consider dev update notification in IDE

[incanus]

Noticed something in the Realm Swift SDK the other day which I thought was pretty cool and could be useful for our mobile SDKs.

When you fire up your app (at least in Xcode) it lets you know if there is a new version available each and every launch:

2016-12-05 14:20:17.662 AppName[10934:484937] Version 2.1.1 of Realm is now available: https://github.com/realm/realm-cocoa/blob/v2.1.1/CHANGELOG.md

This is a nice feature and is both a notification as well as a subtle reminder to keep up to date. We could probably do it on Android, too (though IIRC the console is usually more verbose there and it might be missed).

@mapbox/ios @mapbox/android

[1ec5]

Realm runs a version-checking Web service. Here’s the client-side code, which runs only in the Simulator.

[incanus]

runs only in the Simulator

Ooh, neat. 👍

[tobrun]

That is pretty cool, for android we could hook into BuildConfig.DEBUG.

Side note: below is the most straightforward way of notifying users directly in the IDE:

It seems that this configuration isn't enabled by default for non-Google dependencies and requires the developer to enable this 😞.

[friedbunny]

I really like this idea, especially as Realm has implemented it (e.g., simulator-only). Google Maps iOS SDK prints a similar message when the view is first initialized, in addition to always printing the current version:

2016-12-07 22:36:23.259 treble[] Google Maps SDK for iOS version: 2.1.27410.0
2016-12-07 22:36:23.260 treble[] New version of Google Maps SDK for iOS available: 2.1.28321.0

[tobrun]

Noticed today that Realm is showing an update notice in the gradle console:

Code for that is here.

[friedbunny]

This happened for iOS in #8282.

[tobrun]

Capturing from convo with @chloekraw and @LukasPaczos that default setup in #7311 (comment) is sufficient for Android. Removing label

[friedbunny]

Cool, then I think we’re done here (unless @1ec5 has plans for this? feel free to reopen).

[1ec5]

unless @1ec5 has plans for this? feel free to reopen

It’s tracked on this project board for macOS, just so it doesn’t fall off my radar as a theoretical improvement. But I don’t see a practical need for it at this time, given that any macOS map SDK clients are likely to be using either CocoaPods or Carthage.