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Be the First to Know. Really.

jbaruch

By jbaruch

3 min read

So, you have an early-2000 style repository, like Maven Central:
central

And let’s say you are very, extremely interested to know when the new version of netty comes out.  We understand, it’s a natural addiction. How can you do it? Here are some ideas:

  • Well, you can visit Maven Central every day. Couple of times a day.
  • Oh, they have an RSS feed (did we mention early-2000?) It will notify you for everything being published to Maven Central. Well, probably you’ll spend all day reading those notifications, but eventually your eye might catch the project update you are looking for. You could also use Google Reader to filter the RSS stream for you… Oh, wait…
  • Another idea! You can use their REST API. Just a simple query directly on their Solr will produce you a nice JSON file of 109 lines, and by a trivial parsing you’ll find the latest version. Now compare it with what you saw last time you ran the query, and you’ll know about new version in no time.
  • Oh, here’s another neat idea – you can use C4C Firefox plugin or maybe its counterpart for Chrome to get notified. It’s 5 minutes setup. Maybe 10. For each package. Not a big deal, really.

OK, sarcasm aside, that’s how you really can subscribe to notifications without hassle:

Email notifications

  1. Register to Bintray.
  2. Subscribe to netty release notifications:
    watch
    3. Get notification on new netty release to your inbox!
    notification

Hm, how cool n’ simple is that?!

Twitter notifications

Here’s another flow for you:

  1. Follow the publisher on twitter.
  2. Chances are the publisher will tweet about the new release using the twitter button:
    tweet button
  3. Here’s your notification in your twitter feed (that’s not a real one, but you got the idea)!
    tweet

Frankly, We aren’t even sure which way is cooler. Try both!

Webhooks

Now pretend that you are a robot (or that you write software and love to automate things). You want an API to be triggered upon new version? No problem, sir! Register a webhook to get a REST callback when a new version of a package you are interested in is released!

So, with Bintray you are always in the know about packages you care about! Just grab them once they published.

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