14.04 - 1.0 release
The 1.0 release of the UITK was built mostly for demonstrative purposes, but works well to a certain extent, it is the LTS release after all. Available from the Trusty archive (0.1.46+14.04.20140408.1-0ubuntu1) and from the SDK PPA (0.1.46+14.10.20140520-0ubuntu1~0trusty2). The “demonstrative purpose” in this context is a pretty serious thing. This release was the ultimate proof of concept that the Qt (5.2 by then) and QML technology with our design and components provides a framework for a charmingly beautiful and killing fast user interface. Obviously there is no commercial touch device with this UITK release, but it is good to make a simple desktop application with the UX of a mobile app. If your desktop PC is running 14.04 LTS Ubuntu and you have installed the Ubuntu SDK then the IDE is using this release of the UITK.
The available components and features are documented either online https://developer.ubuntu.com/api/qml/sdk-14.04/Ubuntu.Components/ or offline under the file:///usr/share/ubuntu-ui-toolkit/doc/html local directory if the ubuntu-ui-toolkit-doc is installed.
14.10 - 1.1 release
It was the base for the first real Ubuntu phone. Most mission critical components and toolkit features were shipped with this edition. The highlights of the goodies you can see on the Utopic edition of the UITK (version 1.1.1279+14.10.20141007-0ubuntu1):
Settings API
Ubuntu.Web
ComboButton
Header replaces bottom toolbar
PullToRefresh
Ubuntu.DownloadManager
Ubuntu.Connectivity
The focus of the UITK development was to complete the component set and achieve superb performance. It is important to note that these days, this exact version you can find only on very few community ported Ubuntu Touch devices, and even those early adaptations should be updated to 15.04. The most common place to meet this edition of the UITK is the 14.10 Ubuntu desktop. This UITK can be indeed used to build pretty nice looking desktop applications. The Ubuntu specific UI extensions of the QtCreator IDE are built on our very own UITK. So, the UITK is ported and available for desktop app development with some limitations since 14.04.
14.09 - the RTM release
The development of the RTM (Ready To Market) branch of the UITK was focusing on bugfixes and final polishing of the components. Dozens of functional, visual and performance related issues were tackled and closed in this release.
A few of relevant changes in the RTM branch:
Internationalization related improvements
Polishing the haptics feedback of components
Fixes in the ActivityIndicator
UX improvements of the TextField/TextArea
Dialog component improvements
This extended 1.1 release of the UITK is what is shipped with the bq Aquaris E4.5 devices. This is pretty serious stuff. Providing the very building rocks for the user experience is a big responsibility. During the development of this release one of the most significant changes happened behind the scenes. The release process of the UITK was renewed and we have enforced very strict rules for accepting any changes.
To make sure that with the continuous development of the UITK we do not introduce functional problems and do not cause regressions we not only force to run about 400 autopilot test cases on the UITK, but an automatic test script validates all core and system apps with the release candidates. It means running thousands of automatic functional tests before each release.
15.04 - 1.2 release
After the 14.09 aka RTM release was found good and the bq devices started to leave the factory lines the UITK development started to focus on two major areas. First of all we brought back to the development trunk all the fixes and improvements landed on the RTM branch and we merged back the whole RTM branch to the main line. The second area was to open the 1.2 queue of the toolkit and release the new features:
ListItem
New UbuntuShape rendering properties
New Header
Releasing the 1.2 UITK makes the first big iteration of the toolkit development complete. In the last three cycles the Ubuntu application framework went through three minor Qt upgrades (5.2 - 5.3 - 5.4) and continuously adapted to the improving design and platform.
15.10 - 1.3 release
The upcoming cycle the focus is on convergence. We have shipped a super cool UI Toolkit for touch environment, now it is time to make it offer as complete and as fast toolkit for other form factors and for devices with other capabilities. The emphasis here is on capability. Not only form factor or device mode. The next release (1.3) of the UITK will adopt to the host environment according to its capabilities. Like input capabilities, size and others.
The highlights of the upcoming features:
Resolution independence
Improve visual rendering (pixel perfectness at any device ratio)
Improve performance (CPU and GPU wise)
Convergence
Tooltips
Key navigation - Tab/Shift+Tab
Date and Time Pickers
Menus
Application and
context menus
Support Sub-theming
Support of ListItem expansion
Text input magnification on selection
Simplified Popovers
Text input context menu
Deprecate Dialer (Ubuntu.Components.Pickers)
Deprecate PopupBase (Ubuntu.Components.Popups)
Focused component highlight
Support for OSK to keep the focus component above the key rectangle
Integrate scope toolkit from Unity with the UI Toolkit
The 1.3 version of the UITK will be the first with the promise that application developers can create both fully functional desktop and phone applications. In practice it means that the runtime UITK will be the same as in the build environment.
16.04 - 2.0 release
Looking forward to our next LTS release our ambition is to polish together all the features and tune the UI Toolkit for the next major release. This edition of the toolkit will serve app developers for long time. The 2.0 will be the “mission completed”. We expect few features to move from our original 15.10 plans to the 16.04:
Clean up deprecated components
Rename ThemeSettings to Theme
Toolbars for convergence
Modal Dialogs
Device mode (aka capability) detection
Complete scopes support
Backend for Alarm services
Separate service components from UI components