Element-web: In-product release notes / what's new for releases
At the moment, users that upgrade from release to release aren't informed of what changed unless they happen to read Riot blog posts. Other apps such as Discord, Slack, Chrome DevTools, etc. inform users inside the app of what has changed, so it's easy to communicate this info to everyone using the app.
We should add some system inside Riot itself to explain what's new for each release. This content should be copy edited to use the right product voice as we do with Riot blog posts (as opposed to just listing PR titles like we do on develop).
@lampholder / @nadonomy, any thoughts on this idea?
jryans
All 8 comments
Would add more 馃憤's if I could.
nadonomy
on 30 May 2019
I'm a huge fan of this.
lampholder
on 31 May 2019
I guess the next step here would be to get some kind of design for where this would appear in Riot. I am not sure how we'd prioritise this work though, so feel free to remove needs-design if lack of priority means it will just sit in a queue forever. 馃槄
jryans
on 2 Jul 2019
I think best to leave the label attached. Added it to my backlog and I'll get to it in the not-horrendously-far-future.
Just to confirm, would we have the ability for users to preview changes _before_ upgrading too? Or only after?
nadonomy
on 2 Jul 2019
Just to confirm, would we have the ability for users to preview changes _before_ upgrading too? Or only after?
We could have it work either way, so whatever we think is best. Perhaps previewing the release notes before upgrading, but also having some way to access them for reference after upgrade would be ideal.
jryans
on 2 Jul 2019
(On the web) Firefox's release notes sections are quite nice: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/68.0/releasenotes/
nadonomy
on 9 Jul 2019
Here's a survey of how some apps approach this:
Discord
Shows modal after sign in
Slack
What's new button highlighted in top menu when something to show, else hidden in three-dots menu
Firefox DevTools
Chrome DevTools
jryans
on 23 Jan 2020
For Riot, we could add a "what's new" item in the top left menu. When there's something to new to read, we could add a low-key notif badge (maybe a coloured dot or similar) to the top left menu, so you noticed something's changed.
As for storing the content, I think the simplest thing to start would be to write them as files in this repo that ship with Riot itself. We'd likely store the update's date, title, summary in Markdown for easier writing, and link to the blog for more info.
I don't think we need any fancy to control when they appear, at least to start. They would just appear in the what's new area when we merge a new update in the repo and ship it with the product.
jryans
on 23 Jan 2020
Related issues
turt2live
路
3Comments
arthurlutz
路
3Comments
anoadragon453
路
3Comments
ara4n
路
3Comments
lukebarnard1
路
3Comments
Most helpful comment
For Riot, we could add a "what's new" item in the top left menu. When there's something to new to read, we could add a low-key notif badge (maybe a coloured dot or similar) to the top left menu, so you noticed something's changed.
As for storing the content, I think the simplest thing to start would be to write them as files in this repo that ship with Riot itself. We'd likely store the update's date, title, summary in Markdown for easier writing, and link to the blog for more info.
I don't think we need any fancy to control when they appear, at least to start. They would just appear in the what's new area when we merge a new update in the repo and ship it with the product.