About Checking Plugins for Update

fredo6

With LibFredo6 3.7, I introduced a function for Checking plugins for Update on the web.

As you know, it may be difficult for users to find this information because the thread of plugins can be buried quite far from the first page of the Plugins forums (fortunately, we have Jim’s page to summarize all plugins published on Sketchucation).

I designed the mechanism for Checking Plugins Updates in a way which is opened to any scripts. This comes in two parts:

Registering the plugin locally
All you need to do is to define a method in any of your module with the name register_plugin_for_LibFredo6. The method must return a hash array giving information on the script.

defMyScriptModule.register_plugin_for_LibFredo6
{
:name => “MyPlugin”, # Unique name for the plugin
:author => “Myself”, # Author name
:version => “1.0a“, # Version
:date => “04 Nov 08“, # Date of publication
:description => “does a lot“, # a short description
:comment => “stable version“, # a short comment for the release
:link_info => “www.whatever.com/plug“, # a URL where plugin info is posted
:required => “MyLib v2“, # an optional other plugin or library
}
end

Publishing release information on the web
You need to enclose a specifically formatted record string in an accessible page somewhere on the web, for instance:
!!=!! name = MyPlugin ; author = Myself” ; version = 2.0b ; date = 27 Apr 11 ; comment = lot of new stuff added !!=!!

By default, LibFredo6 uses a small thread in the Sketchucation Developers forum that I created on purpose, but you can easily point to a page on any other web site.

Details are documented in the attached PDF file
LibFredo6 For Developers Only - English - v3.7.pdf

Indeed, we are all waiting for the Google SU team to come up with a Plugin Manager framework.

I am interested by your feedback

Fredo

Krisidious

great work Fredo... indeed this is something that is surely missing from SU.

Krisidious

I installed the plugin and ran it... these were my results.

fantastic Fredo... I can't wait for other plugin authors to add theirs.

fredo6

Kristoff,

Thanks. Let's see if this helps.

By the way, it showed that I wrongly published update information for Ghostcomp (it's still in version 1.0a). If you try again the Check for Update menu, you should see the correct status now.

Fredo

Krisidious

yeah I figured that out... thought maybe something was in the works for coming out soon. no worries. fantastic plugin Fredo. thanks a lot.

pyroluna

Love this feature, Fredo!

chedbe

Is there a way to pre-configure "Check Fredo6 Plugins for Update" to "Never show this dialog again"? Basically, I never want this feature to pop up for users and check for updates. If I choose "Never show..." in that pop up where does that get stored?

We run a managed environment across all our computers. We deploy SketchUp plugins to C:\ProgramData\SketchUp\SketchUp 2018\SketchUp\Plugins\ so that all the plugins are available to any user of a given computer. When a plugin has been updated by a developer we deploy it to all computers to keep everyone on the same version. I would like to preset the parameter to never check for Fredo6 plugin updates.

Thanks!