Integration: Display Change Log on Update pop up

[royto]

Category

• [ ] Backend/Integration
• [X] Frontend
• [ ] Documentation
• [ ] Bot
• [ ] Other

Checklist

• [X] This Feature Request only contain 1 request (if you have multiple open multiple feature requests).

The idea

I am used to look at change log (release notes) before updating an integration, plugin, ...

So i can see if:

• there is breaking changes
• new functionalities i can use
• fix I'm interested in

Currently, we have a change log button which open the release page (if releases are used).

It could be cool to display change log directly in the pop up so we can see directly changes

Implementation

[hacs-bot[bot]]

Make sure you have read the issue guidelines and that you filled out the entire template.

[ludeeus]

There are no common way to show the change log.
That button only works partially, if I where to show it directly, a user would never go to the repo, and information the developer want to show might be lost.
Thanks for the requests, but I will not implement this 👍

[royto]

I'm sorry but I don't understand your answer.

In the github api for latest release, it contains a body property which contains the content of the change log.

Here an example with the latest release of hacs:

The content is in markdown so it is as easy as display readme.md or info.md ...

What do you mean by

if I where to show it directly, a user would never go to the repo, and information the developer want to show might be lost.

[ludeeus]

Sure, in a perfect world where the users always was on the previous version, and all repositories use releases that would work.
But sadly that is not the case.

[royto]

I agree with your point.
I don't want to remove the change log button.

If the repos don't use release, you can display a message indicating no change log available for example or even nothing ...

IMHO, display last changes could be a nice addition. If users want to see more change he can still click on the change log button ...

So your remarks make me ask you a question: In that case why do you open the last version of the change log (/releases/1.0.1 for example) and not the release page so the users can see all releases (/releases) he has missed ..

[ludeeus]

_maybe_ just _maybe_ it can be done, if the perfect conditions are met.
The button should change.

[royto]

Thanks for considering this :thumbsup:

[vanstinator]

I had a similar idea. My first thought was also using the release notes. But I agree that that could be fraught with peril given users don't always upgrade reliably and may miss important information.

I'm not familiar with the internals of HACS. But it might be interesting to consider either the info.md file or a new file like releases.md. You could imagine buckets of release notes that are templated by version so the modal shows the appropriate notes for a user who might be 2 weeks behind on updates.

That's likely more work than just pulling the release notes from GitHub. But it's quite a bit more flexible and powerful. I'd use it on my project.

[ludeeus]

That would not be a problem for HACS, but as a maintainer I would never maintain another file for it for my repositories.

[ludeeus]

So what I'm thinking is:

if the repository do not use releases, nothing changes.

if the repository uses release, the button does not take you to the latest release, but the release overview.
And releases between the one you have installed, and the latest are displayed like this:

[vanstinator]

Incredible. I love it.

[ludeeus]

Added with https://github.com/hacs/frontend/commit/facca2e4e10daca1a529489e2904bfc2b5148263