Auto-Updates

Vesper Colors for Mac checks for new versions automatically and downloads them silently in the background. You never have to visit the website to check for updates.

How update checks work

Colors uses an electron-updater generic provider feed at https://vesperapps.com/releases/colors/. The feed publishes a small latest-mac.yml manifest alongside each release, and the app polls it on the following schedule:

• 15 seconds after launch - first check, so a long-idle install picks up updates promptly.
• Every 4 hours thereafter - while the app is running.

The periodic check matters more here than in the other Vesper apps. Colors lives in the menu bar and tends to stay open for days, so without it a single startup check could be the only one for a long time.

Installing an update

When an update finishes downloading, a notification tells you it is ready, and a Restart to Install Update item appears at the top of the right-click tray menu. Choosing it restarts Colors on the new version.

Installing is always something you do. If you quit Colors with an update staged, it waits rather than applying itself, and the menu item is still there the next time you launch.

Manually checking for updates

Right-click the menu bar icon and choose Check for Updates.... A notification confirms whether you are up to date, or the item changes to show a download in progress. This is useful if you suspect the automatic check missed a release - for example, if your Mac was asleep or offline at the time.

Colors will not install an older version

Updates only ever move forward. If the version offered by the update feed is older than, or the same as, the one you are running, Colors declines it and tells you why. The same check runs against anything already downloaded and waiting, so a package that has been sitting in the cache since before your last manual install can never roll you backwards.

Checking which version you have

Right-click the menu bar icon. The version appears at the top of the menu, and again in About Vesper Colors for Mac. Both read the running build.

What gets downloaded

Colors downloads a zip of the new app, not the DMG installer. The zip is staged in a temporary location and swapped in at restart.

If auto-updates fail

If you are behind a corporate proxy or firewall that blocks the update feed, automatic checks will fail silently. You can always download the latest .dmg from the Vesper Colors page and install over the existing app. Your saved pairings and preferences survive a manual upgrade because they live in ~/Library/Application Support/Vesper Colors/, separate from the app bundle.