ElectronAutoUpdate

Use this NPM module inside your Electron application, requesting information from an ElectronAutoUpdateAPI to fetch application version information, download links, or more.

This repository was created along side the following repositories to streamline Electron application updates.

ElectronAutoUpdateAPI

Quick start a MongoDB REST API for your applications. This API can be used to trigger automatic updates and more

ElectronAutoUpdateClient

If you use MongoDB Stitch for your application, you can simply login with this application to manage all of your applications. i.e, change version information which causes applications using ElectronAutoUpdate to fire events if it's outdated.

Getting Started

npm i --save @syncthetic/electron-auto-updater

In your your main file, when the application starts, import the service const UpdateService = require('@syncthetic/electron-auto-updater')

The UpdateService contains a check_app_version(api, version, callback) method, which should be supplied an API link, the current version, and the callback method for when the action completes. The full response from the API is passed to the callback function.

If you are using your own API, just make sure the application it returns holds a property of version, which is the latest application version. callback will only fire if the app is outdated.

service.check_app_version("http://my-little-website/api/application/my-app-name", '0.0.1',
  (res) => {
      // something to do with the result here, like open a download toast
  }
)

Getting Started with Angular-Electron

If you use are using angular-electron for your application the following steps will get you squared away

install the packagenpm i --save @syncthetic/electron-auto-updater

edit /src/app/providers/electron.service.ts

import * as UpdateService from '@syncthetic/electron-auto-updater'

@Injectable()
export class ElectronService {
  ...
  UpdateService
  
  constructor() {
    // Conditional imports
    ...
    this.UpdateService = window.require('@syncthetic/electron-auto-updater')
  }
}

An example of our own service to handle updates

import { Injectable } from '@angular/core';
import { ElectronService } from '../../providers/electron.service';

@Injectable({
  providedIn: 'root'
})
export class UpdateService {
  constructor(
    public electronService: ElectronService,
  ) { }

  private currentVersion: string
  private currentName: string
  private api: string

  public isAppVersionOld: boolean
  public latestAppVersion: string
  public newDownloadLink: string
  public latestApp: any

  check () {
    this.currentVersion = this.electronService.remote.app.getVersion()
    this.currentName = this.electronService.remote.app.getName()
    this.api = `http://my-little-api.com/api/application/${this.currentName}`

    this.electronService.UpdateService.check_app_version(this.api, this.currentVersion, (app) => {
      this.isAppVersionOld = app.version !== this.currentVersion
      this.latestAppVersion = app.version
      this.newDownloadLink = app.download
      this.latestApp = app
    })
  }

  requestDownload () {
    window.open(this.newDownloadLink)
  }
}

In a main process, during load you can run UpdateService.check() in your component view, you can utilize UpdateService.requestDownload() to start a download if desired.