[digiKam-users] 7.9.0 release : when ?

[Gilles Caulier]

Hi all,

The whole infrastructure to recompile the bundles 7.x and 8.x (beta)
is now ported to Ubuntu 18.04 (used for AppImage and Windows
installer). The workflow is to publish at the same time 7.x and 8.x
versions.

I would like to publish a 7.9.0 official release for the first week of
december. For that i need the maximum feedback from AppImage and
Windows users to see if nothing is broken with the migration.
Especially :

- AppImage needs (or not) the preloading of shared libraries at
startup. Mostly, we inherit of the legacy rules used with the Mageia7
system used to build the bundle. Probably these rules must be
simplified or adjusted for Ubuntu 18.04 as the dependencies are not
the same at run time with the host system running application. This
point need to be checked with all Linux host where the bundle can be
used (typically, all redhat and debian based systems for ex).

- Windows installer introduced a few simplifications with the NSIS
packager included in my pending todo list since a very long time. I
removed an extra dll used to deal with the registration database to
see if the application is already installed on the system or not, and
to decide if it needs to be uninstalled before to process installation
of the new version. I don't check the regression of this feature with
all Windows versions supported.

For next 7.9.0, we have also a set of important bugfixes introduced
where we want to see if no regression have been introduced. In other
words, please test as you can, all feedback are welcome.

https://invent.kde.org/graphics/digikam/-/blob/qt5-maintenance/NEWS

Remember : 7.9.0 can be considered as stable and can be used in production:

https://files.kde.org/digikam/

8.0.0 is unstable as not all features have been completely tested and
finalized. Use it with test collections/user accounts only.

https://files.kde.org/digikam/unstable/

Thanks in advance to contribute and support digiKam project

Best regards

Gilles Caulier