# Check for PinballY Updates

Javascript is known first and foremost as the programming language of Web applications and browsers, so it's reasonable to think of ways we could use it in PinballY to access Internet servers. As a simple example, let's see how we could contact the Web server where PinballY downloads are hosted and find out if a new update is available.

## HttpRequest

The way you access Web data from PinballY's Javascript is similar to the way you do it in a regular Web browser, but not exactly the same. The PinballY way is actually a little easier and cleaner than the browser way, since the browser way was invented in the very earliest days of Javascript, before some better and more modern Javascript conventions were developed. In browsers, you use an object called XMLHttpRequest. In PinballY, you use a very similar object called HttpRequest. We changed the name in part because the "XML" part in the browser version was always a bit of misnomer, and in part as a reminder that our version doesn't have exactly the same semantics as the browser version.

We have a whole separate chapter, on the HttpRequest object, so we won't reiterate all of that here. We'll just show how to use it as we develop the example.

## The PinballY version history page

Web applications that send HTTP requests usually access "services" on the Web, which are basically Web pages that contain some kind of structured program data, rather than human-readable text and photos of cats. If we were developing a full Web Service example here, we'd have to create a server program to go with our PinballY code. But that's beyond the scope; we don't want to get into writing server-side Python or php or any of that. Instead, we're going to keep it simple by accessing a regular text page on the PinballY Web site, and doing some simple searching through the page to find the version information we're looking for.

In particular, we're going to make our Javascript code download the PinballY "version history" file. This is a file that you might have come across in the PinballY install folder. It's a plain text file that I use to keep notes about all of the changes made in each release of PinballY - new features added, bugs fixed, etc. That file isn't only in the install folder, though; it's also on the PinballY Web site. The one in your install folder is obviously the one that goes with the version you currently have installed, whereas the one on the Web site is always the latest release. So if we can grab the one on the Web site and somehow scan it for the latest release date, we can find out if there's a more recent version available on the Web site than the one you currently have installed.

It turns out that it's pretty easy to perform that scan, because the file uses a consistent format to list each release's date and version number. So we can use a simple regular expression search to find the latest release date. You can open up the local version info file yourself and look at the format - it's called VersionHistory.txt, and you should find it in your main PinballY install folder. But to save you the trouble, I'll give you a quick summary of how the versions are listed. The latest version is always listed first, and every version's list of changes is preceded by a line giving the release date and version number, in this format:

05-31-2020 (1.0.0 Beta 24)

So all we need to do is scan the file for lines that match that format, which is easy using Javascript regular expressions. Since the releases are always arranged in the file from the newest to oldest, all we have to do is find the first line matching that format. And then to find out if this is newer than the version that you've got installed locally, we can consult the System Information object, which PinballY provides to Javascript to let it find out things like what kind of computer we're running on and what version of PinballY is running.

## The code

Here's the Javascript code to carry out the version check. We'll do this at the "top level" of the script, so that it simply runs when the script first loads at PinballY startup. That will make the version check happen automatically every time you run the program.

HTTP requests are carried out asynchronously, so the time it takes for the PinballY Web site to send the file won't affect your program startup time. The Web transaction will simply proceed in the background until the page is returned from the server. Once it's returned, the "then" handler will be called, and it'll parse the file and check the new release date. If there is in fact a new version available, the script will add a message about it to the status line.

let request = new HttpRequest(); request.open("GET", "http://mjrnet.org/pinscape/downloads/PinballY/VersionHistory.txt", true); request.send().then(reply => { // We got a reply. Find the first line containing a release date // and version string. These are formatted as MM-DD-YYYY (x.y.z...) // // The file is always arranged with the newest release first, so // we only have to look for the first match, since that'll always // be the newest. // // Note that we have to use the "m" flag because we're searching // through data with embedded newlines ("m" is for "multi-line mode"). // One important thing that "m" mode does is to make the regular // expression parser think of "^" as the start of a line rather than // as the start of the whole string. // if (/^(\d\d)-(\d\d)-(\d\d\d\d) \(\d+\.\d+\.\d+ .+\)$/mi.test(reply)) { // Extract the elements of the date from the online file, and // convert them into a Javascript Date value. Note that the // Javascript date constructor uses 0 to represent January, // so we have to adjust the "mm" part accordingly. Treat // the date in the file as UTC to avoid any dependency on the // local machine's time zone. // // We use the date rather than the version string as the basis // for our comparison, just because it's easier. Comparing // version strings correctly is rather tricky because of the // complex internal structure, with the dots and the "beta" // suffixes and so on. It's not impossible, just not worth // the hassle, given that we have the dates to work with // instead. And anyway, what we're really after is a "newer" // version, so the release date is what's truly definitive. // let mm = +RegExp.$1 - 1, dd = +RegExp.$2, yyyy = +RegExp.$3; let onlineDate = new Date(Date.UTC(yyyy, mm, dd)); // Compare the online program date with the running program's // build date. If the online version is newer, add a message // about it to the status line. You could change this to // display a popup message via mainWindow.message(), if you // prefer a one-time message that requires acknowledgment, // but I prefer a less obtrusive approach for this sort of // notification. The existence of an update doesn't demand // any immediate action, so I don't think it merits an // interruption to the UI flow by requiring the user to // acknowledge the message. // // Note that an added status line message like this will only // last until the next settings reload, so the message will // disappear after the user edits the options, plays a game, // or does anything else that triggers a settings reload. // If you want to make the message "stick", you could add // a listener for the "settingsreload" event (see Events > // EventTypes > SettingsEvent in the help), and stuff the // message back into the status line at that point. // if (onlineDate > systemInfo.version.buildDate) mainWindow.statusLines.upper.add("A new version of PinballY is available!"); } }).catch(error => { // just write the message to the log file - don't both the user // with an on-screen error message, since this check isn't // really critical to what the user is doing logfile.log( "The Javascript version update checker ran into a problem!\nJavascript error: %s\nStack:\n%s", error.message, error.stack); });