microsoft / microsoft/pxt-microbit

Surface extension versions in the UI, include a simple way to update them as well?

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#5,143 4 comments 0 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@JohnVidler is already working on this.

Since Jun 5, 2023.

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Description

This has come from requests at the university for studies; these often have fast-moving custom extensions and by the time the study is live there may well be one or more that need updating for the users. Currently we do this via re-entering the extension URL into the extensions UI and re-downloading it to the project, but this could be made much cleaner with a button on the extension UI. Quick mockup of some options for this are below:

image

From left to right:

  1. Just some text in the extended info block to say what version we're on for an up-to-date extension
  2. A text link (or button?) to update the extension if the current one lags behind the latest release
  3. A dropdown with all releases for this extension listed so the user can pick whichever one they want

If I had to pick the mockup I personally like the most it would be a combination of 1 and 2, depending on the state of the extension, maybe with up-to-date extensions just showing their version string (v1.2.3) on the left?

To summarise:

  • Updating extensions isn't surfaced in a clean way
  • Versions for extensions are only visisble in the project settings as text which is quite hidden away
  • Perhaps show the version on any installed extension
  • Perhaps also add an easy way to jump the user to the latest one

Edit
One edge case for this: testing extensions, so these would need a special "Testing" or "Workspace" text to indicate they're connected.

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