Add auto-updates to your Electron app

autoupdater.js

'use strict';
const os = require('os');
const {app, autoUpdater, dialog} = require('electron');
const version = app.getVersion();
const platform = os.platform() + '_' + os.arch();  // usually returns darwin_64

const updaterFeedURL = 'http://zulipdesktop.herokuapp.com/update/' + platform + '/' + version;
// replace updaterFeedURL with http://yourappname.herokuapp.com

function appUpdater() {
	autoUpdater.setFeedURL(updaterFeedURL);
	/* Log whats happening
	TODO send autoUpdater events to renderer so that we could console log it in developer tools
	You could alsoe use nslog or other logging to see what's happening */
	autoUpdater.on('error', err => console.log(err));
	autoUpdater.on('checking-for-update', () => console.log('checking-for-update'));
	autoUpdater.on('update-available', () => console.log('update-available'));
	autoUpdater.on('update-not-available', () => console.log('update-not-available'));

	// Ask the user if update is available
	autoUpdater.on('update-downloaded', (event, releaseNotes, releaseName) => {
		let message = app.getName() + ' ' + releaseName + ' is now available. It will be installed the next time you restart the application.';
		if (releaseNotes) {
			const splitNotes = releaseNotes.split(/[^\r]\n/);
			message += '\n\nRelease notes:\n';
			splitNotes.forEach(notes => {
				message += notes + '\n\n';
			});
		}
		// Ask user to update the app
		dialog.showMessageBox({
			type: 'question',
			buttons: ['Install and Relaunch', 'Later'],
			defaultId: 0,
			message: 'A new version of ' + app.getName() + ' has been downloaded',
			detail: message
		}, response => {
			if (response === 0) {
				setTimeout(() => autoUpdater.quitAndInstall(), 1);
			}
		});
	});
	// init for updates
	autoUpdater.checkForUpdates();
}

exports = module.exports = {
	appUpdater
};

Hey this is great, i have it all working even with heroku it seems. I am yet to see what happens when i add a new release to github though

I do have a question. In my app id like it to check for updates on start, which works fine. Then I also want the user to be able to check for updates themselves. I have this setup but i'm having an issue whereby the updater function runs exponentially. For example if I boot the app in the console it runs the check (no. 1) now if i click 'check for updates' it will run twice (instead of once) if i click it again it will run 3 times and so on.

How can I stop this from happening?

I really appreciate your help on this and my nuts woes.

@matt3224 somehow I missed this. Have you figured out your problem? Let me know if you need any help in setting up auto-updates.

Hi.

About the auto updating, any idea why this :

"const updaterFeedURL = 'http://myapp.herokuapp.com/update/' + platform + '/' + version;"

send me to a 404 error when i'm launching my app ? I think it doesn't know what is the "/update" part.