[FEATURE] Introduce an auto-update mechanism

[sidewinder94]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. Needing to manually download and apply updates is a chore.

Describe the solution you'd like Implementing some sort of auto-update mechanism. For example : Squirrel (Which would also allow not to have to build a .msi anymore)

Describe alternatives you've considered

• Scoop / chocolatey => no auto-update from the app, would still be a nice to have.
• ClickOnce => would need some form of hosting (might be doable at a really low cost using azure/aws + cloudflare (<5$/month) depending on traffic)

Additional context I would be available to implement whatever solution you'd think is best. I won't start on my own, since it WILL impact your build/packaging/deployment process.

[sidewinder94]

I saw #287 however, this proposal would allow not to bother the user since the upgrade would be done either on the background or after the user is finished using the application.

[robvdpol]

I've been pondering about which installer technology to use in the future. Squirrel is indeed an option, it's cool that it has built-in support for GitHub. However the project seems a bit 'stale', not sure whether it has a future?

Scoop and Chocolatey are too complicated for regular users IMO. I don't want that users need to mess with Powershell and command prompts too much.

ClickOnce seems very outdated.

Winget could be an option since it comes with Windows nowadays I think. But that would basically be hosting the existing MSI in the winget repository. AFAIK it doesn't have auto-update functionality right?

[robvdpol]

Also, #326

[sidewinder94]

@robvdpol Maybe the lack of release if because of the project attaining a certain maturity ? it still seems active though, latest commit was from two days ago. I don't know how they plan their releases, but maybe the changes are not significant enough yet for a new release ?

I could find a more active fork here : https://github.com/clowd/Clowd.Squirrel

IMHO, Winget would be the same category as scoop/chocolatey, needing users to interact with a command prompt to install and update (and as far as I know, Winget supports updating installed apps, but not auto-updating).

And if you selected the Winget route anyways, the only thing that'll live in their repo (or one of yours) would be a manifest pointing to the GitHub releases (unless I'm massively mistaken on how it works)

[robvdpol]

Clowd.Squirrel seems to be the way to go since it has .NET 6 support. I'll give it a shot.

[sidewinder94]

Great! If you need help, you know how to contact me :)

[Cheesebaron]

I've used Squirrel before, it was fairly easy to set up for a WPF App. I guess it is just a matter of setting up hosting for the App Updates and setting up the CI/CD pipeline to produce diffed packages.