version?

So, when I download digby.exe, what version am I downloading?

This is nice: http://wiki.digsby.com/doku.php?id=changelog  but what good does it do if I do not know what version I have?

I don't care if the version is easy to see when Digsby is running. I want to know what I've downloaded - before installing.

Bah... Why do software companies continue to do this? I know it's easier for the build process to just keep pumping out <name>.exe or whatever (rather than putting the version in the file name), but at least give people an easy way to see what version they are downloading.

If you have an old version of the installer, Digsby will just upgrade to the newest version on first run, so it shouldn't really matter too much which version you have, also any installer downloaded from our page, unless otherwise specified in the filename should be the newest one.

if you download digsby.exe from our website, it's a downloader-installer. that is, it downloades digsby_setup.exe and then installs from that.

if you download digsby_setup.exe from our website, it's the latest one with the label "(public beta)" on the changelog.

if you download digsby_setup_alpha.exe from our website, it's the latest one with the label "(private alpha)" on the changelog.

additionally, you can always grab http://update.digsby.com/install/digsby … XXXXX.exe, replacing XXXXX with the version you want. they are cleaned out periodically, so don't expect 12345 (or something) to be there. however, it will update to the latest release when you log in (alpha if you have tag.yaml in your installing directory).

once you've installed it you can also go to digsby\lib\ and check the properties of digsby-app.exe - the version number is in "Product Version" in the Version tab.

or you can just install it, run it, and check help -> about. i'm not sure why the version number matters so much ;-p (other than for bug reports, i guess).

Aaron wrote:

If you have an old version of the installer, Digsby will just upgrade to the newest version on first run, so it shouldn't really matter too much which version you have, also any installer downloaded from our page, unless otherwise specified in the filename should be the newest one.

Thanks. I assumed that to be the case, but it should be clear. See below.

mike wrote:

if you download digsby.exe from our website, it's a downloader-installer. that is, it downloades digsby_setup.exe and then installs from that.

if you download digsby_setup.exe from our website, it's the latest one with the label "(public beta)" on the changelog.

I assumed that, but it should be clear. The download is not labeled "public beta" nor is the product identified as such on the website. Nothing in the download process that I saw identifies Digsby as a public beta. Granted, since Gmail, "public beta" is now the norm.... but that's another discussion.

mike wrote:

if you download digsby_setup_alpha.exe from our website, it's the latest one with the label "(private alpha)" on the changelog.

additionally, you can always grab http://update.digsby.com/install/digsby … XXXXX.exe, replacing XXXXX with the version you want. they are cleaned out periodically, so don't expect 12345 (or something) to be there. however, it will update to the latest release when you log in (alpha if you have tag.yaml in your installing directory).

Ugh. How about simply putting the version on the download page? Why not let users (new and old alike) know what they are downloading?

mike wrote:

once you've installed it you can also go to digsby\lib\ and check the properties of digsby-app.exe - the version number is in "Product Version" in the Version tab.

or you can just install it, run it, and check help -> about.

As my original post stated, giving me the version *after* installing is not a good practice. What if I want to know what I'm downloading/installing for the first time? Even if Digsby offers a "new version check" feature within the program itself, I may want to download the install separately.

mike wrote:

i'm not sure why the version number matters so much ;-p (other than for bug reports, i guess).

It should be a matter of policy that you tell your users what they are downloading. "Digsby.exe" is not sufficient. The version matters because I may be rebuilding a computer, or installing software on new machine. Maybe I've used Digsby in the past and want to know if I'm installing the same version. Maybe I just want to know what I'm downloading.

I do appreciate two different developers responding so quickly and trying to help me out. I think that shows a positive attitude toward your users. My request is really just an extension of that courtesy: tell your users exactly what they are downloading.

Sorry. Above should have been written:

As my original post stated, giving me the version only *after* installing is not a good practice.

(added "only")

kennethmgreen wrote:

It should be a matter of policy that you tell your users what they are downloading. "Digsby.exe" is not sufficient.

This is the part I don't get. A new user doesn't care about the version; most likely they're thinking "oh lets try this digsby thing", and just want the latest. A current user that actually cares about the version number probably knows about changelog.digsby.com and blog.digsby.com, both of which tell you exactly which version you get when you click download. I'm not sure where the issue is.

this isn't sourceforge, where (a) the version is particularly important or (b) there's several versions to choose from. the entire concept behind the auto-updater is that there is one version of digsby, the latest. even with something like sourceforge i don't care what version i get, unless i've worked with the project before and i know about problems with a certain version. even then i just want 'the latest'.

version numbers, in general, are unsightly and not helpful to most users. for the rest, there are simple ways of finding the current version number information for disgby (and you don't even have to download it!).

I disagree with some of Mike's statements in his last post in general for most software products where there is no updater and you have to check version numbers. But in the case of Digsby I agree that it's unnecessary due to forced upgrads to the newest version.  So in our case there is no downloading of an older version for some reason, because it will just update to the newest release no matter what version was installed.