Get published plugin version

[marcinszydlowski.1984]

Hello everyone,

is it possible to get a latest version of plugin published in the store? I want to place a button on my addins for checking if there's an update. I don't want to downloading product's page and parsing version number for security reasons.

[OceanHydroAU · Accepted solution]

Your add-in is almost certainly going to have to make a network call of some kind to do that check.

I've got a nice non-blocking solution which is working - when I make an update, I change my version number on my website, and my add-in will notify the user next time they load my UI (and give them the link to go get the update).

[OceanHydroAU]

These are their Add-in rules:-

https://damassets.autodesk.net/content/dam/autodesk/www/adn/pdf/desktop-app-submission-process-overv...

They don't say what their preferred method actually is.  There's a delay before they publish updates (about a month I think?).  If you ask them, do please let us know what they say - I rolled my own (happy to share with you if you like - it' fully non-blocking and very powerful, and requires user consent of course) but I'm wondering myself about whether or not they might frown on that.  I'm only planning to use mine if there's something show-stopping that needs to be fixed ASAP, otherwise I'll just use their store.

FYI - it is a *major* pain to get your own updates to work properly - Mac and Windows are *very* different, as are different user environments and settings - rolling-your-own is *very* complicated, and exponentially more if you want to go non-blocking and not break anything if networks are down, and all that with a cherry on top be fully secure as well!

What are you writing?  If you're planning to make it free, and want to do a collaborative release of a general-purpose add-in that makes it a no-brainer to add cool extra features to Fusion360 ... I've got a half-baked plan that might perfectly suit you - updates and all.

[marcinszydlowski.1984]

Thank you @OceanHydroAU but I've already done it few weeks ago. I think it's similar to your solution - I have my website and plugins shoots to the simple API for getting current version. Currently it works and I don't plan to change it so far. I published paid plugins for gears (it's over a year now), written in Python so they works both on Win/Mac. I'll mark this topic as solved, maybe in the future there will appear a better built-in solution.

[OceanHydroAU]

Cool.  It might be worth checking that your solution works when the user is offline (no internet) ?  That caused me a bit of grief (I also went non-blocking - another pain - but I didn't want a slow server or slow internet bogging down my users - sometimes when a server is offline, no RST packet arrives, so the connection only ends after the workstation gives up trying - which can add a minute or more to Fusion360 starting if they've got auto-run checked.)

[marcinszydlowski.1984]

I used the standard package which is included in built-in plugins. Checking for updates is not automatic - user needs to click the "Check for updates..." button on the last tab. I decided to do this in such way to avoid obligatory few-seconds freeze during connection, regardless of user is online or offline, at the start of Fusion. Later attempts are quick. I know it is an ugly solution but currently I have more important things to do so I stayed with this.