Release 0.6

[hacdias]

Disclaimer: the content of this main/first comment will be gradually updated with the current state and decisions related to this proccess.

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Folllowing IPFS WebUI revamp, we're now focusing on IPFS Desktop. The main points are to make IPFS Desktop's UI more similar to the one we have on IPFS WebUI and also embbed WebUI in Desktop.

Checklist

• First run experience - Use existing repo if present. Use existing API if available on default port. Initialise a repo if required at ~/.ipfs, start the bundled ipfs deamon if no api available.
• Open webui at 1440 x 900 or the max screen width and height if smaller.
• Store the users preference for window size if they change it.
• Reuse the active Web UI window if a new menu item is chosen.
• Power button should stop the daemon if desktop started it, and quit the app.
• Add desktop settings to webui (feat: IPFS Desktop settings ipfs-webui#883)
• Friendly Design (Design #661)
• Internationalization (Make it i18n friendly #650)
• Avoid custom CORS config (Remove the need for setting CORS headers #728)
• Auto Updating (Auto Updating #668)
• Tests (Add test setup #50)
• Signed binaries
  • macOS Binary signing for macOS #66
  • Windows Binary signing for Windows #705
• Add new section linking to IPFS Desktop in ipfs.io (feat: add implementations section ipfs-inactive/website#282)

Postponed

• Storybook
• Mount MFS on the File System (Mount MFS #618)
• Way to connect to multiple backends

Tech Stack

• Electron: version 3.0.0 just got out of Beta!
• Building: we're replaceing Electron Forge by Electron Builder, which is more widely used so we can conclude it is more tested and more reliable. It is also easier to use and less buggy so far.
• React as our UI framework.

[hacdias]

Ping @ipfs-shipyard/gui for feedback!

[lidel]

I would move "Mount MFS on the File System" to postponed features.
"Way to connect to multiple backends" may also be a huge time sink if we want to get UI right, I'd say its "nice to have, but not mandatory to ship first iteration".

[alanshaw]

😱 that PR is 300 files - I'm not going to be able to review that! How can we fix?

I'm super happy we have a master issue and some issues for tasks. This is a good start. We need to make sure the other tasks get tickets with context and info on what they are before we start work on them.

I would move "Mount MFS on the File System" to postponed features.

+1

[olizilla]

Let's reframe this issue as the v1.0.0 release checklist rather than "revamp master issue". We can tag issues with v1 if it's important to make that distinction. Every major release will feel a bit like a revamp so it'll help us in the future to have specific version numbers rather than multiple events named 'revamp'.

We can have a v1 branch, while we get the basics figured out, and once we have a plan with some time estimates, we branch v0.5 from master, tag it, and merge v1 into master. (let's do this sooner than we did with webui.)

Longer general design discussions can be pulled out to issues on the ipfs-gui repo. Desktop specific design issues can be done as issues on this repo and tagged with discussion.

[hacdias]

@olizilla just removed the label revamp and added the related issues to milestone v1.0. Design discussion was also moved to ipfs-gui repo.

@alanshaw @lidel about postponing "Mount MFS on the File System": do you think we should do it because the 'system' isn't ready yet or because it isn't a crucial feature even though the main feature the user will want is to add files do IPFS?

[lidel]

@hacdias I'd say it is not ready yet (#618 (comment)): mounting MFS has a lot of hidden complexity and could be a significant time sink that delays initial release of revamped ipfs-desktop.
There is no reason to rush it. We need to design the experience first, research how it could work on various operating systems etc.

[hacdias]

@ipfs-shipyard/gui should we aim to get signed binaries for this release?

[olizilla]

Yes! That is how we will honour the 1.0 release!

[olizilla]

Updated this to 0.6 release. It sends a confusing signal to users if we say Desktop is 1.0 if it's using a sub 1.0 ipfs implementation.

[daviddias]

If helpful (aka not adding much more work for little benefit) consider proposing a timeline for the outstanding tasks and creating a pre-release test phase to ask our dearest community contributors to give it a spin.

[olizilla]

The items that didn't make it to 0.6 are going into 0.7 #788

We'll create a pre-release for that one, announce it to the community for feedback.