Allow a way to check updates or update plugins

Feature Requests Studio Features
#1

As a Roblox developer, it is currently too hard to know any updates is available on a plugin, or update a plugin.

Currently, there isn’t a studio or engine method to update a plugin if changes are or a way to check if an update is ready to be updated, however, current API for plugins doesn’t allow me to do what I want to do, some functions that I had in mind were:

  • function plugin:IsUpdateAvailable(bool) → checks if an update is available, either true or false.
  • function plugin:UpdatePlugin(void) → will override and update plugin to new features implemented to a plugin.

Some of my usecases for these functions:

  • For me, I’d like an update hooked up with IsUpdateAvailable() to see changes made so I can update through a button, and add UpdatePlugin() on click.
  • Debugging purposes, experiment API more?
  • Have a GUI in settings to show a developer if an update is available or not.

If Roblox is able to address this issue, it would improve my development experience so I can allow with ease update plugins to developers who use my plugin, or other plugins out there, also a time-saver.

9 Likes
#2

I agree, but…

There should definitely be a cool down included or make it a one-time-per-session frequency else it can get annoying for the user if the plugin repeatedly asks to update itself, especially probable for malicious/spammy plugins.

1 Like
#3

Roblox Studio in general should be promoting plugin updates to users.

I do not want every plugin developer to reimplement update prompts and spam me with inconsistent alerts among the plugins I have. There should be one consistent notification and interface for this as part of Studio.

9 Likes
#4

Yea, I’ve rethought that idea for a while and it shouldn’t be a feature included, will be annoying at most IMO, ig the prompt "feature’ should be discouraged.

Agree, this should be the case instead of my method as I explained above, I’ll change up the topic to reflect more on problems.

#5

I like the idea of being able to easily check for updates.

Currently I’m using game:GetObjects to download the most recent version and checking my internal Config file to check for updates, and then either prompting the user with an in-plugin banner/notification or hot-reloading with the downloaded source to deliver updates.

Having even just the ability to check would be great as I would no longer need to download the entire plugin source just to check for updates (I suppose you could abstract it into it’s own module and just require it, but that would require updating a separate model alongside the plugin).

1 Like