What update feature?

[darkbreath]

At the end of the Building_on_Linux document for compiling and installing Sigil, I noticed that the environment variable SKIP_SIGIL_UPDATE_CHECK is listed. This variable isn't in Sigil's launch script, so my assumption is that updating is enabled. But if so, where is the update feature? Surely the updating can't happen automatically in the background, since I had to compile from source to install Sigil. There is also no built-in update feature within Sigil itself that I could find.

[KevinH]

No, that build time switch controls if Sigil will periodically check our github "version.xml" file and if newer alert the user that an update exists.

If you use a Linux package manager, distribution supplied build, you probably want to disable that update check. If you build your own or if you use Windows or macOS that check will prompt you to download the new release.

[darkbreath]

I compiled from source. By "alert the user that an update exists", did you mean when the app is opened?

[DiapDealer]

Yes. You will be notified of new versions (once per new version) before Sigil opens, unless you populate the SKIP_SIGIL_UPDATE_CHECK variable with a non-zero value. There is also a compile time define that can be set to permanently disable the update check. But it's only an update check/notification. There is no built-in auto update feature/procedure.

It's mostly there so distro maintainers can avoid having their packaged versions of Sigil notifying users about new versions of Sigil they may not provide in their repos just yet.

[darkbreath]

Thanks!