FreeCAD Forum

Kunda1 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 19, 2019 3:40 pm December 19th.. Time for feature freeze?
Start focusing on bugs, documentation, translations etc...?

+1

hoping to see this PR 2723 merged before the 0.19 feature freezing...
This would allow STEP Import/Export to use Links, adding a long time desired STEP interoperability feature...

Related FC thread

Kunda1 wrote: ↑Thu Dec 19, 2019 3:40 pm Time for feature freeze?
Start focusing on bugs, documentation, translations etc...?

+1

I triggered this topic in the developers forum too: https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=42904
We can continue the discussion here or in the developer forum..

From my point of view it is time to take a breath and make a freeze for new features to get time for documentation and testing. Also that Python 2 and Qt 4 are no longer supported might be a good opportunity to make a last release with official support for both.

Major release related activities to start in March and for the FreeCAD 0.19 release to happen around April. Such schedule is likely reasonable to expect, based on all information shared.

triplus wrote: ↑Thu Jan 30, 2020 6:11 pm Major release related activities to start in March

could you please list the activities needed for the release (with emphasis for add-on workbenches ideally). Because if it involves translations for example, there is a lot to do.

Zolko wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2020 6:01 pm could you please list the activities needed for the release (with emphasis for add-on workbenches ideally). Because if it involves translations for example, there is a lot to do.

Especially fixing the ability to translate external workbenches in to other languages
See https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic. ... ch#p325958

Zolko wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2020 6:01 pm could you please list the activities needed for the release (with emphasis for add-on workbenches ideally). Because if it involves translations for example, there is a lot to do.

The FreeCAD release doesn't really focus on external workbenches. Each author of those workbenches is responsible for their own product. Ideally they are also involved with the main FreeCAD code to know what is going on. About translations, well, you can translate as many strings as you want in Crowdin (Localisation). The problem with external workbenches is that currently we don't know how to translate them. If you investigate this, and find a solution to this, it will be welcome for everybody (Translating an external workbench).

My advice to you is to make a specific tag for an Assembly4 that works with the release of 0.19. Then you will be able to tell users, "if you are using the stable 0.19, use this x.y.z version of Assembly4".

I did try to standardize a release process (posted somewhere on the wiki) but it was not embraced.

Edit Release_process

Zolko wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2020 6:01 pm could you please list the activities needed for the release (with emphasis for add-on workbenches ideally). Because if it involves translations for example, there is a lot to do.

In general people still planning to create some PRs, adding some small features or bug fixes, should do this in the next week or two. After the PR count needs to go down. We can't do a release if there are 50 PRs pending. Translations phase could i guess already start happening. Yorik running a few scripts and announcing the main translations season has started. This happens two or three times anyway, before the actual release (updating strings). Creating a documentation bundle, from Wiki, that is next on the todo list. Usually again Yorik runs a few script to create it. This usually happens close to the actual release, for the latest content from the Wiki to get included.

As for external modules and translations. I am afraid that developers are on their own for now. That is the same procedure is needed, extracting stings and uploading them to some translations service and asking interested people to help translating. After getting translated string back into your module.

https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=36413

It's doable but i guess due to all the steps needed and difficulties involved not many (external modules) developers does this ATM. To keep FreeCAD code in good condition, Werner is investing a lot of effort in this area, hence in the end Werner usually says when, we managed to somehow make this happen by April in the past couple of releases, he feels all the mayor quirks are ironed out. His decision takes priority over potential preset schedule. Small amounts of pressure, approaching April, is welcomed.

After all this happens packagers take it over and create packages for our download page and for other channels, like PPA, Fedora ...

Wiki documentation usually gets more attention in this last step, but people involved in Wiki are doing a great job over the whole development cycle anyway. This is the first time somebody has step up, @Joel_graff, and took care of release notes through the whole development cycle:

https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Release_notes_0.19
https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=34586

Results are really nice. If anybody else would like to add some additional information to the FreeCAD 0.19 release notes section, now is the time to do that. Yorik usually does that at the end of the development cycle, for his work in areas such as BIM. AFAIK @sliptonic plans to create a release video. Help regarding that is always welcomed.

We have a rather loyal set of news site covering the release. If anybody has any ideas, on how to extend that base, feel free to pursue that goal. And in general feel free to pursue goals you feel are release oriented and not mentioned above.

triplus wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2020 9:56 pm In general people still planning to create some PRs, adding some small features or bug fixes, should do this in the next week or two. After the PR count needs to go down. We can't do a release if there are 50 PRs pending.

Therefore Werner and Yorik have to announce a feature freeze. There are enough small issues here and there to be fixed. But people need to take a breath - to fix the bugs and to update the Wiki.

So if anybody could please announce a feature freeze we made the first step towards a release.