Sparkle 1.0 Beta 1

Release Notes

Major New Features:
- Sparkle now supports scheduled periodic updates—read the Readme for information on how to use it.
- Sparkle now supports WebKit-based release notes (for CSS and full HTML), which it displays in the main update alert, not a separate panel. The Readme has much more information. Sparkle will, of course, fall back on NSTextView if the host app does not include WebKit.
Minor New Features:
- Added support for .zip update archives.
- Added support for .dmg update archives.
- Implemented Remind Me Later to replace simple update cancellation.
- Implemented Skip This Version functionality.
- Added support for multiple feeds via the user defaults SUFeedURL key taking precedent over the one in Info.plist.
- Added support for Sparkle’s custom XML namespace, which is optional but may prove useful. See the Readme for more information.
Bug Fixes:
- Sparkle will no longer enter an inconsistent state if the user tries to update again while one is already in progress.
- Sparkle now uses CFBundleName to determine the application’s name instead of the app’s filename.
- Sparkle no longer crashes if the user cancels during extraction.
- Sparkle now uses a more reliable installation method.
- Lots of code refactoring.

It doesn’t actually look like that much on paper, but Sparkle’s about twice as big as it was before, line-wise, so it’s a pretty significant version jump. A lot of holes are patched, and things are generally more stable now (as far as I know).

You can’t tell from the screenshot, but that’s a WebView there rendering those release notes. The notes can now be loaded from a server (or loaded from the feed, as before); if the host app includes the WebKit framework, full HTML and CSS can be employed for some really stylish release notes.

This Is Beta, Folks.

Now, this is not Sparkle 1.0. This is Sparkle 1.0 beta 1. I’ve done what testing I can easily do on my own, but since Sparkle can be configured in so many ways, I may not have caught everything. I need a few good men to rip this thing to shreds.

Please pay special attention to .dmg support, which I fear might be a little rickety. It’s hard to tell since DMGs can be composed in so many different ways. Please try all kinds of update .dmgs.

The many localizations the Adium Localization team has been cranking out aren’t yet included in this build because I’ve made some changes to the strings list since 0.1, and they understandably haven’t caught up yet.

So, please, download this build, break it, and tell me what’s wrong. Also, if there are features missing that you’d like to see in Sparkle 1.0 (besides the header caching stuff), speak up soon.