Sparkle: A software update framework for macOS

https://github.com/sparkle-project/Sparkle

by nateb2022 • 2 years ago

208 113 2 years ago

The one and only. Everything else is garbage in comparison.

dewey2• 2 years ago

Maybe I‘m weird, but for some reason seeing a Sparkle „Update available“ modal popping up fils me with joy (The software I‘m using is getting better) and I enjoy reading the changelog. If there’s some weird custom updater in another software it always fills me with dread because I have to navigate a different UI, and probably have to restart it immediately.

wingerlang3• 2 years ago

I don't think that's weird, I enjoy those as well. So much so that I have a newsletter where I post changelogs of various apps that had updates in the past week (https://buttondown.email/appsandupdates). Adding apps is a slow process but I'm starting to see quite a bit of repeated apps so I'll have to speed it up.

dewey2• 2 years ago

Is anyone really interested in reading the detailed changelog for apps they don't use?

eddi• 2 years ago

In the latest newsletter „Clean my Mac X“ is listed. I always assumed that this is some form of malware, because they advertise so aggressively. Does it really make sense to „clean“ your mac?

adamomada• 2 years ago

The modal popup is the single thing I can’t stand about sparkle updates. Why oh why can’t they use the regular notification system and respect DND. It always seems so random as well, it’s not when the application starts or quits, just some rando timer polling for updates to surprise me with an interruption I can’t ignore

veeti• 2 years ago

Nothing worse than starting iTerm and typing half a command when suddenly this thing interrupts you.

watk• 2 years ago

This looks great. What would be the equivalent of this on Windows? It feels like everyone just invents their own.

jhfdbkofdchk• 2 years ago

Well, someone made something inspired by Sparkle for Windows, https://winsparkle.org

usrusr• 2 years ago

On Windows, chances are that once you have a working installer you will be so deeply stockholmed that the idea that updates might go any other way than through a future incarnation of that installer is completely alien to you.

That being said, I think the way sparkle (and winsparkle, see sibling) present themselves looks delightfully NSIS (the good parts)

marcellus23• 2 years ago

There's a version of Sparkle for Windows. I have no idea why apps don't adopt it.

I am constantly amazed and frustrated at how many apps I use on Windows have the following update process:

1. Pops up an alert telling me an update is available

2. I click a link in the alert opening my browser, taking me to a webpage full of links for different OSes and different architectures, which I have to search through to find Windows Intel x64

3. Wait to download the new version and then open it up

4. Spend 30 seconds clicking through a Windows Installer

Absolutely bonkers, especially considering some of these apps seem to release on an agile biweekly schedule. I usually procrastinate downloading updates because it's such a pain in the ass -- and that's not what you want your users to be doing.

daveoc64• 2 years ago

I tried looking for something like Sparkle on Windows a few weeks ago.

Now I know it exists - thanks!

accoil• 2 years ago

I sometimes see Squirrel[^1] used in Windows apps. Looks like it's used by Electron[^2], so maybe that's why.

[1] https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows/tree/develop/do...

[2] https://github.com/electron/electron/blob/main/docs/api/auto...

marwis• 2 years ago

MSIX + scheduled task is the way

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/non-store-dev...

Or just publish to MS Store and/or winget.

ptx• 2 years ago

Can you use MSIX without buying a code-signing certificate?

Deadpikle2• 2 years ago

Along with some of the other comments, there is NetSparkle for C#-based apps that is cross platform: https://github.com/NetSparkleUpdater/NetSparkle (disclaimer: I am the primary maintainer of this repository).

prmoustache4• 2 years ago

Are you telling me macOS doesn't have a package manager already?

pantulis3• 2 years ago

In terms of apps no, it doesn't or basically it is the Mac App Store. You basically publish your app with all the dependencies and target a specific OS version which guarantees certain baseline frameworks. Apart from that, any update means publishing a new version to the App Store (if you are there). If you are self hosting the app, you need something like Sparkle to trigger app updates.

In terms of proper package management a la yum or apt, there is homebrew of course.

prmoustache4• 2 years ago

OK so basically the point is to avoid Mac App Store fees and independence to third party project like homebrew.

Doesn't that leads to the situation on windows where every single app is phoning home at startup?

bluish29• 2 years ago

Many open source (and even proprietary apps) apps get published using homebrew casks [1]. Although they usually use that as supplementary method. And sometimes it is done by volunteers.

[1] https://formulae.brew.sh/cask/

haykuro• 2 years ago

I switched to MacPorts after becoming tired of Brew tainting my filesystem.

MacPorts keeps things clean in /opt/.

https://www.macports.org/

https://saagarjha.com/blog/2019/04/26/thoughts-on-macos-pack...

TheAceOfHearts2• 2 years ago

You can use homebrew to install regular apps as well, thanks to the casks feature. There's probably some apps that aren't available as casks, but usually everything I need is available already.

zitterbewegung• 2 years ago

Mac classic had full compiled applications that you would drag to your applications folder. This is the same when it's distributed by dmg and told you are to drag to the Applications folder and using Sparkle on this is a common method to update or to just give another dmg. Another way you can distribute your app is to use a dmg to with a pkg file in it and this launches an installation wizard very similar to what you would see on windows. Then there is homebrew that has a series of ruby formulas that can do nearly all of the above. Obviously there is the Mac App Store.

bni• 2 years ago

Thankfully, it doesn't

anbotero3• 2 years ago

Not officially, but these days first things I setup in Onboarding documents (if they don’t have it already) is how to setup Homebrew.

I install pretty much everything I need on macOS through Homebrew these days.

api• 2 years ago

It has Homebrew, which many people use and is great. It also has its App Store but nobody uses it for anything non-trivial because it's so jailed.

favorited• 2 years ago

nobody uses it for anything non-trivial

I guess the Microsoft Office suite, LibreOffice, Adobe Lightroom, Pixelmator, Sketch, OmniGraffle, etc. are trivial?

Hamuko3• 2 years ago

I've had to implement Sparkle once in a macOS app and it was actually quite simple. It also doesn't really take much more than an S3 bucket to facilitate updates. And as a user, it's a great user experience that updates are handled in a similar manner in almost all of the apps that I install.

Great piece of software.

Y-bar• 2 years ago

As a consumer of Mac OS software thank you! Seeing a Sparkle dialogue is such a nicety and it makes me feel good.

fifafu• 2 years ago

I have been using Sparkle in my apps for almost 15 years now (for millions of updates). It has always worked perfectly well for me. Really great project and still very active.

systemz• 2 years ago

I instantly recognized screenshot in README.md Thanks to this thread I now know name of software that helps bring updates to a lot of apps I use daily.

Big kudos to all contributors of Sparkle, you all make our lives easier!

sgottit• 2 years ago

huge fan and user of Sparkle. a while back I wrote a wrapper around it for automatically creating a changelog, signing software etc and its worked perfectly for years https://replay.software/bump

TheAceOfHearts2• 2 years ago

Nowadays I just run `brew update; brew upgrade` and everything gets updated, including casks.

Brajeshwar• 2 years ago

You might want to cleanup and call the doctor just in case. :-)

  brew update; brew upgrade; brew cleanup; brew doctor

jshier• 2 years ago

And no need for `brew update` unless you've turned automatic updates off.

anbotero3• 2 years ago

Similar, just without the `doctor`. That one I only run it like once a month. For the other one, I got my alias, haha:

  buuc

bartekpacia• 2 years ago

I always do:

brew update && brew upgrade && brew cleanup && brew autoremove

asadhaider• 2 years ago

What about brew upgrade --cask for apps?

belthesar• 2 years ago

For us technology slinging types, homebrew is indeed great. Sparkle updates are indeed fantastic for the average user however. I think I'd be interested in learning how many average users install software outside of the Mac App Store these days.

hbn2• 2 years ago

I'd be interested in learning how many average users install software outside of the Mac App Store these days.

I'd hazard a guess that Chrome alone would put that figure near 100%

philistine• 2 years ago

Homebrew has statistics. They're high for the usual suspects, very low for everything else.

ehutch79• 2 years ago

Real question; do you expect most, half, or even a quarter of MacOS users are going to be installing things through brew?

cqqxo4zV46cp• 2 years ago

Even 1%

Amorymeltzer• 2 years ago

Notably, many cask formulae use Sparkle as the livecheck mechanism that is used to find updates to casks.

snorremd• 2 years ago

Exactly. It is so simple to do `brew install figma` or whatever App you want. Most bigger apps have ready casks to install. Then I have a startup job that does `brew bundle dump --file=- > $ICLOUD/Brewfile`. That way I get a backup list of all software installed with brew so it is simple to install again if I migrate to a new machine (without restoring a Time Machine backup).

Edit: Obviously for users not familiar with command line programs brew isn't that "easy". But for command line people this setup is quite nice.

zacte• 2 years ago

Raycast has an excellent extension to manage brew installs and upgrades without any cli on macs

longnguyen• 2 years ago

Sparkles is a godsend. I use it on all my indie apps and it saves so much time. The best part is I could release with confidence knowing that I don’t have to ask for AppStore Review for each release.

The new version with delta updates and flags for critical updates is amazing. 10/10

graemep• 2 years ago

Thanks for that. As someone who is not a Mac user, let alone a developer, was wondering why it is useful given app stores exist.

haqlootydoot2• 2 years ago

*Sparkle. Please learn proper English.

LoganDark3• 2 years ago

Username checks out.

daniel_sim• 2 years ago

as a user, I have always loved when apps use sparkle.

stevoski• 2 years ago

This makes me somewhat nostalgic for the days when I would regularly encounter software that used Sparkle for updates.

The days when I’d mostly use downloadable native software for my Mac.

The days when most of the software I regularly used had a somewhat consistent UX.

whalesalad• 2 years ago

I miss Adium.

kergonath• 2 years ago

Indeed. That thing was a gem.

Angostura• 2 years ago

I miss the world in which software like Adium was possible

eddieroger• 2 years ago

So do I, so often. I made an Adiumy animation pack for my university that actually got mildly popular, and it was amazing. Such a quality app, and so nice when communication systems were standards not apps.

mrweasel• 2 years ago

Looking at the git repo, seeing the last commit being three years old is a bit sad. Someone sat down one day created a patch and committed it, and then they went away, to work on other things, leaving the git repository in a digital limbo.

koito172• 2 years ago

I still use Adium as an XMPP client. It has a fair share of bugs due to existing Cocoa APIs rotting, but it still works perfectly fine for the one XMPP server I browse (which has OMEMO encryption enabled!)

incanus77• 2 years ago

I used to author two indie Mac apps ~15 years ago, right around when Sparkle came out. It was a joy to add to my projects, a model to learn about great Cocoa framework programming, and still is always pleasant for me as a user. Huge independent success story on the Mac.

brainzap• 2 years ago

I once made a fork of it that used github releases for updates, I wonder if I still have it.

tomovo• 2 years ago

That would be interesting. I wonder if it could be used with an internal Gitea instance too?

hermitcrab4• 2 years ago

I write software for Mac and Windows (in C++/Qt). I put each new release out as a separate application for the user to install. Is there some equivalent to Sparkle that runs on both Mac AND Windows, so I don't have to integrate a separate system on each OS?

Also I worry about update frameworks as way for bad guys to do bad things via my software. Should I be worried?

hermitcrab4• 2 years ago

Ah, I see https://winsparkle.org/ is a thing.

gwbas1c2• 2 years ago

Windows installation system is so fundamentally different that it's hard to have a 1-size-fits-all update mechanism. When I shipped a cross-platform application, we used Sparkle on Mac, and a simple utility that downloaded and ran an MSI file for Windows.

In general, I wouldn't worry too much about Sparkle being a vulnerability. It requires that your download servers are hacked: https://9to5mac.com/2017/05/08/handbrake-trojan-mac-malware-...

hermitcrab4• 2 years ago

Currently I used Inno Setup to create a .exe installer on Windows and DropDMG to create a .dmg image on Mac.

Presumably Sparkle and Winsparkle both use a similar update mechanism and that doesn't involve full Windows or Mac installers (otherwise, what would be the point?).

Deadpikle2• 2 years ago

There is one that is .NET and cross platform (incl. Linux) here: https://github.com/NetSparkleUpdater/NetSparkle (disclaimer: I am the primary maintainer of this repository).

For C++, WinSparkle works too: https://github.com/vslavik/winsparkle/

hermitcrab4• 2 years ago

Presumably that means having to install .Net? I guess that makes sense if your software requires .Net, but mine doesn't.

leovander• 2 years ago

Here's someone's write up on setting it up in their application. I think I found this in a previous thread about Sparkle.

https://troz.net/post/2023/sparkle/

apple4ever• 2 years ago

Love Sparkle! Both as a user and a developer of apps (I'd never sell in the Mac App Store due to Apple's consumer unfriendly policies). It works so well and is so easy to setup.

markx2• 2 years ago

Caused me to remember Growl

https://growl.github.io/growl/

simondotau• 2 years ago

Relevant and related is the free (donations accepted) program called Latest.app which scans your installed applications and summarises all apps which use Sparkle and have available updates. It's neat.

https://max.codes/latest/

Sparkle: A software update framework for macOS

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