Updates and release notes

Installed wheels and native bundles check GitHub for newer RatioLab releases when the workspace opens and once every 24 hours while it stays open. The header shows Update to [version] only when a newer eligible release exists. Nothing opens automatically. Click it to read the published notes, then choose Download to open the matching package in your browser. If a matching asset is unavailable, the release page opens instead. Install the package as usual; RatioLab does not replace itself, run an installer or overwrite a source checkout.

Skip this version hides that release until a newer one appears. Remind me later hides the badge for three days. The project menu's Release notes and updates… entry also opens the notes and local changelog. The local changelog is labelled separately from notes published for a downloadable GitHub release. An Unreleased section, when present, describes development changes.

Stable builds accept only newer stable versions. Preview builds accept newer preview/RC/alpha/beta versions and stable releases, using SemVer precedence: for example, 0.1.0-preview.3 follows 0.1.0-preview.2, and 0.1.0 follows both. Drafts, older/equal versions and unrelated release/download URLs are ignored. Nightly builds are not offered automatically. The canonical src/ratiolab_resources/version.json records the base packaging version, exact release version and channel. Native installers retain their numeric base version; ratiolab --version reports the exact release identity. Release maintainers must update that JSON for every release and keep its base consistent with pyproject.toml. Stable versions use the same numeric base and release identity (for example, 0.1.1) with the stable channel. The bundle manifest records both identities.

Windows selects the x86-64 setup executable; macOS selects the architecture's DMG; Linux selects the .run installer, or the Debian package for the fixed /opt/ratiolab installation. Unsupported platforms/architectures use the release page. Package-manager installations should follow their normal upgrade process. Downloads are opened externally: RatioLab neither downloads nor verifies or installs an executable in this workflow.

One anonymous HTTPS request reads up to 100 published GitHub releases:

GET https://api.github.com/repos/NoOneExceptEnderk/RatioLab/releases?per_page=100
User-Agent: RatioLab-update-check
Accept: application/vnd.github+json
X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28

It sends no installed version, project data, token, cookie, machine identifier or usage information. GitHub sees the IP address and request time. The worker uses a 15-second socket timeout, 2 MiB response limit and no redirects. Offline or invalid responses remain silent and retry after an hour; rate-limit headers can extend that delay, persisted across restarts. No network request blocks GTK.

Set RATIOLAB_UPDATE_CHECK=0 to disable all checks. Source checkouts do not check by default; RATIOLAB_UPDATE_CHECK=1 explicitly enables them for development. Updater skip/reminder/backoff state lives in updates.json in RatioLab's user configuration folder, separately from projects and UI preferences.

This interaction follows the SolidCraft update pattern and uses GitHub's public releases API.