I think it would be nice Vista 3 should get software updater integrated. It would allow the app to update itself without me having to go download the most recent DMG from the downloads page every time. It would allow bug fixes to come in a lot faster without waiting for a revision to fix the issue when people need the bug fixes before the next show. And I think that it would also be cool to have a “Legacy Mode” for cuelists or shows, so if a show or cuelist is programmed on Vista 3 R5, I can open the show on Vista 3 R4 without the software freaking out. Let me know what you think.
Hello Carson
Welcome to the forum!
Thanks for your post and suggestions. We do honestly welcome all feedback and try to accommodate where feasible.
My preferred communication style is open and honest - so here we go… both of those are unlikely to happen. The reasoning behind this thought process is:
- Most users have their show computers air gapped from the internet.
- And even if some are connected (which is OK for us), many people hate auto updates. Even I would argue, generally speaking, auto update of any software or operating system on a show machine is a bad idea.
- An auto update feature would not allow bug fixes to come in any faster. It would be exactly the same. The software still has to go through Alpha > Beta > public beta > release cycles. Having said this, we can turn around bug fixes for customers in as little as 1 day - and we often do. Users just have to contact us directly and we would be more than happy to issue them a version of software that solves the particular issue.
- Legacy mode will probably never happen. It’s a complete resource waste of time for us. The software continually improves and moves forwards. Sometimes show compatibility is literally impossible from a technical level. On occasion we may completely rewrite the architecture of a feature under the hood. This might be to improve performance, fix a bug, or allow a brand new feature to make use of it. To the user this is completely invisible. For example, to you a preset is still a preset but in the code it’s handled a completely different way. This is an example of why backwards compatibility isn’t possible. Furthermore, you should never need to go backwards. We test Vista extensively to ensure backwards compatibility of older showfiles working in newer versions of software. On the rare occasion something may seem of, we will release a bug fix and continue moving forwards.
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Okay, thank you Jack. I see that it wouldn’t be the best to auto update. I also just think that having the ability to update Vista to a new version through the app would be better than having to delete the legacy version and download another installer manually. It doesn’t need to force updates, it would just be nice to have it integrated with the app.
I have to agree with Jack, I never update a show machine until after I have worked with the new build on another machine. Furthermore, I DO NOT ever have any of my show machines connected to the internet. You have to treat these machine like a normal lighting console, I don’t know of any professional console manufacturer that would recommend allowing their console to have internet access. The same thinking should be done with any show critical machine.
FYI, you do not have to delete the old version of Vista when updating. Simply run the installer and choose to not delete the old version. This will do an update just fine. If you are running anything in console mode there is a software update within Vista that will search a USB drive for the latest update.
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