Is there a 25 alpha feature roadmap?

[brot]

First of all, thanks for the work and all the effort developing and maintaining the News app.

I updated to Nextcloud 28 a fews days ago, but unfortunately I had to realize that News 24.0.0 is broken with this new version. This seems to happens to other users too: #2517
In my case the News app wasn’t shown as incompatible before the update, otherwise I wouldn’t start the update, because the News app is my most used Nextcloud app.

So I updated News to the 25 alpha release. The menu now works (more or less), but it’s an alpha release and of course there are features missing after the UI rewrite.

So my question is how do you track the missing features? Which features are planned to get implemented and which features will not be implemented in the new UI?
Also is there a process how to report bugs or missing features for the alpha release?

Here is a list of things that I have noticed. If you want I can report them as single issues with more information if that helps

• News app settings are missing (or not there yet)
• So there is also no setting to disable folders without unread articles
• Not all unread articles are shown, although the “unread” count is shown in a bubble right beside the folder name (Could it be that there is a threshold and very old articles are not shown?)
• If you first show the “unread” articles of a folder (activating the unread filter) and switch to another folder with unread articles, the list of articles is showing the articles of both folders
• For reloading the articles you have to reload the full page. With the old UI you had a few options, for example
  • Clicking on the folder name
  • Keyboard shortcuts “r” for reload
• If you read an article and scroll down in the 3rd frame and than you click another article in the article list (2nd frame) the new loaded article does not start from the beginning, but starts from the scroll position of the article before

[SMillerDev]

how do you track the missing features? Which features are planned to get implemented and which features will not be implemented in the new UI?

#2503 is where we track missing features, but the reality is that whatever people contribute will become features and if nobody contributes it might never make it out of Alpha state.

[SMillerDev]

I updated to Nextcloud 28 a fews days ago, but unfortunately I had to realize that News 24.0.0 is broken with this new version. This seems to happens to other users too: #2517
In my case the News app wasn’t shown as incompatible before the update, otherwise I wouldn’t start the update, because the News app is my most used Nextcloud app.

Could you post your system configuration? Because I've contacted the main developers about this and they need it for debugging.

[brot]

Sure, what exactly do they need or where can I export the needed configurations?

[kesselb]

For example via occ support:report .

Particularly interesting if "news" is listed in "app_install_overwrite".

[brot]

Here is my system configuration. I'm using nextcloud with the postgres fpm setup from
https://github.com/nextcloud/docker

And I switched to the beta release channel after the upgrade to 28.x

Server configuration detail

Operating system: Linux 5.15.0-91-generic #101-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 14 13:30:08 UTC 2023 x86_64

Webserver: Unknown (cli)

Database: pgsql PostgreSQL 15.5 (Debian 15.5-1.pgdg120+1) on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (Debian 12.2.0-14) 12.2.0, 64-bit

PHP version: 8.2.13

Modules loaded: Core, date, libxml, openssl, pcre, sqlite3, zlib, ctype, curl, dom, fileinfo, filter, ftp, hash, iconv, json, mbstring, SPL, session, PDO, pdo_sqlite, bz2, posix, random, readline, Reflection, standard, SimpleXML, tokenizer, xml, xmlreader, xmlwriter, mysqlnd, apcu, bcmath, Phar, exif, gd, gmp, imagick, intl, ldap, memcached, pcntl, pdo_mysql, pdo_pgsql, redis, sodium, sysvsem, zip, Zend OPcache

Nextcloud version: 28.0.1 - 28.0.1.1

Updated from an older Nextcloud/ownCloud or fresh install:

Where did you install Nextcloud from: unknown

Signing status

[]

List of activated apps

Enabled:
 - activity: 2.20.0
 - bookmarks: 13.1.3
 - calendar: 4.6.1
 - circles: 28.0.0-dev
 - cloud_federation_api: 1.11.0
 - collectives: 2.9.2
 - comments: 1.18.0
 - contacts: 5.5.0
 - contactsinteraction: 1.9.0
 - cospend: 1.5.13
 - dashboard: 7.8.0
 - dav: 1.29.1
 - deck: 1.12.0
 - event_update_notification: 2.3.0
 - federatedfilesharing: 1.18.0
 - federation: 1.18.0
 - files: 2.0.0
 - files_external: 1.20.0
 - files_pdfviewer: 2.9.0
 - files_reminders: 1.1.0
 - files_sharing: 1.20.0
 - files_trashbin: 1.18.0
 - files_versions: 1.21.0
 - firstrunwizard: 2.17.0
 - gpoddersync: 3.8.2
 - logreader: 2.13.0
 - lookup_server_connector: 1.16.0
 - news: 25.0.0-alpha3
 - nextcloud_announcements: 1.17.0
 - notes: 4.9.1
 - notifications: 2.16.0
 - oauth2: 1.16.3
 - password_policy: 1.18.0
 - photos: 2.4.0
 - privacy: 1.12.0
 - provisioning_api: 1.18.0
 - recommendations: 2.0.0
 - related_resources: 1.3.0
 - richdocumentscode: 23.5.604
 - serverinfo: 1.18.0
 - settings: 1.10.1
 - sharebymail: 1.18.0
 - support: 1.11.0
 - survey_client: 1.16.0
 - suspicious_login: 6.0.0
 - systemtags: 1.18.0
 - tables: 0.6.5
 - tasks: 0.15.0
 - text: 3.9.1
 - theming: 2.3.0
 - twofactor_backupcodes: 1.17.0
 - twofactor_nextcloud_notification: 3.8.0
 - twofactor_totp: 10.0.0-beta.2
 - twofactor_webauthn: 1.3.2
 - updatenotification: 1.18.0
 - user_status: 1.8.1
 - viewer: 2.2.0
 - weather_status: 1.8.0
 - workflowengine: 2.10.0
Disabled:
 - admin_audit
 - bruteforcesettings: 2.4.0
 - encryption
 - files_rightclick: 1.6.0
 - mail: 3.5.0
 - maps: 1.3.1
 - polls: 6.0.1
 - richdocuments: 8.3.0
 - sharerenamer: 3.2.0
 - spreed: 18.0.1
 - user_ldap

Configuration (config/config.php)

{
    "memcache.local": "\\OC\\Memcache\\APCu",
    "apps_paths": [
        {
            "path": "\/var\/www\/html\/apps",
            "url": "\/apps",
            "writable": false
        },
        {
            "path": "\/var\/www\/html\/custom_apps",
            "url": "\/custom_apps",
            "writable": true
        }
    ],
    "instanceid": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "passwordsalt": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "secret": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "trusted_domains": [
        "***REMOVED DOMAIN VALUE***"
    ],
    "datadirectory": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "dbtype": "pgsql",
    "version": "28.0.1.1",
    "overwrite.cli.url": "***REMOVED DOMAIN VALUE***",
    "dbname": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "dbhost": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "dbport": "",
    "dbtableprefix": "oc_",
    "dbuser": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "dbpassword": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "installed": true,
    "maintenance": false,
    "mail_smtpmode": "smtp",
    "mail_smtpsecure": "ssl",
    "mail_sendmailmode": "smtp",
    "mail_domain": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "mail_from_address": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "mail_smtpauthtype": "LOGIN",
    "mail_smtpauth": 1,
    "mail_smtphost": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "mail_smtpport": "465",
    "mail_smtpname": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "mail_smtppassword": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "logfile": "\/var\/www\/html\/logs\/nextcloud.log",
    "loglevel": 2,
    "log_rotate_size": 104857600,
    "log_type": "file",
    "trusted_proxies": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
    "overwriteprotocol": "https",
    "overwritehost": "***REMOVED DOMAIN VALUE***",
    "theme": "",
    "memcache.distributed": "\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis",
    "memcache.locking": "\\OC\\Memcache\\Redis",
    "redis": {
        "host": "***REMOVED SENSITIVE VALUE***",
        "port": 6379
    },
    "has_rebuilt_cache": true,
    "app_install_overwrite": [
        "documentserver_community",
        "onlyoffice",
        "news"
    ],
    "data-fingerprint": "e99ad421881fd23883ba45bdaacaf94d",
    "default_phone_region": "AT",
    "updater.release.channel": "beta"
}

Cron Configuration: Array
(
[backgroundjobs_mode] => cron
[lastcron] => 1703721001
)

External storages: yes

External storage configuration

No mounts configured

Encryption: no

User-backends:

• OC\User\Database

Browser: unknown

[kesselb]

    "app_install_overwrite": [
        "documentserver_community",
        "onlyoffice",
        "news"
    ],

app_install_overwrite means the app maximum version is ignored.

We assume you know what you are doing if you enable it.

It would be a nice enhancement for the updater checker to remind the user about it.

Yet the code https://github.com/nextcloud/server/blob/7812a02998fb9519071ac917ebf092901fdc0b82/apps/updatenotification/lib/Controller/APIController.php#L127 should already ignore app_install_overwrite and therefore show a warning that no update for news is available.

Did the updater update to News 25 or you?

If the updater, then @SMillerDev guess that the updater may handle prereleases wrong is likely.

[Grotax]

I would also like to add that news has no developer team working based on some roadmap. I'm the official maintainer of the app and take care of the releases, @SMillerDev has helped a lot in the backend over the years and rewritten big parts of it.

And that's basically the core team, on and off other people have helped in the past.

I hope someone will find time and has the skills to "finish" the frontend.
Even better would be if someone could make maintaining the frontend a hobby.