newpipe-documentation/docs/05_releasing.md

Releasing a new NewPipe version

This site is ment for those who want to maintain NewPipe, or just want to know how releasing work.

Difference between regular and hotfix release

NewPipe is a web crawler. That means it does not use a web API, but instead tries to scrape the data from the website, this however has the disadvantage of the app to brake instantly when Youtube changes something. We can not know when this happen therefore we need to be prepared when it happens, and at lease reduce our downtime as god as possible. Our whole release cycle is therefore designed around this issue.

So there is a difference between a release that is meant to introduce new features or fix minor bugs, and a version that fixes an issue that occurred because Youtube (or some other service) suddenly changed their website (mostly call this a shutdown). Lets first have a look how a regular release work, and then how the hotfix release work.

Regular releases

Regular releases are normal releases like they are done like in any other app. Releases are always stored on master branch. By means the latest commit on master is always equal to the current releases. No development is done on master. This ensures that we always have one branch with a stable/releasable version.

Feature branching

For development the dev branch is used. Pushing to dev directly however is also not allowed since QA and testing should be done before pushing to dev. This ensures that also the dev version works as good a possible. So in order to change something on the app one may want to fork the dev branch and develop the changes in his own branch (this is called feature branching).

Merging features/bugfixes

After being done with the feature one should open up a Pull Reuqest to the dev branch here a maintainer can do Code review and Quality Assurance (QA). If you are a maintainer please take care about the code architecture so corrosion or code shifting can be prevented. Please also preface core quality over functionality. So in short: cool function but bad code -> no merge. We should focus on leaving the code as clean as possible.

At best you as a maintainer should build the app and put the signed apk into the description of that new pullrequest. This way other people can test the feature/bugfix and therefore help with QA.

After the maintainer merged the new feature into the dev branch he should add the title of the pullrequest or a summary of the changes into the release note.

Creating a new release

Once there are enough features together, and the maintainer feels like releasing he should create a new release. Here is a list of things he will want to do then.

1. Fork the dev branch into a new release_x.y.z branch.
2. Increase the version number
3. Copy the release note from the github version draft into the corresponding fastlane file (see release note).
4. Open up a pull request form the new release_x.y.z branch into the master branch.

Releasing

Hotfix releases

Fix branch

Releasing

Versioning

Versioning NewPipe is simple.

• Major: The major version number (the number before the first dot) was 0 for years. The reason for this changed over time. First I wanted this number to switch to 1 once NewPipe was feature complete. Now I rather think of increasing this number to 1 once we can ensure that NewPipe runs stable (part of which this documentation should help). After this (2 and beyond) well god knows what happens if we ever reach 1 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .
• Minor: The minor version number (the number after the first dot) will be increased if there is a major feature added to the app.
• Small Minor: The small minor (the number after the second dot) will be increased if there are just smaller bug fixes or features added to the app.

Versioning the extractor

The extractor is always released together with the app, therefore the version number of the extractor is the same as the one of the app.

Version code

In android an app can also have a versionCode. This code is a long integer and can be increased by any value to show a device that a new version is there. For NewPipe the version code will be increased by 10 regardless of the change of the major or minor version number. The version codes between the 10 steps are reserved for our internal fdroid build server.

Release notes

Release notes should give the user an idea of what was changed on the app. The release nodes for NewPipe are stored in the github draft for a new release. When a maintainer wants to add change to the release note, but there is no draft for a new version he should create one.

Changes can be categorized into three types.

• New: New features that god added to the app.
• Improved: Improvements to the app, or already existing features
• Fixes: Bugfixes

When releasing a new version of NewPipe, before actually hitting release the maintainer should copy the release note from the draft and put it into a file called <versionCode>.txt (whereas <versionCode> needs to be the version code of the comming release). This file must be stored in the direcotry /fastlane/metadata/android/en-US/changelogs. This way fdroid will later be able to show the changes done on the app.