How should I describe a "don't notify of updates until after version X" option?

Question

I'm working on some automatic update check code which runs when my app starts up. If there is a new version available, the user can download it or ignore this update.

If the user ignores this update, then the version number of this update is stored in a VersionForUpdateCheck preference. If this preference is set, then future checks will use this to compare against what's available on the server instead of the currently running version.

I don't know how to succinctly label this option in the preferences page. I'm currently going with the cumbersome and unclear "Notify of updates after version [EDITBOX]".

Can you think of a better wording?

Answer 1

I would go for

Notify on updates newer than version [version number]

In my opinion, the best approach for preference dialogs is to present a very short description, together with a lengthy explanation of what this option does as a tooltip.

Answer 2

I know I'm not answering your question, and you may have a good reason to ignore me that I don't know about, but.. why even make it visible to the user?

On that preferences page, I would just put:

• The current version
• The latest available version
• An 'Update now' button which is enabled if there's a new version.
• And maybe an 'automatically prompt to update' checkbox

Answer 3

Leave it out of the user preferences entirely. It's confusing and unnecessary, in case you really want to give the user this flexibility, just add either a "don't notify me about this update again" or "please remind me of this update the next time I start" tickbox to the window where the user chooses to ignore the update.

+---------------------------------------------+
|  Hi! a new version (1.84) is available for  |
|  upgrade? Should I install it for you?      |
|                                             |
|     () YES     () NO   () Remind me later   |
|                                             |
+---------------------------------------------+

If a user ticks NO, don't nag until the next time a newer version is available. Alternatively:

+---------------------------------------------+
|  Hi! a new version (1.84) is available for  |
|  upgrade? Should I install it for you?      |
|                                             |
|     () YES     () NO                        |
|                                             |
|                                             |
|     () Don't ask about updates until the    |
|        the next version comes out           |
|     () Don't ever ask about updates again   |
+---------------------------------------------+

The only thing you'd need in the user preferences would be a "check for updates" box, in case the user clicked "Don't ever ask about updates again."

Answer 4

Do it like Google Chrome does it. Show updates in Help>About only. And whenever new updates are avaialble, show a button saying 'You have a new version available'

Answer 5

Is there any valid reason why the user would not want to upgrade when a new version of the program is released?

The only cases where I want to have explicit control of the program versions, and even have multiple versions installed concurrently, is with my IDE and compiler, and other development libraries. But software developers are not normal users. With all other programs it would be best to just upgrade the program silently, so that the user never even notices it, just like Google Chrome does.

Maybe in the options there could be an option for prompting when a new version comes available, but the default should be to just upgrade it silently without telling the user (unless it is a major upgrade which is not fully backwards compatible or might break some other stuff).