REAPER Update Utility

[FeedTheCat]

A simple utility that automates the REAPER update/installation process.

Compatible with Windows/MacOS/Linux & portable installs

Note: On MacOS 10.15+ you might have to give full disk access permission to REAPER and the terminal application

Features:

• Update REAPER to the latest version
• Install old versions of REAPER
• Get notifications for new releases (enable them under Menu > Startup notifications > Run script on startup)
• Open changelog in web browser (links to forum thread if available)
• Post-installation script hooks for advanced users (more info here)

You can find the script on my github or download it using ReaPack:
Copy and paste this link into: Extensions > ReaPack > Import a repository

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/iliaspoulakis/Reaper-Tools/master/index.xml

Donation Link

[Coachz]

That's a winner. Way to go!

[b0se]

Very cool :¬)

[uksnowy]

Ok, Im confused.. Reaper automatically tells me when there are updates available. Why do I need this? Does it bring something extra?

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Auto install included.
And devs releases can be installed too.

[nofish]

Does it work with portable installs?

[Ozman]

Awe, man...
This is cool.

I think it would be cool to also either have links to the change logs or something to show the user changes in the new builds.

[todoublez]

Does it work on mac ?

[X-Raym]

This looks very nice !! Thx !


Ill try it as Sartup action

[FeedTheCat]

Originally Posted by nofish

Does it work with portable installs?

I tested it on a Windows portable install and it seemed to work just fine.

Originally Posted by Ozman

I think it would be cool to also either have links to the change logs or something to show the user changes in the new builds.

That would be cool! I might add that...

Originally Posted by todoublez

Does it work on mac ?

No (not yet), I don't have a mac so I can't test it atm. I hope it's not hard to add.

Originally Posted by X-Raym

Ill try it as Sartup action

Great idea! Hadn't thought about that at all. I guess the script could check if it is being used as a startup action and then only show the GUI if there's actually an update available.

[X-Raym]

. I guess the script could check if it is being used as a startup action and then only show the GUI if there's actually an update available.

The trick would be for the script to not launched any GUI if there isn't any update available.


You can have a second action for that, and still have one whcih display the GUI no matter what. Code can be share across scripts.

(maybe for this new action, a checkbox 'dismiss this update' could be made so that it doesnt propose several time the same update until a new one is come).

[Vagelis]

Very cool, thanks!

[Klangfarben]

So good.

[Coachz]

This works great. Way to go.

[RobinGShore]

Wow this looks great, hope we can get a version that works on mac at some point.

[Jae.Thomas]

yeah looks really neat thank you!!!

[Jae.Thomas]

doesn't work for me, I think it's cause I have reaper installed in a portable way.

[FeedTheCat]

Originally Posted by Jae.Thomas

doesn't work for me, I think it's cause I have reaper installed in a portable way.

It should work just fine on portable installs. Some additional info would be really useful, like:
Are you using Windows?
Does the script crash somewhere?
Does it say it's installing but it restarts with the same version?

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Originally Posted by RobinGShore

Wow this looks great, hope we can get a version that works on mac at some point.

Theoretically this should be possible. I once had the same idea for such an update-script and looked into the possibility to install Reaper64.App from a dmg.
It's possible to mount a dmg via terminal, so copying the app from there to the correct location should be possible.
Only problem I could see are potential privilege-problems, especially on Catalina and later, that could prevent that.

I've never actually tested it out, I was still researching it theoretically, though.

@FeedTheCat
What do you use for downloading the file? Curl on Linux probably? What do you use on Windows? I experimented back then with certutil so I could be compatible with Windows 7 as well but never actually finished the stuff.

[cool]

Awesome! It is curious that such an old idea has only now been implemented. This has been enough for a long time

[FeedTheCat]

Originally Posted by Meo-Ada Mespotine

Theoretically this should be possible. I once had the same idea for such an update-script and looked into the possibility to install Reaper64.App from a dmg.
It's possible to mount a dmg via terminal, so copying the app from there to the correct location should be possible.
Only problem I could see are potential privilege-problems, especially on Catalina and later, that could prevent that.

I've never actually tested it out, I was still researching it theoretically, though.

That's about where I'm at as well. And I haven't found out yet if it's even possible to run the reaper .dmg file in a silent "NO-GUI" mode. Would also be a bummer.

Originally Posted by Meo-Ada Mespotine

@FeedTheCat
What do you use for downloading the file? Curl on Linux probably? What do you use on Windows? I experimented back then with certutil so I could be compatible with Windows 7 as well but never actually finished the stuff.

I wrote the script for Linux initially so I used curl. Didn't even cross my mind that Windows 7 doesn't have that :S I guess I'll boot up a VM and try out certutil. Thx for the tip Meo!

[X-Raym]

CURL CLI can be packed with the script if needed : https://curl.haxx.se/

[Jae.Thomas]

Originally Posted by FeedTheCat

It should work just fine on portable installs. Some additional info would be really useful, like:
Are you using Windows?
Does the script crash somewhere?
Does it say it's installing but it restarts with the same version?

windows 10
no script crash as far as I can tell
it says it is intalling and will restart but no update version

[Tobbe]

Worked flawless on Linux Mint 20...no problemo

Thanks

[FeedTheCat]

Originally Posted by X-Raym

CURL CLI can be packed with the script if needed : https://curl.haxx.se/

Wouldn't you have to include a different binary for each OS-type and processor architecture?

Originally Posted by Jae.Thomas

windows 10
no script crash as far as I can tell
it says it is intalling and will restart but no update version

Are you using the latest version? I can't reproduce it. I just tested it on a portable x32 and x64 Windows 10 install, and it worked on both.

Originally Posted by Tobbe

Worked flawless on Linux Mint 20...no problemo
Thanks

Glad it's working on Mint! Thanks for reporting

[FeedTheCat]

I added 2 features since the first release:

• Reaper should now automagically restart once the update went through
• Startup Mode (experimental):
  Inside the script there's a variable called startup_mode. Set this to true if you're using the script inside/as a global startup action. This will change how the script behaves on startup, the GUI will only show when there's a new (unseen) update available.
  The variable does not exist anymore, simply use the script as a startup action

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

You might want to set the entry for update-check in the reaper.ini as well to off:

[REAPER]
verchk=0

as otherwise, Reaper's own update-check might mess up your script, when a new version is released.


Edit:

And here's my experimental download-function that uses certutil to download a file. In this example, the Reaper-logo from the Reaper-site:

function DownloadFile(fileurl, target)
  -- certutil
  Filename=fileurl:match(".*/(.*)")
  if reaper.GetOS()=="Win32" or reaper.GetOS()=="Win64" then
    os.execute("certutil -urlcache -f \""..fileurl.."\" \""..target.."/"..Filename.."\" >NIL")
  end
end

DownloadFile("http://reaper.fm/v5img/logo.jpg", "c:\\")

It's not finalized and polished but should give you something to work with on Windows 7.

[X-Raym]

Wouldn't you have to include a different binary for each OS-type and processor arch

Not an issue for reapack,
or you can ask user to download it by themsleves (but packing curl is probably more user friendly).


That said is there other native way (like mespotine is showing us) it is even better.

[X-Raym]

Inside the script there's a variable called startup_mode. Set this to true if you're using the script inside/as a global startup action. This will change how the script behaves on startup, the GUI will only show when there's a new (unseen) update available.

To not lose this setting at each script update,
the best is to share a companion script with a simple dofile() to the original script,
and the variable already set to false.


THis si the system I used in my Presets scripts, which allows users to toggle init variables without modiyinf the script.


It requires wrapping the main function of the script inside a Init() function, so that the Init function can be run from the preset script after having changed the desired variables.


https://gist.github.com/X-Raym/f7f63...bb3b81aff0b744


A script like that could be pakc right into your pack for easy distribution. :P

[lb0]

So good!! - thank you!

[nofish]

Hi FeedTheCat,

I just gave it a try but get this:

I'm quite sure my internet connection is working because immediately before running the script I installed it via RePack which worked fine.
Any idea what could be wrong?
Win 8.1/x64, R6.14+dev0925/x64

Thanks.

[FeedTheCat]

Originally Posted by nofish

Any idea what could be wrong?
Win 8.1/x64, R6.14+dev0925/x64

Thanks.

Hi nofish, I think it's because you are on Win 8, I had previously only tested it on Win 10. I'll push an update tomorrow that should make the script compatible with Windows 7 and updwards. Thx for trying it out

[Stevie]

bravo

[Jae.Thomas]

I think this is a good idea, maybe even just a setting in an external file?

is this right?

-------------------------------- USER CONFIGURATION --------------------------------

-- Startup mode: Show GUI when updates are available (first script run only)
local startup_mode = true

-- Show GUI for new pre-release versions
local startup_check_dev_releases = true

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally Posted by X-Raym

To not lose this setting at each script update,
the best is to share a companion script with a simple dofile() to the original script,
and the variable already set to false.


THis si the system I used in my Presets scripts, which allows users to toggle init variables without modiyinf the script.


It requires wrapping the main function of the script inside a Init() function, so that the Init function can be run from the preset script after having changed the desired variables.


https://gist.github.com/X-Raym/f7f63...bb3b81aff0b744


A script like that could be pakc right into your pack for easy distribution. :P

[FeedTheCat]

Originally Posted by Jae.Thomas

I think this is a good idea, maybe even just a setting in an external file?

is this right?

These would be correct yes, but I just removed them in the new update
The script should now auto-detect if it is run as a startup action and behave accordingly (silently exit if there's no updates). This should keep everything nice and simple on the user end of things.

Btw, does the script still not work on your end? There's now a debugging output you can enable inside the script (Exactly like you did with these variables). If you send me the output I might be able to figure out what's wrong.

To the scripters in this thread:
Can somebody think of a reliable method to determine whether a script is used in the context of a global startup action? My solution works, but it's kind of yuck...

[FeedTheCat]

New features

• Support for older Windows versions (7 and higher)
• The script auto-detects if it used as/within a global startup action. It will silently check for updates and notify when a new version is available.
• Added debugging output: Enable this by setting 'debug = true' in the script header.
• Added links that will open the latest changelog in a web-browser

Things to come

• OSX support
• Make changelog links open forum thread instead (if it can be found).
• Support for RC Versions

[Jae.Thomas]

no, not quite yet.

it says its downloading, I get the prompt from windows to allow it, and then restarts with the old version.

Also, will it trigger a notification if I am behind on dev/rc builds?

[X-Raym]

To the scripters in this thread:
Can somebody think of a reliable method to determine whether a script is used in the context of a global startup action? My solution works, but it's kind of yuck...

I don't think this is the way to handle this. It is overcomplicated.


A simple side action to run the script main check in background if the core functions are run externaly (a simple boolean variable check) would be more easily and more reliable, as there is several ways to have startup actions (__start.lua scripts, SWS global startup, SWS global startup with custom actions etc).



Thank for your update and work on this anyway :P

[FeedTheCat]

Originally Posted by Jae.Thomas

no, not quite yet.

it says its downloading, I get the prompt from windows to allow it, and then restarts with the old version.

Also, will it trigger a notification if I am behind on dev/rc builds?

When the script is run as/inside a global startup action, it will notify you ONCE when a new Reaper version is published (release/pre-release/RC). You can then choose to install or just go through the changelog (or dismiss the dialog)

Seems like the issue on your end is that it's installing reaper in the wrong location. Which is kind of weird since it should install it where your reaper.exe is located (API: reaper.GetExePath). I'm using this so that it always updates the running Reaper, but maybe I'm missing something here.

[FeedTheCat]

Originally Posted by X-Raym

I don't think this is the way to handle this. It is overcomplicated.

Agreed, I get your point. And this only kind of makes sense with this specific script as I'm doing OS-dependent terminal stuff anyway. It should work for __startup.lua and SWS all the same though. I'm still hoping to find a generic "clean" solution that can be used in other scripts as well (I had another script where I wanted to know whether it's run on startup)