Appcenter: Increase release notes max length

[JesperSjoquist]

Describe the solution you'd like
We would like to see an increased max length for the release notes from 5000 to... well, do we need a max length? 100k?

Describe alternatives you've considered
Previously when using the API's to upload new versions to HockeyApp the release note max length was longer, or possibly not enforced at all, but with the API's for App Center we hit the limit of 5000 right away.

Additional context
A lot or very little can happen between versions and for reference we like to include the change logs from the previous 10 versions so that testers and other stakeholders can get a better overview of whats happened. This will often result in a character count higher than 5000.

[dalemyers]

This is something we'd also like.

[easterapps]

+1

[moveitonover]

+1

[Anders-Ahlen]

+1

[beardstorm]

We would also benefit a lot from this. 🙏

[dvdhu]

+1

[bitbytedog]

Same here, for the same reasons stated above. Our release notes are regularly up to 100K, especially on the commit of a merge that contains many defect fixes, and we also like to include the notes from the previous few releases as well.

[mylesbarros]

Ditto. We include links to the new tasks in each build in our release notes and the URLs quickly push us over the 5000 character limit

[hasselmm]

Personally I appreciate this limit: Release early, release often. Sadly this doesn't fit reality in more traditional companies. Any chance to have the limit increased?

[dalemyers]

I'm going to clarify our position on this. I agree that the limit is a potentially good thing. However, the 5000 character limit would be fine as _rendered_ characters. The problem is markdown.

Here's an example of what we'd see in the release notes:

• 4456534 Some description of the work item here (!561273)

And here's the Markdown:

* [4456534](https://[snipped].visualstudio.com/[Snipped]%20[Snipped]/_workitems/edit/4456534) Some description of the work item here ([!561273](https://[snipped].visualstudio.com/[Snipped]%20[Snipped]/_git/[Snipped]/pullrequest/561273))

The rendered string is 56 characters long, but the markdown is 234 characters long (neither count the bullet point). That's a 417% increase in length. Which means that our release notes can only be ~1200 characters long. That's about the length of 5 tweets. Which isn't much at all.

So yeah, we don't even really need the limit increased (although 10,000 would give a lot more flexibility), but just that rendered characters (for some definition of characters) is counted.

[msftbot[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had any activity for 60 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs within 15 days of this comment.

[dalemyers]

Commenting to keep this open.

[hasselmm]

It's exactly as @dalemyers says: Good changelogs provide links to detail information, but with that way too low character limit, it is almost prohibitive to include links into changelogs if you want your changelogs to be minimally informative.

[easterapps]

+1

[agentk]

A large portion of our release notes are auto generated and required for audit trails. We’ve given up and just truncate the content. Even increasing to 10,000 characters wouldn’t be sufficient for us in extreme cases.

[Anders-Ahlen]

+1