[ronie]

looking back at this year, we had two releases, so that would break down to a 6 month development cycle.
the first four months are alpha releases (alpha1 - alpha4)
fifth month are beta's (approx. 3 of them)
sixth month are rc's (+/- 2) + final release at the end of the month.

that would be our rough schedule... in theory.
but in reality things may be (drastically) delayed due to bugs popping it that take
a) time to come up with a fix
b) need some time to be tested properly before we can be certain they don't cause regressions


so, we don't have an hidden agenda when it comes to releases, we have a rough schedule as stated above,
but it could change by the minute when some odd crash-boom-bang bug pops up.


since the Skin Shortcuts script is very closely integrated into skins, it might be a good idea to keep an eye on the
skin changes thread (in case you aren't already doing so).
i give skinners a heads-up there when our skinning engine goes into feature freeze so they don't have to worry
about possible breakage anymore: 2148642 (post)

[BobCratchett]

For the record, I do keep a very close eye on that thread (as well as MilHouse's test builds - as well as trying to look out for Python changes - which normally I'm informed of via the Milhouse builds as these don't seem to be wonderfully promoted via the forum, though probably because they haven't changed significantly since I started watching out for them!) I'm not trying to suggest that information on what changes have been made to core aren't available - and I apologise if my comments come across as such.

Rather, my comments are regarding the time-frame in which such changes will reach users. It's great knowing that skinning feature (x) has changed in the latest nightly, or feature (y) has been added to the Python api. That doesn't help in terms of ensuring that - from the perspective of the Skin Shortcuts script which, as I've previously indicated, is a little different from most script - the script is updated in tandem to Kodi. (And, my main concern, that feature (x) or (y) won't change or be reversed before an official update)

Just a note, say two weeks before beta release, would be great from a Skin Shortcuts perspective - it would be a sign we need to do a feature freeze and have (say, depending on more information from yourselves) a month to get a final release for the upcoming Kodi release onto the repo.

Its nothing essential - especially if the updates don't break any skin or library shortcuts, but it would be very helpful to ensure we're up to date (and, with the current version - where I've received only 3rd party feedback on potentially broken shortcuts) with the shortcut actions the current version of Kodi expects.