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2019.1 release

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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby legoboyvdlp » Wed Jul 31, 2019 2:23 pm

Thorsten wrote in Tue Jul 30, 2019 6:08 pm:That's conjecture because it actually isn't advertized very actively - 2019.3 will be.

Removing it from the sourceforge download page helps. That was my personal primary source of confusion. (It would also be interesting to compare the numbers downloading from sourceforge to other mirrors ;) )
That's what it de-facto is, but since nobody tested things named 'release candidate', the idea was to change the name to 'technical release' or so that people actually test it and report back - so by 2019.3 we would have the feedback needed.

Perhaps the forum for release candidates would need a little reviving then. Also, if RCs are now not needed it would make more sense to do away with them for all releases bar the so called long term stable.

Also - another point, I know a fair number of people were using the RC - probably about ten of them - since May and they weren't reporting problems. Perhaps silence could be taken as consent in this case especially given 2019.1 isn't meant to be perfectly stable.

It's clearly not advertized as stable, nor has it even been announced ... if people download and test it, that's intended, ... we can explain in case of problems that it isn't the stable release to have.


That makes sense, thank you for explaining.
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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby bugman » Wed Jul 31, 2019 2:30 pm

legoboyvdlp wrote in Wed Jul 31, 2019 2:23 pm:Also, if RCs are now not needed it would make more sense to do away with them for all releases bar the so called long term stable.


RCs will always be needed. All software development needs this. These are tested by a few developers and power users for show-stopping bugs - i.e. fatal issues that make it unusable for everyone. Note that the RCs are essentially like the nightly FG releases, but instead use the release branch. So in git and svn you create the 2019.1 branches for the release, build the RCs based on those branches, and when everything looks good, you create the 2019.1.1 tag that ends up in the download locations. Fixes are then back ported to the 2019.1 branches and, after a while, a new 2019.1.2 tag is created and new files uploaded to the download sites.

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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby legoboyvdlp » Wed Jul 31, 2019 2:37 pm

Ah - ok. That's fair enough. So the technical releases are more for finding any unexpected things while a release candidate is more for checking that everything compiles and installs correctly?
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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby bugman » Wed Jul 31, 2019 2:45 pm

Yep :)
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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby Helipilot » Wed Jul 31, 2019 3:21 pm

Thorsten wrote in Wed Jul 31, 2019 12:48 pm:
I would call that very active advertising since Sourgeforce is FGs download site,


Actually it's not - it's the repository site - http://www.flightgear.org is the download site - that points you to mirrors, of which SF is one - which you however never really would know. I kind of doubt the average user has an SF account - SF really is a developer's playground.

The new version alert feature seems to be something you activate in your SF account (at least I didn't get one...) - so it's hardly justified to call that active advertizing FG side...

May I nevertheless suggest a small news-subscription, where things like that is distributed in very brief terms.


There's the main website, the Wiki newsletters, the Facebook page, several regional Facebook pages, the Instragram page... another main problem is that pretty much everyone wonders why things are not announced on his favourite medium.

Neither do I think that opening yet another publication front (email newsletter) will help in that situation.


Dear Torsten (and bugman)

Thank You for your quick answers.

I am sorry for my mistake regarding SF. I hope I may be forgiven since the first link to appear on the Download Central is to SF. (And you ar right: I have ticked at box on SF to get update news)

Torsten quite rightly points to the problem of multible publication fronts, which tend to hide the information, I want (maybe as the only one). I also understand why You hesitate to open another one which courses more overload and also more work. Nevertheless I did not find what I consider relevant information (on this topic) readily available on any of the proposed sources that i examined.
Hence I still think an email newsletter would be a good idea.

What I have in mind is brief messages like
"FG version 2019.2 i now ready for download (beta vision latest stable version is 2018.3.2)" (optional link to more elaborate description)
"FG version 2018.3.2 is now updated with working METAR and minor bugfixes" (I don t know if that is true!)
"Development plan for version xxxx can now be found om Mianpage\posts\News".
Consider it as an idea which I still think i good. Naturally I respect whatever you decide. All the contributers do a great job - thanks for sharing.

Regards Leo
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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby wkitty42 » Wed Jul 31, 2019 4:21 pm

email newletter? would probably be little more than the wiki newsletter... i dunno... i get so much email here now that i'd rather just go and look at a time instead of pulling more and more data (email) to fill my HDs further...
"You get more air close to the ground," said Angalo. "I read that in a book. You get lots of air low down, and not much when you go up."
"Why not?" said Gurder.
"Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby Helipilot » Thu Aug 01, 2019 10:58 am

wkitty42 wrote in Wed Jul 31, 2019 4:21 pm:email newletter? would probably be little more than the wiki newsletter... i dunno... i get so much email here now that i'd rather just go and look at a time instead of pulling more and more data (email) to fill my HDs further...


Hi Wkitty42
Actually I did not expect it to be more - rather less.

I have now looked into the Newsletter, and I agree that the content i more or less what I was looking for a way to distribute. So the problem is not lack of information, but how to find it.

I have used FG for a number of years flying around the world in a helicopter but I did not know (or forgot all about) the newsletter. In fact it took me some time to find it, which again point to the information overflow pointed you by You and Torsten.

Call me a fool if You want, but i suspect, that I am not the only one. I think the challenge is that FG.org has to meet the demands of simple minded users, like me, sophisticated users and contributors. FG.org is in my opinion better for the sophisticated user than for a simpleminded beginner, but I have no genius suggestion to solve that.

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Leo
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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby Vinny002 » Thu Aug 01, 2019 8:48 pm

Hi, guys! I saw that the new version of FG came out the other day from what I saw on my newsletter, but when I went to the FG.org website, I don’t see the new version of FG, just the old version of FG which is released on Jan 29,2019.

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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby Helipilot » Fri Aug 02, 2019 10:37 am

Hi Vinny002
Read the posts above, and you will discover a long discussion about releases. My understanding in simple words is, that there at two kinds of releases: stable versions and testversions. 2019.1 is a testversion which somehow ended op on Sourceforge (SF) download page and was (wrongly) advertized by SF as a new version. This caused some confusion as You kan see if You read above. 2018.3 is still the stable ("official") version and hence the version on SF. 2019.3 will be the next stable version.
The testversions are available from other sources somewhere. If You want to download and test 2019 i am sure som developers will be happy. But I can help you "how to do it" - its a bit too advanced for me. Find on the Flightgear pages or ask for help in the Forum.

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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby Octal450 » Fri Aug 02, 2019 2:19 pm

From my results it's rock solid - I think it's just being labeled unstable because they want .3 to be the stable release.

So yeah go for it! Of course if you find any issues do report so they can fix them :)

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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby bugman » Fri Aug 02, 2019 4:11 pm

Note there is quite a difference between "unstable vs. stable releases" and "long-term stability and normal release"! The word unstable is reserved for the nightly builds.

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Edward
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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby PPLIFR99 » Fri Aug 02, 2019 10:04 pm

Thorsten wrote in Tue Jul 30, 2019 4:53 pm:
The average user will not know how to maintain multiple FG versions on his PC.


That's actually easy and yes, so I think he does know. You just install them, and they'll sort themselves into different directories. Works perfectly fine here.


Hello Thorsten,
I agree and at the same time I have to disagree.

I have the following versions installed on a Win 7-system: 2018.2.2 and 2019.1
The 2nd installation was no problem at all and both versions are running ok most of the time.
Unfortunately, both installations use the same path for their respective config files with reside in
Code (): Select all
C:\Users\myname\AppData\Roaming\flightgear.org

Whatever I change within one version will have an effect on the other as well because of the same location of the config files.
Example:
If I remove an aircraft from 2019.1.1, it will be gone in 2018.2.2 as well.
In fact, after installing and runnng 2019.1.1 for the first time, it deleted all but a few aircraft that I had installed under 2018.2.2 (which was rather annoying).

There is another thing:
After 2018.2.2 I had installed 2018.3.2, but replaced with 2019.1.1 because of the METAR-issue.
But guess what: 2019.1 still doesn't provide METAR-data although it should.
My suspicion lies with the shared config files that most likely contain information from the 2 older installations which may prevent 2019.1.1 from providing access to current METAR-data.
Only solution to this would be to completely delete the config files and let 2019.1.1 recreate it. That also means that I would have to redo all my personal settings which I am reluctant to do (at least at the moment).

If I am missing something here, I will be thankful to any advice that will solve this situation.

But the way I see it as of now is that it's not as troublefree as you make it sound.


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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby Parnikkapore » Sat Aug 03, 2019 12:45 am

Well, that's a problem.

The "METAR problem" is in the programming itself, so the config files are unrelated to the problem. (This is also why ypu have tp update FlightGear to fix it)
There are free alternatives to (almost) every program you encounter. You just have to find them.
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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby Thorsten » Sat Aug 03, 2019 5:55 am

But the way I see it as of now is that it's not as troublefree as you make it sound.


It is on my machine...

Where the different versions look for aircraft (and scenery) is your choice - if you make them look in the same folder, of course what you delete in one is gone for the other - if you make them look in different folders, then not.

Unfortunately, both installations use the same path for their respective config files with reside in


Fortunately there is a subfolder inside that directory which is labeled by version number (or the config file itself is) - so that is no problem at all - the new install creates its own pristine new set of setting but asks you whether it should copy the old ones if an old config is found - you can do or undo this at your convenience.

But guess what: 2019.1 still doesn't provide METAR-data although it should.


Then the fault is likely elsewhere - perhaps your proxy is blocking it or something like that. But METAR is not related to config settings or two versions co-existing.
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Re: 2019.1 release

Postby PPLIFR99 » Sat Aug 03, 2019 10:47 pm

Thorsten wrote in Sat Aug 03, 2019 5:55 am:Where the different versions look for aircraft (and scenery) is your choice - if you make them look in the same folder, of course what you delete in one is gone for the other - if you make them look in different folders, then not.

That means that I will have to download everything twice if I want to have this separated, right?
I had actually been hoping for being able to use only one folder for aircraft storage which would then serve both installations.
The only annoying part was, that 2019.1.1 deleted pretty much all installed aircraft except for the ones from third-party hangars.


...the new install creates its own pristine new set of setting but asks you whether it should copy the old ones if an old config is found - you can do or undo this at your convenience.

You're right. Thanks for the reminder. I forgot that FG actually asked me about that during the installation process. I decided to make it use the existing configuration and settings because I wasn't sure if it would delete/overwrite everything. And I wasn't looking forward to adjusting all the settings again.


Fortunately there is a subfolder inside that directory which is labeled by version number (or the config file itself is)

Unfortunately not here.
The folder flightgear.org (under C:/users/myname/AppData/Roaming/ ) on my machine looks like this:

Image

Is this the way it is supposed to be?
Except for the autosave.xml and the navdata.cache files, there is no hint about more than one installation.


Then the fault is likely elsewhere - perhaps your proxy is blocking it or something like that. But METAR is not related to config settings or two versions co-existing.

No proxy. Only direct connection to the internet. Software firewall is set up to not restrict FG in any way.
Worked like a charm in 2018.2.2 (at least until this NOAA-Metar-problem occured) and I haven't changed anything since.

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