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The Launchpad team is proud to announce the 29th May 2008 release of Launchpad 1.2.5!

New features in this release include:

• voting and commenting on code branch mergers
• new Launchpad-wide search
• and translations search!

Read on for more about what’s new and how it affects you.

Vote and comment on proposed branch mergers

Launchpad’s merge proposals are a great way for project contributors to get their code considered for inclusion in the main line.

Now, branch owners – and anyone else who’s interested – can vote and comment on merge proposals.

Aaron Bentley, who’s been working on the feature, says:

“These changes make it easy to discuss and tweak proposed changes to a branch. You can browse the branch which contains the changes then comment and vote directly on what you’ve seen.”

Comments build into a threaded conversation about the branch. You can also vote either on the branch as whole, or use custom tags to apply your vote to a specific aspect of the work.

Take a look at one of the first branch merger comments.

This is just the start for this feature. Keep an eye on future Launchpad releases!

Launchpad-wide search

Want to find something in Launchpad quickly? Our new site-wide search looks for results right across Launchpad – in bug reports, branch descriptions, people, teams, projects, blueprints and more.

Try it out using the search box at the top-right of most Launchpad pages or on the dedicated search page.

Translations search

Finding typos or untranslated strings in translation files is now far easier, thanks to Launchpad’s new translations search!

Right now, you can search for a word or phrase within a particular translation file.

You’ll find the translation search box towards the top-right of translation file pages. As an example, take a look at the French translations page for WordPress.

Other changes this month

• Packages now have an estimated build start time. Pick a package from Ubuntu’s pending queue to see an example.
• You now have the option of automatically subscribing to a team’s mailing list at the same time as joining the team. Edit your subscription options.

For full details of the bug fixes and features that make up this release, take a look at the 1.2.5 milestone page.

Launchpad podcast

Each week we’re producing a Launchpad team podcast, called Launchpod! In it we interview people who are doing cool things with Launchpad and talk to Launchpad developers about what they’ve been working on.

If you’ve got a question about Launchpad, let us have it and we’ll answer in the podcast. Post your questions on the podcast’s wiki page.

Subscribe to the podcast feed.

Stay in touch!

Thanks for your bug reports, feature ideas and other feedback! If you come across any bugs please report them.

If you want to get in touch for any other reason, such as with ideas for our new podcast, join us in #launchpad or on launchpad-users. See our Feedback page for details.

There’ll be more in Launchpad 1.2.6 at the end of June!

The Launchpad team is proud to announce the release of Launchpad 1.2.4 on 1st May 2008!

New features this month include:

• the ability to build PPA packages for multiple series and copy packages from one PPA to another
• a new design for project code overview pages
• an easier way for casual contributors to post to mailing lists.

Read on for more about what’s new and how it affects you.

Copying PPA packages

Building on other people’s work and publishing packages for different Ubuntu releases are now easier. You can copy packages both:

• from other PPAs directly into any PPA you can upload to
• and to different distro-series within the same PPA.

For an example, take a look at the Ubuntu Mobile team’s PPA
package copy page.

There’s more in the PPA quick-start guide.

New project code overview page

Project code overview pages have an improved page layout. Tim Penhey, who created the design, explains the changes:

Usually, people want to know a couple of things from a project’s code page: how active it is and which are the important branches.

You can now see, at a glance, how many commits, branches and code contributors a project has. And there’s a new branch listing that highlights which branches are associated with a series.

Take a look at the Bazaar project’s code overview page for an example.

Contributing to mailing lists without subscribing

If you need to make a one-off post to a mailing list you may not want to subscribe. Now you can make a post and Launchpad will hold it for the list’s admins to moderate.

See the mailing list user guide for more.

Other changes this month

• Project bug contacts are now called bug supervisors. More about the change.
• Watches on bugs in Gforge and Savane based trackers are now supported.
• You can now subscribe to all the bugs affecting a project group, project series or distribution series. More about bug subscriptions.
• A distro’s PPA overview page now shows you recent uploads, most active archives and supported series.

For full details of the bug fixes and features that make up this release, take a look at the 1.2.4 milestone page.

Help us test Launchpad

If you want to help us test new features, we’d love to have you in our beta team.

Find out more about our beta programme.

Stay in touch!

Thanks for helping us make Launchpad a success! If you come across any bugs, please report them.

If you want to get in touch for any other reason, please do.

There’ll be more in Launchpad 1.2.5 at the end of this month.

We’re proud to announce a much requested new feature as part of Launchpad 1.2.3: mailing lists in Launchpad!

If you run a team in Launchpad, you can request a mailing list straight away on your team’s overview page. Once the list is active, each team member will have the option to subscribe.

If you don’t yet run a team but you’d like to create a mailing list that wouldn’t be covered by an existing team, create a new team and then request a list.

There’s more in our guide.

And there’s plenty more going on in this release, including:

• Translations can now have up to six plural forms.
• Each project’s files are now available to download from its overview page.
• You can search for PPAs by name and keywords.
• We’ve revamped branch listing pages to give you quicker access to commit messages and author information.

As with all new software, there may still be some bugs in this new release. If you come across something that looks like a bug, please report it.

See the full Launchpad 1.2.3 release announcement.

It’s time for another Launchpad release and this is one with something for just about everyone!

• Faster PPA builds: we’ve cut the time it takes to build packages in PPAs. The moment you upload your source, Launchpad starts building.
• More bug notifications: now you can subscribe to get bug mail about any milestone, project, package or distribution.
• Savannah bug watches: keep an eye on bugs tracked at savannah.gnu.org and savannah.nongnu.org
• Easier branch registrations: we’ve improved the UI on the branch registration page.
• Karma fiends take note: registering branches and linking branches to bugs or blueprints now earns you karma! Find out more about karma.

There’s also exciting news for Launchpad beta testers! You can now apply to use Launchpad to run a mailing list for a team you’re involved with. Find out more about the mailing list beta.

Not a beta tester yet? Learn more about our beta programme and find out what you’re missing!

Read the full Launchpad 1.2.2 release notes.

Today we unleashed Launchpad 1.2.1, our first release of 2008!

Highlights include:

• Delete PPA packages in the web UI: no more sysadmin requests to delete a package from your PPA. To delete packages from your PPA visit: https://launchpad.net/people/+me/+archive/+delete-packages
• Branch feeds: get the latest commits associated with a person, team, project or individual branch in your feed reader. Take a look at the Bitlbee project’s branch feed
• Code hosting project overviews: quick-glance overview of branches and revisions made to projects with code hosted on Launchpad. See Bazaar’s overview page.

Don’t forget our logo competition! Send us your design for the chance to win an Ubuntu messenger bag.

Read the full Launchpad 1.2.1 release notes!

Welcome to the last Launchpad release of 2007! The highlights of Launchpad 1.1.12 include:

• Project announcements: get the latest news from a project or
  distribution directly on its Launchpad overview page. Or subscribe
  to its Atom feed.
• Bug feeds: subscribe to an Atom feed of all the bugs related to any distribution, project, team and person in Launchpad. Also subscribe to individual bugs.
• Higher quality bug reports: if you’re a project owner you can now ask Launchpad to display your bug reporting guidelines to people who file bugs against your project.
• Launchpad is running Bazaar 1.0.0. Congratulations to the Bazaar team on this new release!

Read the full release notes for more on what’s new in this release. See you next year when we’ll be back in January with Launchpad 1.2.1!

Welcome to Launchpad 1.1.11, the penultimate Launchpad release for 2007!

We have two big pieces of news this month!

• Personal Package Archives are now out of beta and available to all Launchpad users and teams. Find out more in our quick-start guide at help.launchpad.net/PPAQuickStart
• Launchpad Translations is now much quicker and rock-solid. Expect exports and imports in half the time and next to no timeouts.

So, what else is new in Launchpad 1.1.11?

Distribution Management and PPA (Soyuz)

• Personal Package Archives are now available to all Launchpad users who have signed the Ubuntu Code of Conduct and imported a GPG key into their Launchpad account.
• Accepting or rejecting packages from the upload queue web interface now sends appropriate emails. (Bug 152400)

Code Hosting

• Error messages generated when pushing to a branch using bzr+ssh are now much clearer. (Bug 93606)
• The branch action ‘Register merge proposal’ has been renamed to ‘Propose for merging’ as it makes more sense to the casual user. (Bug 162763)
• Launchpad’s branch mirroring system should now be more reliable. (Bug 121331)

Bug Tracker

• Several improvements to the text bug view page (e.g. edge.launchpad.net/bugs/1/+text) including the addition of: comments, tags, attachment URLs and the relevant component (for bugs reported against distribution packages). (Bugs 139327, 54333, 139398)
• Launchpad tracks how each bug affects different projects and communities. A text view is now available for each of these instances. For example: bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-session/+bug/26419/+text (Bug 130051)
• Email addresses in bug descriptions are no longer visible to anonymous users, including search engine spiders.
• Distribution bug package pages now show the total number of bugs that are open, critical, unassigned and in progress. (Bug 107402)
• Users can now perform advanced searches within textual bug listings (pages ending in +bugs-text) in the same way as they can for graphical bug listings (pages ending in +bugs). (Bug 51836)

Answers

• Email addresses in questions are no longer visible to anonymous users, including search engine spiders.

Translations

• The speed and reliability of Launchpad Translations should now be significantly improved following a major refactoring. Translations exports and imports are expected to be twice as fast and day to day translations use will be much quicker. (Bug 30602)

Today we’ve made Launchpad‘s October 2007 release, 1.1.10!

Let’s take a look at some of the highlights:

• Faster translations imports: more efficient import process to avoid queues at busy times.
• New badges in branch listings: highlight mirroring errors and branches that have blueprint links.
• Create FAQs from solved as well as open questions.
• Easier sprint admin: meeting organisers can now download a CSV file of attendee details.
• Adding a bug watch now checks for dupes: Launchpad will show all bugs that share a bug watch. Ideal for finding duplicate reports.
• File downloads: product and series owners can now add downloadable files to a project.
• PPA packages are now overridden to the main component and can be built against all Ubuntu components.

Ubuntu bug triagers will be pleased to hear that the “Source package” panel has returned to distribution package bug pages.

Also this month we’re pleased to welcome Zope 2, Exaile and the Mobile and Internet Linux project who are now using Launchpad to track their bugs!

For a detailed view of what’s new in each part of Launchpad, read the full 1.1.10 release notes.

Earlier today we release Launchpad 1.1.9! So, what’s new this time round?

• New “remote” branches: register a remote branch if you want Launchpad to monitor it and link to its code-browser but you don’t want Launchpad to import the branch itself. Ideal for security related branches.
• bzr+ssh is now the recommended way to upload a branch to Launchpad. sftp is still available.
• We’ve updated the PPA terms of service to allow for a wider range of free and open licences.
• You can now search for Incomplete bugs based on whether they’ve had a response or not.
• If you add a bug watch in an external tracker that Launchpad doesn’t already know about you can add the new bug tracker at the same time.
• Upstream projects now have a view to show all bugs that need to be forwarded to that project from a distribution.
• All of a project’s translation files are downloadable in a single tarball.
• KDE plurals and context strings are now supported in translation imports and exports.

There’s plenty more in this release, too. Stay subscribed to this blog for more on individual features and take a look at the full 1.1.9 release notes for every last detail.

As ever, we want to hear from you and there a few ways to get in touch:

• join the launchpad-users mailing list
• visit #launchpad on Freenode
• come along to our weekly development meeting – 14.00UTC Thursdays in #launchpad
• take part in one of our user meetings – keep your eye on this blog for the date of the next meeting
• email feedback@launchpad.net.

Earlier this morning, we unleashed Launchpad 1.1.8, our release for August 2007.

1.1.8 sees a great deal of activity in the Bug Tracker, an important new feature in Code, an exciting development in the Personal Package Archives beta and improvements right across every other part of Launchpad.

Highlights include:

• The Personal Package Archives beta is now ready to start running in Launchpad’s production environment (launchpad.net) and will be available to Launchpad beta testers a day or two after this release.
• Branch owners can now specify which branch, if any, they intend to merge their code into. This will make it easier for other Launchpad users to understand the original branch owner’s intentions for their code.
• People, projects and distribution series (e.g. Ubuntu Feisty) have pages showing their own translation import queues.
• Branches with no subscribers, links or mirrors can be deleted.
• Emails from the Bug Tracker now state the bug’s milestone in the header.
• Setting a bug’s tag is now possible using the email interface.
• The bug view page is easier to use following several interface improvements.

There’s a whole load more, too! Read the full release notes to find out more.