NetSparkleUpdater v2.0.0

2.0.0 is a new version of NetSparkleUpdater (previously NetSparkle, NetSparkle.New) with new enhancements, more configuration ability, and lots of other great stuff!

If you used any prior version of NetSparkle, please make sure to test the 2.0 version of NetSparkleUpdater in your program, app, or other software after updating just to be safe. Lots of things have changed. Please ask questions here on GitHub or in our Gitter channel if you need help updating to 2.0!

The easiest way to install this is via NuGet (for the main library/UI) or the .NET CLI.

Package	Use Case
NetSparkleUpdater.SparkleUpdater	Core package; Use a 100% custom UI (nothing built-in)
WinForms UI (.NET Framework)	NetSparkle with built-in WinForms UI
WinForms UI (.NET Core)	NetSparkle with built-in WinForms UI
WPF UI (.NET Framework and Core)	NetSparkle with built-in WPF UI
Avalonia UI	NetSparkle with built-in Avalonia UI
App Cast Generator Tool	netsparkle-generate-appcast CLI tool (incl. Ed25519 helpers)
DSA Helper Tool	netsparkle-dsa CLI tool (DSA helpers)

Here are some things that changed from 0.X and 1.X. Please let us know if we forgot something!

• Minimum .NET Framework requirement, if running on .NET Framework, is now .NET Framework 4.5.2 instead of 4.5.1. Otherwise, the core library is .NET Standard 2.0 compatible, which means you can use it in your .NET Core and .NET 5+ projects.
• Change of base namespace from NetSparkle to NetSparkleUpdater
• Sparkle renamed to SparkleUpdater for clarity
• More logs are now written via LogWriter to help you debug and figure out any issues that are going on
• The default NetSparkleUpdater package (NetSparkleUpdater.SparkleUpdater) has no built-in UI. Please use one of the NetSparkleUpdater packages with a UI if you want a built-in UI that is provided for you.
  • Note that if you do not use a UIFactory, you must use the CloseApplication or CloseApplicationAsync events to close your application; otherwise, your downloaded update file will never be executed/read! The only exception to this is if you want to handle all aspects of installing the update package yourself.
• XML docs are now properly shipped with the code for all public and protected methods rather than being here in this README file
  • Enabled build time warnings for functions that need documentation that don't have it
• SparkleUpdater constructors now require an ISignatureVerifier in order to "force" you to choose your signature verification method
• SecurityMode is a new enum that defines which signatures are required and which signatures are not required
  • Added SecurityMode.OnlyVerifySoftwareDownloads if you want to verify only software download signatures and don't care about verifying your app cast or release notes
• UIs are now in different namespaces. If you want to use a UI, you must pass in a UIFactory that implements IUIFactory and handles showing/handling all user interface elements
  • NetSparkleUpdater offers basic, built-in UIs for WinForms, WPF, and Avalonia. Copy & paste these files to your project and modify them to make them work better in your project!
  • SparkleUpdater no longer holds its own Icon. This is now handled by the UIFactory object.
  • HideReleaseNotes, HideRemindMeLaterButton, and HideSkipButton are all handled by the UIFactory objects
• Added built-in UIs for WPF and Avalonia 0.10.X.
• Localization capabilities are now non-functional and are expected to come back in a later version. See this issue. (Contributions are welcome!)
• Most SparkleUpdater elements are now configurable. For example, you can implement IAppCastHandler to implement your own app cast parsing and checking.
  • IAppCastDataDownloader to implement downloading of your app cast file
  • IUpdateDownloader to implement downloading of your actual binary/installer as well as getting file names from the server (if CheckServerFileName is true)
  • IAppCastHandler to implement your own app cast parsing
  • ISignatureVerifier to implement your own download/app cast signature checking. NetSparkleUpdater has built-in DSA and Ed25519 signature verifiers.
  • IUIFactory to implement your own UI
    • IUIFactory implementors must now have ReleaseNotesHTMLTemplate and AdditionalReleaseNotesHeaderHTML -- it's ok if these are string.Empty/""/null.
    • IUIFactory methods all now take a reference to the SparkleUpdater instance that called the method
  • ILogger to implement your own logger class (rather than being forced to subclass LogWriter like in previous versions)
  • Configuration subclasses now take an IAssemblyAccessor in their constructor(s) in order to define where assembly information is loaded from
  • Many SparkleUpdater functions are now virtual and thus more easily overridden for your specific use case
  • Several ReleaseNotesGrabber functions are now virtual as well.
• Many delegates, events, and functions have been renamed, removed, and/or tweaked for clarity and better use
  • DownloadEvent now has the AppCastItem that is being downloaded rather than being just the download path
  • AboutToExitForInstallerRun/AboutToExitForInstallerRunAsync has been renamed to PreparingToExit/PreparingToExitAsync, respectively
  • The UserSkippedVersion event has been removed. Use UserRespondedToUpdate instead.
  • The RemindMeLaterSelected event has been removed. Use UserRespondedToUpdate instead.
  • The FinishedDownloading/DownloadedFileReady events have been removed. Use DownloadFinished instead.
  • The StartedDownloading event has been removed and replaced with DownloadStarted
  • The DownloadError event has been removed and replaced with DownloadHadError
  • Sparkle.RunUpdate no longer exists. Use SparkleUpdater.InstallUpdate instead.
  • Sparkle.DownloadPathForAppCastItem -> SparkleUpdater.GetDownloadPathForAppCastItem
  • AppCastItem.DownloadDSASignature -> AppCastItem.DownloadSignature
  • SilentModeTypes enum renamed to UserInteractionMode
  • Sparkle.SilentMode renamed to Sparkle.UserInteractionMode
  • UseSyncronizedForms renamed to ShowsUIOnMainThread
• Samples have been updated and improved
  • Sample apps for Avalonia, WinForms, and WPF UIs
  • Sample app to demonstrate how to handle events yourself with your own, custom UI
• By default, the app cast signature file now has a .signature extension. The app cast downloader will look for a file with the old .dsa signature if data is not available or found in a appcast.xml.signature on your server. You can change the extension using the signature-file-extension option in the app cast generator and via the XMLAppCast.SignatureFileExtension property.
• sparkle:dsaSignature is now sparkle:signature instead. If no sparkle:signature is found, sparkle:dsaSignature will be used (if available). If sparkle:dsaSignature is not found, sparkle:edSignature will be used (if available). This is to give us as much compatibility with old versions of NetSparkle as well as the macOS Sparkle library.
• An entirely new app cast generator tool is now available for use.
• By default, the app cast generator tool now uses Ed25519 signatures. If you don't want to use files on disk to store your keys, set the SPARKLE_PRIVATE_KEY and SPARKLE_PUBLIC_KEY environment variables before running the app cast generator tool. You can also store these signatures in a custom location with the --key-path flag.
  • You can still use DSA signatures via the DSAHelper tool and the DSAChecker class. This is not recommended.
  • Ed25519Checker is the class responsible for handling Ed25519 signatures. DSAChecker sticks around for verifying DSA signatures if they're still used.
• Removed AssemblyAccessor class in lieu of IAssemblyAccessor implementors
• The server file name for each app cast download is now checked before doing any downloads or showing available updates to the client. To disable this behavior and use the name in the app cast, set SparkleUpdater.CheckServerFileName to false.
• bool ignoreSkippedVersions = false has been added to CheckForUpdatesAtUserRequest, CheckForUpdatesQuietly, and GetUpdateStatus to make ignoring skipped versions easier.
• The file name/path used by RelaunchAfterUpdate are controlled by RestartExecutableName and RestartExecutablePath, respectively. SparkleUpdater makes a best effort to figure these out for you; however, you can override them if you need to. NOTE: The way these parameters are fetched has CHANGED in recent previews (as of 2021-04-18) -- YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!
• Breaking change: CheckForUpdatesQuietly now shows no UI ever. It could show a UI before, which didn't make a lot of sense based on the function name. Make sure that if you use this function that you handle showing a UI yourself if necessary. (See the HandleEventsYourself sample if you want help.) You can always trigger the built-in SparkleUpdater by calling _sparkle.ShowUpdateNeededUI(updateInfo.Updates).
• Breaking change: DLL assembly names for .NET Framework WinForms UI dlls changed from NetSparkle.UI.WinForms to NetSparkleUpdater.UI.WinForms.
• Breaking change: DLL assembly names for Avalonia UI dlls changed from NetSparkle.UI.Avalonia to NetSparkleUpdater.UI.Avalonia.
• We now rely on Portable.BouncyCastle (BouncyCastle.Crypto.dll) for the ed25519 implementation. This means there is another DLL to reference when you use NetSparkle!
• We now rely on System.Text.Json (netstandard2.0) OR Newtonsoft.Json (.NET Framework 4.5.2) for the JSON items. This means there is another DLL to reference when you use NetSparkle, and it will change depending on if the System.Text.Json or Newtonsoft.Json item is used!