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Show channel name near version on each Download entry since it now displays file name by default

A topic by komehara created 42 days ago Views: 109 Replies: 3
Viewing posts 1 to 3
(1 edit)

Context

Before, the Download section used to show a constructed low-level hyphenated name like my-game-my-channel.zip. This required developers to change the display name manually to have a nice visible name (although it wouldn’t change the zip/folder name on download/install via itch app). However, it had the advantage of showing the channel name as suffix (automatically appended, at least when using butler).

Now, if the developer didn’t overwrite the build display name, it automatically shows it the actual name of the archive file (.zip, .7z, …) which I find more meaningful, however it also means it stopped showing the channel name (unless the developer renamed their archive to include the channel name on purpose).

Example

image.png

It’s still usable in my case thanks to the version number and file name, but developer needs to pay extra attention to it - in particular, because of the ellipsis cut, definitely not put important build variant information like “Demo” after too many characters! (the rest is visible on hover but I wouldn’t count on it) Or they’d need to change display name, which defeats the advantage of the new file display name.

I personally find the new display pretty nice, in fact, I used to rename my builds exactly like this before, so the user is not surprised when they download the file from the website and see the same name. So I’m okay with keeping it, but…

Suggestion

I would suggest to add a new field to display the channel, just besides the version number.

Otherwise, the channel is only visible on itch admin page and when using itch app and trying to install the game, which makes the download instructions on my page (“we recommend downloading the post-jam channel…”) meaningless for all the users not using the itch app.

I agree—having the channel name next to the version would add clarity, especially when managing multiple builds like demo, beta, or post-jam versions. The current reliance on file names alone leads to confusion, especially with ellipsis cuts. A small UI change like this could prevent a lot of user mistakes and support clearer instructions on download pages. Definitely worth considering.

Sort of unrelated to what you're asking, but it looks like you've got downloads of all the versions of your app, not just the latest, and I'm wondering how you're doing that. (I just switched to Butler and I can't figure out how to show old versions for download.)

Are you just creating a new "channel" for every version of the game? It might be that you have to do that, but it would feel silly to do so as you're then breaking the whole point of channels which is to provide a single release item that gets updated with new versions whenever they come out. I wish there was a way to let users download old versions without having to create a new channel for each version.

In the example I showed yes, I made a different channel for the jam release (frozen version) and post-jam update (will be regularly updated - hopefully).

But I’m not creating a new channel for every version. For instance, when I release v0.6.0 it will override the v0.5.0, it’s really just for the jam release (or an important save-breaking change) that I do that.

Otherwise no, old versions are lost (https://itch.io/t/184990/can-i-download-older-versions-of-the-game, 7 years old but I don’t see a change in the interface so far), it could be a feature request though. For instance, add option to preserve previous version to butler, and show the list of preserved versions in itch client / game page “Show all versions” details?