Notepad++ Update Behavior Suggestion
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Didn’t see anything in the FAQs about where suggestions should go, so hopefully this is a correct enough place.
Update is working great from a technical perspective. From a user perspective, updates are coming often enough that it makes me wish “update” was treated differently than “install”.
Meaning, if I’ve consented to allowing Notepad++ to go ahead and download the update, and I’ve consented to allow Notepad++ to close to permit installing the update, “that should be enough.” The next thing I should see is an installer dialog confirming that the update is in progress, followed by Notepad++ re-opening (since that’s the state I was in prior to consenting to update).
Seeing the entire normal installation wizard, and having to make all those same choices again, and having to opt into opening Notepad++ again, just makes the process feel more intrusive than it needs to be, and “ugh, there is another update available.” I don’t WANT to turn off updates, but still don’t want the updates to be as intrusive, either. Since I’m having to do it across multiple machines in response to even a single update, etc.
When I’m just trying to keep Notepad++ up to date by installing mulitple updates per month, I’m not trying to re-make all those other decisions every single time. I just wanted the update with the decisions I’ve already made.
Some may understand the reference when I say “like Filezilla client.” You consent to downloading the update, you consent to applying the update, Filezilla closes and after a brief installing status, the next thing is that Filezilla is re-opened again under the new version.
Just “update”. Not “re-make all my installation decisions again.” Someone who wants to remake all installation decisions again can still do that by running the full interactive installer again.
Bonus points if we could have Notepad++ auto-save all document states before proceeding with the update, in order to restore those states when re-opening after the update. i.e. Not literally “auto-save the open document”, but save the fact that you had the document open, and restore the same uncommitted changed that were pending when you consented to the update. i.e. Temp files of all uncommitted changes, restored after update to the same open and uncommitted state they were in once update is complete.
But that’s certainly optional, and asking the user to deal with unsaved documents when closing Notepad++ as part of committing to the update is fine. Although I do think I’ve seen the “do you want to save” dialog coming up behind the actual update dialogs in this scenario.
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@ea117-admin said in Notepad++ Update Behavior Suggestion:
Didn’t see anything in the FAQs about where suggestions should go, so hopefully this is a correct enough place.
This is a great place to discuss it with other users. However, feature requests (which is what your request boils down to) do not officially go here. The FAQ does have an entry on Feature Requests.
Meaning, if I’ve consented to allowing Notepad++ to go ahead and download the update, and I’ve consented to allow Notepad++ to close to permit installing the update, “that should be enough.” The next thing I should see is an installer dialog confirming that the update is in progress
From an implementation point of view, the “upgrade” click is performing the actions of confirming you want it, downloading it, and then running the installer – the same installer you can manually download.
So to implement what you’ve suggested, the developers would have to customize the installer to behave differently in two different situations – and from what I understand, the developers want to spend their development time on the actually application, not the installer; that’s why they’ve used a prebuilt installer brand rather than rolled their own installer.
I personally doubt the developers would make it a priority to save us an extra couple clicks once every N months (where N depends on how often upgrades are released, which aren’t usually multiple times per month), and personally wouldn’t want them to spend the time on that, when there are so many open feature requests for the actual application.
But that’s just my understanding and opinion, and I hold no official weight on deciding what features get implemented.
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Lots of information to unpack from initial post. Though well decribed. I always disable auto updating as it all seems intrusive to me :) as I like being in control as much as possible.
@ea117-admin said in Notepad++ Update Behavior Suggestion:
Just “update”. Not “re-make all my installation decisions again.” Someone who wants to remake all installation decisions again can still do that by running the full interactive installer again.
It is a NSIS installer. A default inbuilt argument is
/S(must be uppercase), which performs a silent install. This can be used for a new installation or an upgrade installation.If the updater could have an option to append
/Sto the command line to run the upgrade install, then try to issue a request.If doing over multiple machines, then perhaps handle the upgrade yourself and deploy the new installer and use the
/Sargument.
