Hi Group,

Boy, do I feel stupid.  I thought I always had Add-on Updater, but somehow over the past few releases (I don't remember just when) I apparently didn't have it. After Joseph's announcement earlier today, I was curious about it so I looked under add-on manager and it wasn't there to update.  So I installed it and when I checked the add on manager, now, there it is big as life.

I am just wondering what could have caused this. Was there some build recently where the add on updater had to be installed manually and thus it wasn't included in some relatively recent build? I am just curious.

Hello all,

Add-on Updater 21.07 is now available. As the name suggests, you can use Add-on Updater to update Add-on Updater.

 

Add-on Updater 21.07 is a major update. When it first appeared in 2018, Add-on Updater was designed to retrieve updates to add-ons hosted on community add-ons website. The mechanism involved downloading add-on update information from community add-ons website through a PHP file, which didn’t really check for NVDA compatibility information. Starting with version 21.07, Add-on Updater will use a much improved secondary source (a JSON file hosting add-on metadata) to check for NVDA compatibility before offering updates to add-ons you are using. The biggest difference is that this secondary source will also let Add-on Updater learn about new add-ons added to community add-ons website whenever they are published, which reduces add-on maintenance burden significantly (some add-on releases were dedicated to registering new add-ons for update checks; now all this will be done via JSON add-on metadata).

 

Another big change with Add-on Updater 21.07 is that, on Windows 10 and 11 (preview), you will receive a toast notification when add-on updates are available. Previously if add-on updates become available, a dialog may show up. Starting with this release, a toast advising you to open NVDA menu/Tools/Check for add-on updates will be shown when add-on authors release new updates.

 

Last but not least, sometimes add-on developers declare their add-ons as legacy because add-on features have become part of NVDA or for other reason. Previously if Add-on Updater detected legacy add-ons, a dialog will be shown at startup, but you had to use review cursor commands to read legacy add-ons list. Starting with this release, Add-on Updater will present legacy add-ons in a list view format, letting you review legacy add-on information more easily.

 

But that’s not all: there will come a time when you will be asked to uninstall Add-on Updater. More on that later. For now, please install Add-on Updater 21.07 (compatible with NVDA 2020.4 and later).

 

Cheers,

Joseph

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