ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Zoltán Balogh <zoltan.balogh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

I hope you all enjoyed the holiday release of the Ubuntu SDK :) and now 
it is time to unleash [1] all the goodies we have been working on since.

The highlights and explanations ->

1) Improved click chroot experience

- First of all, the click chroot content for new chroots is now pulled 
from the geographically closest mirror. It will speed up the Kit 
creation for those who do not have fast connection to the main archives. 
But please note that these mirror are sometimes 1-2 days behind the main.
- The SDK automatically checks if upgrades for chroots are available 
when  QtCreator is started. This will keep your chroots up to date, so 
your apps will be built against the same APIs what the official releases 
have. So no chroots are left behind.
- We introduced a new chroot agent what is a user session daemon that 
preloads chroot  sessions. It will speed up the SDK startup and all 
chroot operations. This agent also checks the integrity of the chroots 
before they are used.

2) Templates got a facelift

- Templates are cleaned up and made more skinny. Thanks for community 
feedback!
- All templates come with functional autopilot tests. We are committed 
to promote test driven development and ensure application quality. 100 
million apps with 88% zombie rate is not a value. For entry level 
developers the quality starts with the templates. So tests are here to 
stay. Thanks elopio, you rock!

3) The qmake story got stronger

- We have introduce ubuntu-sdk-qmake-extras package in the chroots to 
make the qmake project infrastructure easier (thanks mzanetti for the idea)
- All templates come with qmake project type too
- We introduced the C++ project with QML UI template as many of you 
asked for it. It has unquestionable benefits, but use is with care.

4) UI and UX improvements

- The publish page is reimplemented with our own toolkit. Yes, the 
Ubuntu SDK itself is a good showcase how well the UI Toolkit adopts to 
desktop environment.
- The device connectivity parts are extended with more descriptive 
messages when waiting for the device to be ready  (LP: #1400843)
- Broken manifest files are not reported as missing manifet (LP: #1409815)
- We automatically update default runconfigurations when the manifest 
file changes (LP: #1409815)
- Broken emulators are ignored (LP: #1409596)
- API tab links now point to the right version of the API.  (LP: #1400741)
- Support of new package naming scheme (LP: #1400741)

That is all :)

Please keep pushing us with more feedback, feature requests, bug reports 
and ideas.

Cheers,

Zoltan


[1] ppa:ubuntu-sdk-team/ppa revison