Excellent. We are in total agreement here. I didn't think of that, but that's an improvement over my ideas already. Having two threads, that is, one for final, the other for beta releases. Perfect!
I'm aware of the online help and also agree that you wouldn't need the entire changelog in those threads. Truncate it and at the bottom where users would expect the rest to be, simply provide a direct link to the online help file with a note saying that the rest of the changelog is to be found there. (Not sure why anyone would care, but just for the sake of completion, this would be the most elegant way to do it).
The auto-updater is another excellent idea. Personally, that's the way I like it best. When I don't even have to deal with checking for updates myself, but when the software does it on its own. I like when software can check for updates, and I like it best when it can also update a usually smaller file than the original setup to just update what it needs. That's the best it can be. Mozilla realized this as well and are implementing just that for Thunderbird and Firefox right now. It's evident from their latest betas which I am using for both FF and TB. In previous releases, both TB and FF would also check for updates and then simply download the entire, original, new setup file of the latest release if the user clicked on the "update now" option from within the application's interface. Setup would run and remind the user to close the app in question so that setup could complete successfully. That works, of course, but isn't the most elegant way to do it. They realized that and took action. The latest"incarnation" of Mozilla's auto-update for TB and FF is just beautiful. Instead of downloading the whole 5MB or so standard setup file, the latest betas download only what's new, which usually means a file of about 700KB or even less in size! It's quick, easy, clean and fast and essentially perfect. The only reason I can think of why most devs don't already use this method of updating is because I suppose it involves a fair amount of additional effort to code that kind of auto updater. I can't imagine it's too hard but I suppose it's hard enough, otherwise everyone would/should be doing it that way. If you have the resources, (i.e. hosting, time, skills, etc.), there is no reason NOT to be doing it that way! I applaud your decision to potentially implement that in your software. It's the inevitable next step in the evolution of your software.
I'm off to install the latest F&RR
PS
I love the spell-checker here on the forums
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. I had no idea! Question.. can I install the latest final release over the build I'm currently running?