Necessitas alpha 4, a New Hope!

Wed Aug 29 10:00:53 UTC 2012

awesome!
Sounds like a very sane and sophisticated plan.

Looking forward to the release of alpha4

Greets
Thomas

(p.s. As I'm already on it, some self-marketing: I just published my first 
android application ... and needless to say it's a Qt application :)
It's called SphereTron and is a snake/tron-light-cycle-race like game.)

On Mon, August 27, 2012 01:20:14 AM BogDan Vatra wrote:
> Hello folks,
> 
>  Today I have the great honor to announce the alpha 4 release of
> Necessitas. Since Nokia’s radical change of direction, Qt has had a
> very hard time and many asked themselves whether it was worth
> investing their time and money in it anymore. I’m not going to comment
> further on Nokia’s recent stupid decisions because I value too highly
> the contributions Nokia has made to Qt.
>  Instead, I want to comment on the future of Qt and how to make sure
> it will survive no matter what. I didn't comment on this matter until
> now because I was too busy getting this release out, and how better to
> prove to you folks that we are committed to Qt than to continue our
> work with this new release? First and foremost Qt is free software,
> according to the KDE Free Qt Foundation[1] Nokia (and most probably
> also Digia) must release it under both the LGPL 2.1 and the GPL 3.
> Otherwise *"the Foundation has the right to release Qt under a
> BSD-style license or under other open source licenses. The agreement
> stays valid in case of a buy-out, a merger or bankruptcy."* So from
> this point of view you don't have anything to worry about! What about
> Qt's future development, who will continue to work on it now that
> Nokia have dropped it? While we all share great hopes that Digia will
> manage the Qt Project well, the beauty of free software if that it
> doesn't need any single company behind it, it also needs a committed
> community; KDE, Necessitas, ICS, KDAB etc, and most importantly *YOU*!
> Now more than ever it is very important for all of us to join together
> and for you to show your support and appreciation. You have to ask
> yourself which option is better for you:
>   - to be selfless and to spend some of your time (or your money) to
> make the things you love better and to keep them free for everybody...
>   - or to be selfish, forget about Qt and start learning some crappy
> closed source C# or iFramework instead which, some day (sooner or
> later), will die with the *ONLY* company behind it?
> 
>  We choose the first option. The Necessitas developers will do their
> best to succeed where Nokia has failed: to make Qt available on a huge
> number of (Android-powered) devices. Yes baby, the next billion is
> coming!
>  This alpha 4 release is one of the final steps that we needed to do.
> It *should* be our last alpha release! If there are no show-stopping
> regressions reported, in one and a half months we'll ship the first
> beta release. Why one and a half months? From now on, to be sure that
> there are no regressions introduced, releases will be made in two
> steps:
>   - The first step is to release the SDK, and to push the new Android
> libs to Ministro's testing repository. The new Android libs will stay
> in the testing repository for at least one month to give developers
> enough time to test their apps using them. They should use the
> Ministro configuration tool to switch to the testing repository.
> Additional updates will be released in the testing repository and this
> period may be extended if any regressions are reported. A new update
> must stay for at least two weeks in the testing repository; known
> issues are not considered regressions!
>   - Once the new libs in the testing repository are determined to be
> regression-free, they will land in the stable repository and they will
> be available to all Android users.
> 
>  In other words developers should perform the following two steps:
>   - Update the SDK, use the Ministro configuration tool to switch to
> the testing repository, update your apps, and report any regressions.
> *DO NOT* publish any apps on Google Play until the version from the
> testing repository reaches the stable repository, otherwise they will
> stop working!!!
>   - *WAIT* for the alpha 4 release to land in the stable repository,
> then you can publish the updated apps on Google Play!
> Go back and carefully read these two statements one more time!
> 
>  The alpha 4 release will stay in the stable repository for another
> two weeks, then *if no regressions* are reported, it will be
> re-released as beta 1. Basically we'll simply re-label it as beta 1!
> From that moment we'll guarantee that the ABI/API will remain stable
> and therefore you can safely deploy any apps you like on Google Play!
> 
> The most important changes:
> Necessitas has a new home page: http://necessitas.kde.org
> Here you can find latest news and information on how to get involved
> (http://necessitas.kde.org/getinvolved.php), how to help and to get
> help (http://necessitas.kde.org/gethelp.php) and much more.
> We've also moved the wiki and the bugs from sf.net to KDE's infrastructure.
> 
> Qt framework:
> - Update to Qt 4.8.2
> - Native Android look&feel for classic widgets.
> - Native Android menus - known limitation: Android menus support only
> one submenu. We'll try to find a solutions for this problem in a
> future release (follow https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=304240 to
> check its progress).
> - Fixed user Java/C++ interaction.
> - New assets access scheme. Please add "assets:" prefix, check
> http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Necessitas for more
> information.
> - SMP safe atomics.
> - Many bug fixes.
> Known issues/limitations:
> - As stated above, native Android menus support only one submenu.
> - While some demos and examples work fine, many will not, particularly
> on Windows.
> - No other new issues.
> 
> Ministro:
> - Extracts Android native look&feel.
> - Secure config files downloading.
> - Bug fixes.
> Known issues/limitations:
> - None.
> 
> Qt mobility:
> - Android Bluetooth implementation.
> - A few bug fixes.
> Known issues/limitations:
> - No new issues.
> 
> QtCreator:
> - Updated to 2.6 (alpha).
> - Fixed bug in ma-make.exe where all rule commands were run through a
> batch file leading to each 8192nd character being dropped. Now
> CreateProcess is used for nearly all commands, and a work around for
> the (MS) batch file bug was also implemented.
> - A few other bug fixes.
> Known issues/limitations:
> - This release is based on an un-released QtCreator version, so some
> unexpected issues may occur.
> - When you install the qt src package, the source paths mapping is not
> set automatically anymore so to debug the qt libraries at the source
> level, you need to set it manually: put
> “/tmp/necessitas/unstable/Android/Qt/482” in the source path and
> “YOUR_INSTALLATION_FOLDER/Android/Qt/482” in the target path.
> - On Windows, adb loses track of the connected devices a lot and
> otherwise misbehaves (worse with emulators), causing QtCreator to
> hang. When this happens, to get it to respond again you can execute:
> android-sdk\platform-tools\adb.exe kill-server &
> android-sdk\platform-tools\adb start-server &
> android-sdk\platform-tools\adb devices (from cmd.exe in
> YOUR_INSTALLATION_FOLDER) or:
> taskkill /F /IM adb.exe /T  (from cmd.exe in any directory)
> 
> SDK Installer framework has been updated with upstream’s latest
> changes. One of the biggest improvements is the ability to add
> 3rd-party repositories, so:
> - If you are a developer who has something interesting to share for
> Android (e.g. plugins, custom widgets, QML controls, etc.) please add
> your repository to
> http://community.kde.org/Necessitas/3rd_party_SDK_repositories
> - If you are a developer looking for something which is not shipped
> with the Necessitas SDK, you can check the same page:
> http://community.kde.org/Necessitas/3rd_party_SDK_repositories.
> Known issues/limitations:
> - Due to some bugs, the old installer can’t be used update the SDK, so
> you need to reinstall the SDK using the new installers.
> 
> Updated the Android NDK and Android SDK to latest versions. Please do
> not use the Official Google Android NDK, instead use our Necessitas
> Special version.
> The following people have made large contributions to this release
> (alphabetic ordering):
>  - Marco Bernasocchi <marco at bernawebdesign.ch> Moved all the bugs from
> sf.net to kde.org. He is also one of the Necessitas website & wiki
> maintainers.
>  - Ray Donnelly <mingw.android at gmail.com> as usual he had a decisive
> contribution to this project. He created a custom Android NDK (the
> official NDK-r8b was not able to build Necessitas), gdb with Python
> support, and most importantly, the Windows and Mac OS X SDKs.
>  - Willy Gardiol <willy at gardiol.org> reworked most of Necessitas
> website and wiki pages. He is also one of the Necessitas website &
> wiki maintainers.
>  - Marijn Kruisselbrink <mkruisselbrink at kde.org> and Chris Browet
> <cbro at semperpax.com> did most of the native Android menu integration.
>  - Lauri Laanmets <lauri.laanmets at proekspert.ee> Android Bluetooth
> implementation.
>  - Tyler Mandry <tmandry at gmail.com> reworked Java/C++ interaction,
> added support for Android QML debugging in QtCreator.
>  - BogDan Vatra <bog_dan_ro at yahoo.com> Most of the QtCreator Android
> Plugin, Ministro updates, SDK Installer updates, Android native
> look&feel (Qt and Ministro implementation), cleanup of native Android
> menus integration, new assets implementation, SMP safe atomics, most
> of the bug fixes.
> 
> As usual, special thanks goes to KDE for their hosting and support!
> 
> I'll also like to personally thank everyone who has summited bugs (and
> even better, patches for some of them!)
> 
> You can check out Necessita's glory wall
> (http://necessitas.kde.org/people.php) for a complete list of all
> contributors (who agreed to be listed).
> 
> You can grab the new SDK installer for the following platforms:
> -GNU/Linux:
> http://files.kde.org/necessitas/installer/release/linux-online-necessitas-a
> lpha4-sdk-installer
> 
> -Windows:
> http://files.kde.org/necessitas/installer/release/windows-online-necessitas
> -alpha4-sdk-installer.exe
> 
> -Mac OS X:
> http://files.kde.org/necessitas/installer/release/mac_osx-online-necessitas
> -alpha4-sdk-installer.7z
> 
> Yours sincerely,
> BogDan.
> 
> [1] http://kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php
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