Original Post
Hello all,
I have a question on how I should design an update system for my program called PatchCraft. (I know this is a game design forum, but I promise my program is for a game.) So as it is, the update system simply asks if the user wants to update, and doesn't do anything about users that say no, which will be a problem later when the database PatchCraft runs off of starts changing for a future update. If the database changes and files are moved around, and an older version tries to access a file that isn't where it was, this will obviously will cause bugs and crashes. I had the idea to make some updates "critical" so when the user doesn't update, he/she is locked out of the database to prevent crashes. I also thought of implementing other things like "Only ask once", "Update automatically", and "Always ask" options. Since there is no reason to use a previous version because I don't plan on removing features, should I just consider every update critical, automatically update without user consent, and lock previous versions out of the database in the event they find a way to not update? Feel free to look at PatchCraft at http://go.to/patchcraft and let me know what you think about how the update system should be.
I have a question on how I should design an update system for my program called PatchCraft. (I know this is a game design forum, but I promise my program is for a game.) So as it is, the update system simply asks if the user wants to update, and doesn't do anything about users that say no, which will be a problem later when the database PatchCraft runs off of starts changing for a future update. If the database changes and files are moved around, and an older version tries to access a file that isn't where it was, this will obviously will cause bugs and crashes. I had the idea to make some updates "critical" so when the user doesn't update, he/she is locked out of the database to prevent crashes. I also thought of implementing other things like "Only ask once", "Update automatically", and "Always ask" options. Since there is no reason to use a previous version because I don't plan on removing features, should I just consider every update critical, automatically update without user consent, and lock previous versions out of the database in the event they find a way to not update? Feel free to look at PatchCraft at http://go.to/patchcraft and let me know what you think about how the update system should be.
