[Idea]: Show release notes in-app

[mtdvlpr]

Is your idea related to a problem?

I can imagine that a lot of users are not tech savvy enough to go to GitHub and read the release notes to know what has changed and discover new features. Also, many might not notice a new version has been installed or that they've skipped a few versions.

Describe your idea

Make the release notes or the entire changelog available inside M3, so everyone can benefit from it.

Describe alternatives you've considered

We could also link to the changelog from within the app as an easier solution.

Additional context

No response

Confirmations

• I confirm that I have read the documentation website.
• I confirm that I have searched through the existing issues to make sure my idea is not a duplicate.
• I confirm that I have searched through the existing discussions to make sure my idea is not a duplicate.

[mtdvlpr]

@ux-git, I'd love your designer input on this if you think it's worth exploring.

[ux-git]

Yeah, sure. I'll take a look. The release notes can also be limited to the user-friendly ones, that make difference to end non-technical users. So basically new features only.

Also, the release notes can also be translated on Crowdin, if strings will be uploaded there in advance :)

[mtdvlpr]

I agree. If we're going to provide release notes in the app, they should be translatable. The easiest would be to add the CHANGELOG.md to translatable documents, but that would add all previous release notes to crowdin...

[ux-git]

Maybe simply adding the most important 1-3 features into the separate file would be better? Even if manually, it will result in way fewer text to translate compared to the massive changelog.md with 🛠️ Improvements and Tweaks, 🔧 Improvements to Codebase, 📑 Documentation & CI Updates and other categories that won't be included.

[mtdvlpr]

Yeah, alright. I'll think about the technical implementation some more. Design-wise, I'd say it's a popup that can be opened from the about dialog. What do you think?

The base layout of the "What's New" file would be:

What's New

25.2.0

• 🌍 Use System Locale by Default: Automatically detect and use the system's locale for a more personalized experience.
  🏷 Tag Support for Exported Media: Add metadata tags to exported media files for better organization.
  🔄 Automatic Beta to Stable Downgrade: Allow automatic downgrades from beta versions to stable releases when necessary.

25.1.0

Etcetera

[ux-git]

Yes, speaking of the design, there's nothing special that could be done here. A simple popup with the list of changes + Close + perhaps "See full changelog" button to lead to GitHub?

[mtdvlpr]

I was thinking:

1. Determine if an update was installed
2. Automatically open a What's New popup with the entire changelog or only the release notes of the current version.
3. What's New popup can be opened manually from the about dialog.

[mtdvlpr]

A test version is available at #4108. I'm not sure yet how to position the button in the about dialog and I haven't implemented the auto show on new version yet.

[mtdvlpr]

I'm also not sure yet if we should provide any previous release notes already or start including them starting with the next release.

[ux-git]

@mtdvlpr my opinion is starting with the next update is fine. I don't think users will dive deep into old release notes.

Or at least you could add a few last updates manually if you wish AND if there are any major updates that everyone should know about.

[mtdvlpr]

This feature will be included in the next release :)