Re: package management - auto check for updates?

[Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org>]

Neal Becker <ndbecker2@gmail.com> writes:

> package management is finally getting pretty nice in emacs.
>
> I use:
> (package-initialize)
> (require 'felineherd)
>
> Now, every now and then, I manually check for updates.
>
> But it'd be nice if emacs could automatically inform me of updates to
> my installed pacakges.

This works, although it's possibly not the cleanest solution.  It
messages the upgradeable packages and also notifies you via desktop
notifications.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(defun th/package-check-upgrades ()
  (interactive)
  (cl-flet ((check ()
		   (package-menu-mark-upgrades)
		   (let ((pkgs (mapcar #'car (package-menu--find-upgrades))))
		     (when pkgs
		       (message "PACKAGE UPGRADES: %s" pkgs)
		       (require 'notifications)
		       (notifications-notify :title "Emacs Package Upgrades"
					     :body (format "%s" pkgs))))))
    (if (get-buffer "*Packages*")
        (with-current-buffer (get-buffer "*Packages*")
          (package-menu-refresh)
          (funcall #'check))
      (save-window-excursion (list-packages))
      (with-current-buffer (get-buffer "*Packages*")
        (funcall #'check)))))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

If you want, you could run that from an idle timer.

Bye,
Tassilo