STV Updates Discussion

[tmiranda]

The default STV has a mechanism that checks for updates and if one is available prompts the user to install it. I am starting this thread to discuss how this should be handled in the open source version.

The main thing we need to decide on is where will the updates be hosted. The next thing we need to decide is when do we use this mechanism to update the STV instead of a plugin?

I think the second question is pretty easy to answer. We use this mechanism for bug fixes primarily. New or enhanced features should be plugins.

Thoughts?

[GKusnick]

Maybe this is a case where it makes sense to repackage the stock UI as a plugin, and let the plugin system handle the updates, just like it does for third-party UIs. That seems simpler than maintaining two separate update mechanisms going forward.

Obviously this would entail installing some initial set of default plugins out of the box, but we've been talking about that anyway for third-party JARs required by the core.

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Maybe this is a case where it makes sense to repackage the stock UI as a plugin, and let the plugin system handle the updates, just like it does for third-party UIs. That seems simpler than maintaining two separate update mechanisms going forward.

Obviously this would entail installing some initial set of default plugins out of the box, but we've been talking about that anyway for third-party JARs required by the core.

I agree, the default STVs, and themes, could EACH be a plugin, we ship the SageTV7 as the default one.

[Narflex]

Yeah, that's probably not a bad idea to make the STV itself a plugin that can be updated...although then somebody needs to keep that plugin updated whenever there are STV changes. Maybe it would be better to just change the mechanism to reference the files in GitHub instead? (although if there's other updates like images, then it would need to know to pull those as well...hmmm)

[coppit]

I've wondered about what the back-end looks like, and what the future is... Where are STVs hosted from? Can we use it for the open source STVs as well? Ditto for plugins.

I've seen people use github for hosting of compiled binaries, and I'm sure there are other free solutions. What about servers? We could go with something like AWS EC2 instances, but who would pay? Start collecting donations?

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by coppit

I've wondered about what the back-end looks like, and what the future is... Where are STVs hosted from? Can we use it for the open source STVs as well? Ditto for plugins.

I've seen people use github for hosting of compiled binaries, and I'm sure there are other free solutions. What about servers? We could go with something like AWS EC2 instances, but who would pay? Start collecting donations?

well, conveniently, the STV is really nothing but images and XML files, so github is fully capable of hosting it. The issue is that the current system, I believe, serves zipped up 'patches' from one version to the next, which take some more manual intervention.