Airwindows Consolidated: Free Mac/Windows/Linux CLAP/VST3/AU/LV2!

[ampetrosillo]

Well, what about two semaphores? (I think that's what they're called). One to avoid race conditions (the plugin should access the internet only once, only one instance), one to signal that there is a new build. Then all instances of the plugins can read the semaphores and act accordingly. (Even just a flashing Airwindows text at the bottom could be all they do).

[baconpaul]

Arturia does.

On my Mac this happens in the arturia download manager not the plugin itself. In your os Does the plugin do it itself in daw while you are making music?

[baconpaul]

Well, what about two semaphores? (I think that's what they're called). One to avoid race conditions (the plugin should access the internet only once, only one instance), one to signal that there is a new build. Then all instances of the plugins can read the semaphores and act accordingly. (Even just a flashing Airwindows text at the bottom could be all they do).

Coding that sort of thing, putting it behind an off by default user pref, and making the build pipeline make a text asset we can check against, making sure you run the query in a new thread, dealing with firewalls and proxies, yeah that’s the kind of task we are describing. If you want to code that up I’m happy to give you a starting guide! You wouldn’t even need a semaphore.

[jinxtigr]

There’s a variety of technical annoyances with this, but even if someone were to sign up to code them up the first question I would ask is: do any of your other plugins do automatic un unitiated internet activity in the background to check for updates and break your flow when using them? None of mine do. A “check for updates” setting menu is common (heck we even have a draft clap extension to let the host consolidate those) but unattended background internet activity is the stuff thst gets FOSS redditors making death threads and producers annoyed at mid mix pop ups right?

Aw HELL no. I'll boycott my own plugin if it starts doing this

I'm gonna go with 'every Sunday it's gonna be an update, almost certainly not between Sundays unless baconpaul is at work in which case it's every few minutes '

Yeah, do not. Do not do not. No phoning home, no updating itself. If you want it simplified, Paul's got installers for everything and as long as all that works that's a simple as it should be. No plugin with 'Airwindows' on it should be changing itself when you're not watching. The plugin is not in ANY WAY thinking about whether you have updated or checked lately. That is so fundamentally at odds with everything I care about as a software maker.

[baconpaul]

Yeah I agree chris

If you want the computer to be able to check for updates on a menu (so make it two clicks to open the web page rather than one) i wrote down how to do it here: https://github.com/baconpaul/airwin2rack/issues/95 but i'm not going to do it!

[Dr.Gunjah]

I'm with you guys on the update topic. There are so many things that can go wrong with automatic updates. For example, I sometimes get an UAC prompt out of nowhere by the UAD app. First and for all I don't know wtf is going on. Then after realizing it, I can't easily decide if I should do it or not, because there are no details about what is being changed. I've clicked no a few times and apparently nothing happened... it's odd. And I can't stand software that forces self-updates on me when I want to do other stuff with that app right now (NI Access I'm looking at you). Having to deal with stuff like that inside a DAW would probably make it worse.
Imho there is a time to make music and there is a time to update software and personally I wouldn't want to be disrupted by update stuff when I want to make music.

I'd rather rely on a newsletter or something that sends out emails with useful release notes that let me check quickly if I should do an update soon or just wait for the next.

[Omkar]

I`ll add, all IT related itms are portables here for security reasons.
Means no registry entries of any kind of defaults.
Any dev/company without a copy & paste browser link runs into a non associated nirvana.
Hello Fender/Presonus.

[baconpaul]

I`ll add, all IT related itms are portables here for security reasons.
Means no registry entries of any kind of defaults.
Any dev/company without a copy & paste browser link runs into a non associated nirvana.
Hello Fender/Presonus.

yeah we store all our defaults in a file which is %APPDATA%, and have all our links triggered by menus which open the browser as well as copyable from the manual. I agree!

[baconpaul]

I'd rather rely on a newsletter or something that sends out emails with useful release notes that let me check quickly if I should do an update soon or just wait for the next.

yeah or a release announcement or some such

Airwindows is a bit special in that Chris makes a new free effect almost every week and that will always be swept into the plugin on the GitHub download automatically when he releases it. So basically "if you look at the date in the footer of your plugin and its more than a week old, there's an update" is a good semantic

[baconpaul]

Chatting in surge discord we have we think figured out a way to make the download page either say “you are up to date” or show you the download when you click it from the plugin since so we might do that and repoint the menu. Maybe. If it is less than 30 minutes we will.

[kPere]

The world needs people like you guys, you got your own vision and no way in world will you let it go - thank you for your work and approach to it!

[jinxtigr]

Oh god this blew up, Paul coded let me just share my response when I found out the experiments…

"I'll just quietly add that I would like NOT to have a huge elaborate system that, when you click the webpage-button, says OH HI I WAS WATCHING YOU WORK AND I KNOW YOU DON'T HAVE THE LATEST UPDATE LET ME BRING IT I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE"

"Really and not as a joke, I would like that stuff to be dumb and old school. If you're not sure, download and install and if it's the same, no harm no foul "

"Let's not have any idea what the user is doing or where they sleep at night "

"Less software going 'oh hi I was watching you masturbate, would you like an update while you're busy?' "

So that's Chris heard from, some of you folks may disagree

[audiojunkie]

There’s a variety of technical annoyances with this, but even if someone were to sign up to code them up the first question I would ask is: do any of your other plugins do automatic un unitiated internet activity in the background to check for updates and break your flow when using them? None of mine do. A “check for updates” setting menu is common (heck we even have a draft clap extension to let the host consolidate those) but unattended background internet activity is the stuff thst gets FOSS redditors making death threads and producers annoyed at mid mix pop ups right?

Aw HELL no. I'll boycott my own plugin if it starts doing this

I'm gonna go with 'every Sunday it's gonna be an update, almost certainly not between Sundays unless baconpaul is at work in which case it's every few minutes '

Yeah, do not. Do not do not. No phoning home, no updating itself. If you want it simplified, Paul's got installers for everything and as long as all that works that's a simple as it should be. No plugin with 'Airwindows' on it should be changing itself when you're not watching. The plugin is not in ANY WAY thinking about whether you have updated or checked lately. That is so fundamentally at odds with everything I care about as a software maker.

I am in complete agreement! It's not hard to update manually. I hate crap that phones home.

[audiojunkie]

Oh god this blew up, Paul coded let me just share my response when I found out the experiments…

"I'll just quietly add that I would like NOT to have a huge elaborate system that, when you click the webpage-button, says OH HI I WAS WATCHING YOU WORK AND I KNOW YOU DON'T HAVE THE LATEST UPDATE LET ME BRING IT I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE"

"Really and not as a joke, I would like that stuff to be dumb and old school. If you're not sure, download and install and if it's the same, no harm no foul "

"Let's not have any idea what the user is doing or where they sleep at night "

"Less software going 'oh hi I was watching you masturbate, would you like an update while you're busy?' "

So that's Chris heard from, some of you folks may disagree

Completely Agreed! I don't even want to have the "Oh, we have a new update available!" message show up.

[jinxtigr]

I would like there not even to be a web link (I put my foot down and made there not be a link to my Patreon). Does anybody other than me hate there being a place on the interface that is like "Oh hi let's max out all the cores launching Chrome's insane bloat, I'm sure that couldn't possibly be a terrible idea at this particular moment" ?