Bitbucket has made a change on their end that means that the version of Java that ships with Starsector can no longer connect to bitbucket.org. Mods using Bitbucket to host their version files will need to migrate to another site.
Since the update check does not work for affected mods, you’ll need to check their threads for updates manually using the in-game menu. My apologies for the inconvenience.
Lets you know when your mods are out of date
Inspired by the AVC plugin for Kerbal Space Program
Download v2.0b (mirror)
View source code on Bitbucket
The CSV is required due to how Starsector handles file loading and is trivial to add. Just create the file data/config/version/version_files.csv in your mod folder, then open it in a text editor and paste the following (make sure to change the .version filename to whatever you’re planning on using):
version file
insertmodnamehere.version
Then create said version file in the root of your mod directory. You can find an example version file with a description of the necessary fields here.
Once you’ve finished, upload this version file to the internet somewhere and change “masterVersionFile” in your local copy to point at its URL. The only part that is read from the master is the mod version data, so don’t worry if the masterVersionFile URL in the online file doesn’t point to itself. Whenever you update your mod, just re-upload your local .version file with the new version data and all users running Version Checker alongside your mod will be notified of the release when they next start Starsector.
That’s it, you’re done. Now all you have to do is remember to keep these files up to date. It helps to add a comment next to the “version” line in mod_info.json reminding you to change both files when you update. 
FAQ
- Is any data sent from my computer? – No, this mod is download only. It retrieves a master .version file and compares it against your local mod. Absolutely everything is done client-side; no information is sent to any server aside from the initial download request.
- Does this work for all mods? – No, only those whose authors choose to support it. That’s the downside of the .version file format, but the upside is that it isn’t reliant on a single global maintainer, but on each individual mod author instead.
- Will this slow down my game? – The update checks are done in separate threads and only when the game first loads, so there shouldn’t be any noticeable performance impact.
- Will supporting this make my mod require yours like with LazyLib and ShaderLib? – Nope. If Version Checker isn’t tagged in the launcher the game will act as if it wasn’t even installed. No .version files will be loaded, no scripts will be run, nothing.
- I have a mod I made for personal use. Is there any way I can make Version Checker stop telling me it’s unsupported? – Yes! Add the line “suppressVCUnsupported”:true, to your mod’s mod_info.json.
Changelog:
Oh my. Oh my oh my!
Is this what I think it is? Because I seem to think that I think I think that it seems to be an update thing! (I’ve actually forgotten what it should be called.)
…
Is it, really? How on earth have you managed to get this to work if it is so? I can’t even begin to imagine with my meagre understanding.
You appear to have broken ground.
It also won’t work unless a mod maker supports it by putting a .version file in their mod folder and registering it in a CSV, so it won’t be very useful until mods start releasing updates again.
Here’s an example .version file for the curious:
{
# Points toward the online master .version file. This mod works by comparing
# the local and online version to check if there is a newer version available.
"masterVersionFile":"https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32722116/Version%20Files/versionchecker.version",
"modName":"Version Checker",
"modVersion":
{
"major":0,
"minor":1,
"patch":2
},
"starsectorVersion":".6.2a" # Unused for now
}
Excellent job
Will this be fully able to download and install updates, or say if an update is available?
Ah, cool! Are you hosting one shared csv, or should the mod creators have one themselves?
Excellent job
The CSV is per-mod but merged, a la ship_data.csv.
I’m suddenly awfully glad that I use the Major Minor Patch versioning system already, neat.
Will this be fully able to download and install updates, or say if an update is available?
It just notifies the player that an update is available for now. It won’t ever download updates (allowing mods to download arbitrary files is a bad idea
), but I suppose it could let you choose to open your browser directly to a mod thread on this forum. I’d have to think about it.
Regarding the patch number: it will exclude trailing zeros (2.4.0 it will show up as 2.4 in-game), so if your mod doesn’t use that notation you can just ignore the patch field. I might add support for characters (2.4b) later.
the OP. The installation instructions are different from normal mods, so make sure you read them carefully!
No released mods support this yet, so there’s little point in downloading it right now if you’re not a mod author adding support for it.
Let me know if anything is confusing and I’ll update the instructions to be more clear.
Not that it’s an especially huge deal to add in the .version files, but why not just load the mod version from the modinfo.json files? That almost seems like a simpler solution (and everyone is already using those).
Because there’s no way to load each individual mod_info.json through the API. You’ll just get the first one Starsector can grab. This is also why the .version file has to be uniquely named and registered in a csv.
I added support for the more common patch notation where minor updates are given a character (v2.4b instead of v2.4.1).
I also made it so a .version file can point to a local master when dev mode is enabled. This should make it easier for modders to test support for this mod since they can skip the upload step temporarily.
Changelog:
Version 1.1 (August 28, 2014)
===============================
Local master version files allowed when dev mode is enabled (prefix w/ file://)
Patch field can now be a String (allowing v2.4b instead of v2.4.1)