As you can see some of the issues are yet to be closed or merged
This is a long list which includes the Dark Mode fixes … a suggestion was to break the release over two releases but the team prefers to send out all the fixes at one go.
Key issues / tasks dev team is working on
Fix to the bluetooth echo during calls especially in Fairphones
SD card related issues…save to external card causing issues across devices. One of the options being considered is disabling the SD card until the issue is fixed. Given the large size of device partitions in newer devices this should not be a problem for most users.
The disabling feature if and when implemented will be announced before hand to users. At present this implementation is under discussion.
Where possible fixes will be released with v0.18
Android R release and integration into devices builds
Last set of changes being done by the team…including Bliss Launcher code upgrade …will update progress
Update of Mail app with K9Mail code
Check the progress here
ROM Maintainers
Working with a few ROM Maintainers and connecting them to the build team members. The idea is to have Maintainers for all devices especially where there is no LOS support.
Is that a different app or a new version of the existing application. System application upgrades are always integrated into these releases. Only problem is they are not immediately released. We have to first modify and optimize the application code to work with /e/ then test it and if there are no issues release it.
Update: Check the update in the main thread. Code of mail app is being updated to sync with K9mail modifications.
This release includes all the things that were added in the v5.7nn beta releases, including a working version of IMAP Idle (push email).
Note that there are a lot of changes, and some of them, (especially the removal of the account overview screen) have attracted lots of negative comments in the K-9 forums. /e/ developers will need to decide whether they want to pick up all of the new features in their fork (and risk upsetting their users in the same way. For me it’s not a problem - I’ve been using the 5.7xx betas for a long time and I’m happy with the changes. But, as with any major UI change, some people are going to disagree with the changes (and they will probably complain loudly )
You can raise an issue in gitlab giving details of what is improved in the newer version of the application…that will help the developers make the decision faster
Sorry, but I don’t have the time or motivation to wade through all the changes. I use the official, upstream K-9, not /e/'s fork, and my opinion is that /e/ should use that too rather than maintain a fork. Having to keep up with upstream changes is the cost of forking (and IMHO is rarely worth the effort). If I were going to raise an issue it would say “Use K-9 upstream instead of /e/'s fork”.
One of the main changes from 5.600 is
Added back support for IMAP IDLE (Push)
For reference, the changelog shows the following changes in 5.800 (but there are others hidden in the 5.7nn changes)
5.800
Major redesign of the user interface
Changed periodic background sync and push implementations to work much more reliably
Deprecated support for the WebDAV protocol; new accounts can no longer be added
K-9 Mail now requires Android 5.0 and newer
Added support for Autocrypt setup message
Added support for encrypted subjects
Don't use default signature when setting up a new account
Allow installation on external media (Android 6+ with adopted storage)
Removed keyboard shortcuts for menu items; on some devices they conflicted with system shortcuts
Removed the broken option to store the message database on external storage
Removed the 'remote control' interface third-party apps could use to change some settings in K-9 Mail
A lot of other bug fixes, internal changes, and improvements
Check out the changelog entries for 5.7xx versions for a lot more details
The first of those Major redesign of the user interface, is the one generating all the heat in the forums. Specific issues mentioned in the forums include
Removing the ‘Accounts overview’ screen
Moving navigation and action buttons from the bottom to the top of the screen
‘Swipe right to select message from inbox’ removed
‘Find emails from same sender’ removed
‘Show only starred’ removed
‘Show only unread’ removed
'Unique notification sounds per account` removed
I haven’t investigated any of these complaints, but there’s clearly a lot of work for /e/ to do, especially if /e/ have not been following / monitoring the changes in the v5.7nn betas.
@Manoj
If the next update is going to remove functionality, like access to the external SD card (which I rely on), please indicate clearly so I can avoid updating.
On a related note, does skipping a dev update and installing the next one cause problems? Should I just install both updates on the same day when the next one comes out?
I hope, the team takes into account people who already use the SD-card for storing files (eg pictures or offline-maps) and who do not read announcements. This sounds like a very impactful breaking change.
More useful for you. But these things are very personal and subjective. I have been using the new features and the new UI for a long time in the v5.7xx beta releases from F-Droid. I prefer the new UI, and find it more suited to my way of working with emails. I also don’t use the dark theme so that issue doesn’t affect me.
There are some interesting comments in the K-9 forums that the developers were obliged to make some of the UI changes or they would not be able to distribute their app in Google’s Play store but I don’t know (and am not motivated to find out ) which parts of the new UI this applies to.
With any UI change, there will be users who approve of the change and users who don’t. It is very hard for UI designers and developers to do anything without upsetting at least some of their users. And it is almost always the dissatisfied users who make the most noise, in many cases - particularly this case - resorting to unpleasant, unnecessary and unjustifiable abuse of the developers.
I really don’t know what /e/ will do about the changes to K-9. I had assumed they would pick up the latest changes and merge them into their forked app once the changes appeared in a stable (i.e. non-beta release) but I think they need to think carefully about whether or not they want to do that. In an ideal world, they would conduct some proper user research before making any decision, but I don’t believe they have a dedicated team of UI / UX designers and researchers so I suspect they will allow developers and / or managers, and / or @GaelDuval to make the decision.
Maybe we should just leave it to whoever designed the UI of the Bliss launcher
In the mean time, I’ll stick with using the latest K-9 since it currently meets my needs for an email app.
)
