(Oct 4,2014) Blender 2.7x: Integrated Version Updater?

I’ve been using blender for a long time, and every time a new version comes out, I always replace the old version I have with the newer version. But it’s been a little time consuming. So I was thinking, wouldn’t it be logical for Blender to just update itself WITHIN the application? It would make things a little more convenient for me, and maybe a few other Blender users.

That is just your way of working, I never overwrite an old version of Blender because, quite frankly, the DEVs get it wrong sometimes and you have to go back to the old version just to get your work done. Also AddOns are a considerations, sometimes they only work on a certain version of Blender.

I don’t like automatic updaters, they often fail and are never smart enough to take all things into consideration.

Anyway, isn’t that just another task to put on the list? I would rather have the developers working on “Real” features or bug fixes.

Dang how much longer do we have to wait for particle nodes?

since many Blender users don´t install Blender but use the zip files instead,
(we tend to use multiple versions be it to experiment with new features or because of old addons etc)
it would be problematic to get it right.

There are also cases where you like or have to put an old blender version to a project folder and “freeze” the development time for not getting unforeseen changes or strange results.

During a longer taking production you normally rarely want to update your program(s)…
unless the feature(s) are needed or are giving you many advantages compared to the current working system.

In commercial tools those automatic update solutions are often not working properly,
some support solutions are quite easy therefore;
re download the full installer, ignore the updater and reinstall everything properly.

there is already a wide and detailed coverage out there which says that there is a new version available - not only in the Blender communities :wink:

a good compromise if you really want such a feature;
a button in the help menu which you can click and that would transfer you to a website which shows you the number of the version you have and shows you the current number of the newest available version and a download link to the exe and zip files.

I prefer the zip version, so I can have multiple version installed. This is a good idea when I’m following youtube tutorials that uses specific version.

Also I personally think not a good idea to change version in the middle of a project.

Also the fact that Blender is not big enough for this issue to be a problem.

That said,

I think Blender should have diff-down loader. Something like FTP, but only one way. So you only need to copy current zip folder, rename it, and point it to the current version of Blender, and it will download any changed files (but in zipped format so that it won’t cost a lot of bandwith) and unzip it in the local folder.

But as other mentioned, this require work, and currently Blender installer is not big enough for it to be a problem to be solved.

Well then I can agree with that, maybe just add in an optional notification of new versions that can be switched on and off, and other than that, I agree!

Technically, it shouldn’t be all that difficult to write an add-on that checks blender.org (or perhaps one of the mirrors) to see if there’s an update and at least provide notification of that.

Of course, I personally wouldn’t want such an add-on to be enabled by default… but it wouldn’t be too difficult to write.

I have created a simple bash script so that all I have to do is open the terminal and issue the command

./blender-update.sh

it will download the latest source of blender and all its dependencies it will rebuild blender and open it. I use it on macos with my iMac. Turning it to a blender addon will be no problem but there is a catch. You will need a c compiler , cmake and git installed for this to work.

Alternatively I could make it download from blender builtbot which will require no other software installed. But yeah its doable, I guess nobody tried it because its so easy to download blender and some people don’t care about using the latest release of blender.

PS: people concerns about such an addon are unjustified since a new version could install in its own directory not affecting any previous installation.