Auto Updates

Hi:

Wouldn't it be great if we could have nopCommerce call home to determine if there are bug fixes ready to install? then download them and install them.

That would make our life so much easier.

Leave major releases for implementation of new functionality like the new feature for mobile devices.

Thanks for all your great effort

I have similar thoughts but I don't think nopcommerce will implement this in near future.
I'm expecting the auto-update is something like our windows update or WordPress update, just one-click and everything done.
the plugin and themes can also be updated in this way.
I know this is a challenge for the team.

There are still a lot of core changes done with each release. It'll just to hard to release new patch for each bug. And how should it look like? Just update modified DLLs? Consider the following scenario:
1. We have two bugs (bug1 and bug2)
2. Bug1 is fixed. Changes are done in file1 (located in DLL1) and file2 (DLL2).
3. Bug2 is fixed. Changes are done in file2  (DLL2) and file3 (DLL3).
4. A store owner want to get a patch for bug2.
5. So he download the updated DLLs (file2 and file3 are modified).
6. But have a look at bug1 fix. It also modified file2. Hence we should also get a new DLL where file1 was located.

It would be much easier to use Mercurial for store owners (or their developers), get the latest version here, then merge the changes automatically (using Mercurial merge functionality) or manually (if heavily customization was done).
Think about people who make some customization (core and design). Each autoupgrade will delete their changes

Hi andrei,
I think there may have solution(s) to overcome the scenario you mentioned:
The bug fixes shouldn't go by Dll, but go by batches(or Service Pack) just like windows update.
Each batch contains set of bug fixes, store owner is only allowed to choose which batch he wants to apply, but not able to choose which DLL he can download.
windows update also works in this way, example, one update contains more than one files:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2413659

For the customized DLL being replaced by new DLL from nopcom due to the update, I think this is common issue in all IT system including OS.
1. store owners should take their own risks to customize the DLL, since they can get developer to customize nopcom, they(or the developer) also need to take care of the customization, merge the updates in code level instead of component level(DLLs).

2. If nopcom has huge amount of extensions, most store owns prefer to directly download existing ones other than hiring a developer to build an extension from scratch. Compare to other open source community like magento, wordpress, our extensions are not enough for now, we need extensions!

3. Low coupling. You got the point that updates may overwrite customized component, however just try to avoid as possible as you can. nopcom team can just focus on the core framework, expose interfaces(not the "interface" in c# file) and let developers implement it, all the updates from nopcom only affect the internal implementation of the core framework, shouldn't affect the implementation of the interface which built by 3rd party developers and vice versa.

4. Another advantage of focusing on core framework is, you don't need to implement all the new features that proposed by store owners and developers, it's endless, from community you can see many store owners keep asking "when is the feature X available?". they are relying on nopcom team to deliver features because they can't find one from developers. You can tell people "hey i have interface A, you can use it to build feature A, and with interface B, you can build feature B and C", store owner will look for developer by then. More developer will like to implement these interfaces then more extensions will be produced, more store owner will like to download and use, this could get more developers involved, then more extensions come out.

Actually i prefer to have more topics to discuss how to make nopcom more popular

Sorry have been looking for this thread. So is it possible just to download the updates?

Or failing all of the updates. Is it possible to download a v2.3r2 kind of thing. This would be v2.3 with all of the bug fixes. When we install a website bug fixes are included. However the problem comes when we need to upgrade the website (which we charge for) just to get the bug fixes for a version.

For instance the new Mobile version is brilliant and we will be selling this as an upgrade to existing ecommerce, but 4 sites we have just built use 2.3 so they only need the bug fixes we either need to force the client to pay for the new customisations required for the Mobile component (which we cant) or we need to wear the cost of this oursleves (which we dont want to). Of course this isnt limited to major features, Anything that is updated from version to version needs to be worked on. Wheras bug fixes generally shouldn't mean changes in themes or SQL DB (i think) and should just be a matter of uploading. (we do not do a lot of cutomising outside of themeing) Nop commerce is MORE than ample for SMB's oout of the box.

Of course if we can download the bug fixes individually just point me in the right direction :)

THANKS!

Hi guys:

I think the topic got way too deep; taking small steps towards self-updates may be the right thing to do for the moment: For example, limit the self-updates to only bug fixes instead of full fledged extensions which would overwrite customized DLLs which store owners have spent considerable resources to modify.

The issue with bugs in each subsequent release is the time between releases is too long. If we look at the last changeset, we can see there were lots of issues that needed to be addressed. But to the team's credit, they were developing under an new paradigm (MVC 3) and still managed to pull it all together with v2.4....but i don't think anyone was able to operate a viable store for a while untill all the issues were addressed.

Anyhow..keeping self updates to bug fixes may be something the team may want to consider. I know it would make a lot of us very happy!!

Thanks for the great work guys!!

I hope moderator can move this topic to "general support", so more people can see it.