Developers, please implement an incremental update feature

[usedtowork]

While it's great that Calibre is such an active project, virtually every time I launch the application I'm told there's a new version available, which is a 50MB download. I'm pretty sure that only a tiny fraction of that 50MB is actually being updated between revisions, so it would be great if developers could implement an incremental update feature which treats each new update as a small patch instead of a whole new release. This can be achieved with absolutely no impact to the current code base if desired, as the patch management process can be entirely external to Calibre.

If any developers are interested I would be happy to advise as I helped develop such a system years ago for a client, using open-source code and tools such as bdiff and CVS. That said my coding days are long past and these days there may be whole soup-to-nuts patch management tools available in the open-source community.

Either way it would be a great way for Calibre devotees to keep up with all the newest features while cutting download bandwidth by 95% or more!

[ldolse]

Moderator Notice
The calibre developer forum is not intended for feature requests you have no ability to implement

This feature comes up every other week, there are no plans to develop such a feature by the current development team. Patches are welcome.

[atjnjk]

Originally Posted by usedtowork

I'm pretty sure that only a tiny fraction of that 50MB is actually being updated between revisions, so it would be great if developers could implement an incremental update feature which treats each new update as a small patch instead of a whole new release.

There are two options you could choose without downloading 50MB every week:
-To always have the newest version, try running calibre from source.
-Check the changelog and only download new version if there are bug fixes/new features useful to you.

[Starson17]

Originally Posted by atjnjk

-To always have the newest version, try running calibre from source.

Although it may not be obvious from this post, if you run from source, you only download changed files. It's also true:

You get incremental changes to Calibre source code before they are released in the platform binaries. Some like this, others don't.

You may need to download and install the binary occasionally anyway, as the source may rely on changes only found in the binary released for your OS.

In general, a source update is much faster than a binary update.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Incremental updates would make sense if calibre had them no more than three or four times a year. However, cailbre has weekly (occasionally more frequent) updates.

I'm of the school that believes if it "ain't broke," don't fix it. That is the reason why I don't download updates unless it has a feature addition or enhancement or a bug fix I'm interested in (I'm still happily using 0.7.47). For an incremental upgrade feature to work, the download software involved would have to somehow determine what version one is using, then tailor the download to fill in the necessary "holes." Either that, or one would have to commit to downloading every weekly update (something I do not want because of the occasional bugs that slip through) or catch up on missed past downloads, which defeats the whole purpose of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of thought.

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

I'm of the school that believes if it "ain't broke," don't fix it. That is the reason why I don't download updates unless it has a feature addition or enhancement or a bug fix I'm interested in (I'm still happily using 0.7.47).

Just to present another view: I install all weekly updates. That way, if something gets broken the way I use Calibre, I can help find that error. That happened only once to date, but still, that's one bug found and squashed.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Manichean

Just to prevent another view: I install all weekly updates. That way, if something gets broken the way I use Calibre, I can help find that error. That happened only once to date, but still, that's one bug found and squashed.

Prevent?

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Prevent?

Present, of course. Thanks.