Automatic check for updates
I imagine they've made this request over and over again. But I still wonder why Blender does not check for updates alone. I think it would be a good thing for the program. Or is the idea being to keep users constantly following the updates of the program and your site to ensure their involvement with the software?
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I suspect it's technically possible and has already been considered. But I can see one practical issue : it would create mutch more server traffic, and such, require more robust servers.
For now there's an external tool named Blender Updater , but it's for daily builds only, and still requires you to lancuh the check and select which build you want at each run.
And there's also installing Blender via Steam client, it will update Blender automatically (at least, according to your Steam updates settings).
* @-L0Lock- * but you can have only one instance of blender that's the problem with steam version.
Proposal: Allow the developers of their respective plugins to include their own server link that can be checked for the update and simply displays a simple bell notification for the plugins that allow it. Then the user will choose when to update them once they see the notification. PROBLEM SOLVED for everyone worried about servers and network issues.
I upvoted! This would be a great feature to put in 2.8!
For interest sake - I use Choclatey to keep most of my applications up to date. It includes stable Blender builds in it's repository (Currently 2.79b)
It's certainly technically possible, but quite a few Blender users tend to be very privacy-oriented and do not want their applications "dialing home" for any reason. Personally, the only way I would want a feature like this in Blender would be if it were an option... and disabled by default.
* @Jason van Gumster * this could be made as an official addon that ships with blender but disabled by default, few of shipped addons already do this, i would rather prefer blender developers making this than some random person or as a 3rd party program, they do offer few addons for cloud services who needs online authentication..etc so a built-in updater shouldn't be a problem even for privacy people.
I am against it! In a studio I want to deploy the versions in order to use the exact same version in all workstations (helps to fix issues). If every workstation starts to update itself I am gonna to have nig troubles.
* @momotron2000 * Or adding a checkbox to prevent it.
* @momotron2000 * There could simply be a popup window: "New version available" and a button to update or download the latest update. Therefore, it does not update without you agreeing and you don't miss any updates. There could also be a checkbox to disable it completely. I think everybody aggrees that forced updates are not the way to go.