g. r90262 didn't successfully install for me and now I can't delete the download as the disk image is in use... but it doesn't show up in the Finder or in Disk Utility. However, it does show up in /Volumes in Terminal. I'll have to log out or restart to be able to delete it.

[Vician]

Originally Posted by JKT

While we're on the subject of improvements that could be made, I personally dislike the way the mounting of the disk image is hidden from the user.

That is generally annoying when it happens (twice so far for me). Other than the reliability that was mentioned, the only other thing I have problems with is sometimes when it copies new builds over it uses the full build name instead of just OmniWeb. So, I'll have OmniWeb #BuildNumber. I happened to notice I had five different copies of OmniWeb the other day. Sure, I like the browser, but not enough to keep five copies at once...

[Smithcraft]

Originally Posted by Vician

Generally speaking, most applications that update on OS X do so on launch and/or Daily, Weekly, Monthly.

That is what I'm saying. It should check at launch, and not at a random time.

There's no reason for Omni to change that when you consider that after the Sneaky Peak period ends there won't be daily browser updates.

That's what I said.

When you get right down to it, there probably won't even be monthly updates, so why add a feature that some user might turn on and use up server bandwidth for no reason? Now I know, they could add it now and take it out later, but you have the ability to force it to check as much as you feel the need to do.

The computer, and the software used on it, is a tool. It shouldn't require the user to do things that it can do on it's own in a simple matter. This isn't Windows after all.

Personally, I don't update to every single new build unless I'm filing a bug report for something and then I'll always be sure to have the latest and greatest, but other than that, there's no real reason you need to grab each and every build. Once a day is plenty.

If once a day is plenty, then why does Omni release several builds a day?

SC

[Vician]

How often do you launch your browser? I never relaunch OmniWeb unless I updated it or it crashed. Before the SPs hit, it would go months without restarting. Most of the people I know personally that use OS X are much the same way. Browser's don't get restarted much. That's probably why it doesn't check at startup. Other than that, being lazy isn't much of an excuse to add a feature that doesn't need to be there. I don't believe any browser, OS X based or otherwise, checks hourly. It's just not needed.

As for the builds, I assume it's automatically generated when they commit changes like most other systems. Nearly all the other major OS X browsers compile nightly builds automatically, but I assume Omni does it this way since they don't release minor builds after the Sneaky Peak stages.

[Smithcraft]

When this computer was working without problems and was contributing to the DNET challenge it was on all the time. But even then, I would logout when I wasn't using it.

So, I launch OW almost every time I start up the computer.

I also know many people that run their systems continuously, but this one doesn't want to do that anymore, although my media system still runs continuously, I really don't use it for browsing. I also know people that shut off the computer when they are done using it

I used hourly as an example, but I really wouldn't care if OW sent a few bytes to Omni every hour to check as I don't pay by the byte. Now Omni might care if a few thousand users of all of their products were constantly pestering the update server constantly.

SC