Planning an alpha2 (2.9.76)

[Tuomas Nurmi]

Hi everyone,

as things are coming together quite nicely, I'd like to ask if anyone has any 
comments on the idea of a next release, which could be alpha2 at this point.

There are still some MRs & things I'd like to have a look at before that (a 
short review of them a bit later in this mail), but I'd guess everything would 
be set around mid-month (e.g. somewhere around 13th - 17th April)

Looking at https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/blob/master/
release_scripts/RELEASE_HOWTO most of the things seem clear (or not relevant 
at the moment). Documentation at https://invent.kde.org/sdk/releaseme is 
probably more up to date at some places, and RELEASE_HOWTO can be updated 
accordingly when such things are encountered during releasing.

Reading through the steps, I think (in addition to probably filing a sysadmin 
request to get more bugzilla permissions for my account)

 * Update the amarok.kde.org front-page
is the only one where I don't have the required access myself. Would anyone 
have more insight on this step?




On improvements still a bit WIP / testing / comments pending:

Improvements to albums, current track, equalizer and photos context applets
https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/merge_requests/65
received a fine comment related to HIG. I reflected the UI changes based on it 
and will try some adjustments a bit later, before merging. (=1 more commit and 
ready to be merged)


Fresh set of de-deprecations in MR!79: https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/
amarok/-/merge_requests/79
After that one, the only deprecated Qt thing left is 
QNetworkConfigurationManager, for which's usecases the replacement 
QNetworkInformation was introduced only in Qt 6.1, so that'll have to wait. 
(On KF side there's a bit more to do, especially related to KPluginInfo, but 
they'd need bumping KF5 requirement quite a bit and are not worth the effort 
right now, I think)
Although the changes (are/should be) pretty straightforward, I'd like to merge 
them in a couple of days to have at least some time to receive any possible 
issue reports from nightly build users before the alpha2 release (= ready for 
merging after maybe some extra testing still)


Fix script console crashing when reopened.
https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/merge_requests/76
Due to fact that there's also pending warning in the dialog, which will only 
be shown once on KF6, https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/
merge_requests/78 , and the fact that Amarok 2.0 scripts available on 
store.kde.org (don't work? are not likely to work?), I'm pondering if the 
button to open KNewStuff for scripts should be hidden, at least for the moment.

I thought maybe getting the radio_station_service and librivox_service working 
and included would have been a fitting goal, but reading Pedro's take on this 
I'm not confident on that anymore. However, I didn't look any deeper than what 
I've written on the MR and I definitely am not sure about anything related to 
script engine, but I have no problem with the idea of leaving it hidden for 
now.
Maybe the script console should still be left available as is, as it can be 
used to do something sensible with some of the API calls listed at https://
community.kde.org/Amarok/Development/Script_API



There's also the earlier MR on fixing more stalling issues on random mode which 
I haven't myself inspected yet, but will later
https://invent.kde.org/multimedia/amarok/-/merge_requests/31


And I'll also have a stab at playlist length display, as referred to on bugs
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=324452 No or wrong playlist length (time) 
displayed when adding files per drag&drop from outside Amarok
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=281143 Length of filtered playlist is not 
calculated - total playlist length displayed
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=316751 Amarok does not show correct total 
playing time of a playlist during the first loading,

a bit later, but before alpha2. (I've tried some prototypes and have an idea 
what to do)

I'm happy to hear any comments or extra insight

Cheers
Tuomas