Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
141 lines (79 loc) · 7.39 KB

ROADMAP.md

File metadata and controls

141 lines (79 loc) · 7.39 KB
Raw

Roadmap

The goals to be achieved in the medium and long term.

One of the goals is automated build, but without continuous integration, to create builds with systems like GitHub Actions, etc.

Another main goal, extensions and scripting, import and export other channel list formats, add tools, remote control and other utilities.

To discuss the Roadmap, use Discussions.

Enhancements

Less ambitious features:

  • import and export connection profiles
  • add type stream (favourite) support
  • mirror transponders, from Lamedb transponder to XML transponder and vice-versa
  • improve management of duplicate channels
  • add merge options on import
  • calculate dvbns namespace in e2db
  • assign channel number such as LCN (Logical Channel Number), custom number is partially supported
  • provide custom data for each reference
  • picon image transformation, resize, apply image masks
  • improve m3u import and export

Improvements:

Scripting support

A command line GUI side to perform actions on running software, Console. The language used must be JavaScript alike and the Console will response in JSON format. Using JSON included in Qt there are no additional dependencies. The idea is to partially exposes the written e2db_cli API and maybe add a GUI dependent API part, which will also be used for extensions.

Console will look similar to a browser inspector, although with fewer features as it is not a browser.

Extensions support

Add extension support and use interpreted languages. Qt has plugin support, but they should be build. It would be very nice to create add-ons in multiple languages. I experimented with Swig and shared memory but it adds too much complexity, and to build anyway. Build makes extensibility and deployment complicated.

Keep in mind, the software is cross-platform, build time, limited number of libraries, socket require network and permissions, web services require network and permissions, shared memory requires permissions, sandbox limitations.

Will need an API used by add-ons. The API to operate on channels, import and export channel lists, as well as advanced operations on the GUI, for example to add columns and items to tree views, add tabs with a custom view.

Add-ons will come from an official repository, will distributed with tarballs and have a manifest file describing them. It will also be possible to load an add-on from a local environment by granting the authorization.

Extension support might have two interface types: 1) JavaScript built-in, 2) Standard streams.

1) Add-on: JavaScript built-in

At the basis of the JavaScript built-in support will be Qt QJSEngine. QJSEngine is part of QML module in Qt. QML can be used to extend the GUI.

This will require more attention to deployment. QJSEngine and QML require additional libraries to append to the Qt bundled.

Pros

  • Built-in JavaScript support
  • GUI extensibility

Cons

  • More Qt dependencies at deploy
  • QML is niche

2) Add-on: Standard streams

Support with standard streams stdio will be achieved with the communication between the running software and an intermediary host, with extension running on a language interpreter binary, through stdin and stdout.

To achieve this support a download manager will be developed, it will download official binaries of language interpreters, for example: Python3, NodeJS, or: MicroPython, Ducktape. A download manager will have to check integrity, decompress tarballs, maybe download the p7zip binary too. An intermediary host will check for integrity anytime, launches sub-processes, handles errors.

Legacy but universal approach. Standard streams do not require network and are available almost everywhere. Confining the binaries of language interpreters is hard. Maybe make this support optional, enabled and disabled.

Pros

  • Universal add-on support
  • Fewer dependencies

Cons

  • Requires a download manager, decompress tarball, integrity check
  • GUI extensibility is difficult
  • Single execution
  • Latency
  • Presence of language interpreter binaries

Smart Userbouquet

Smart Userbouquets are userbouquets created through filtering. The idea behind Smart Userbouquets is font collections created with metadata.

It will be possible to create Userbouquet from provider name or frequencies, or both.

Distinguish concrete userbouquets from userbouquets to be reviewed and confirmed. Not-to-be-saved userbouquets is partially supported. Provide visual feedback, for example: "Concrete Userbouquet", "Smart Userbouquet *".

Multiple files: Enigma2 directory format

The Enigma2 file format is a directory with multiple files.

It is not possible to create or register a MIME type for the Enigma2 directory file format.

Several environments have limitations in opening and/or saving multiple files and directories: 1) Flatpak sandbox, 2) WebAssembly.

1) Flatpak sandbox (save multiple files)

The software is currently published and distributed on Flathub, it is the main Flatpak package distribution portal. At the time of the software release it was not possible to save multiple files. Multiple files is the nature of the Enigma2 directory file format. This is the motivation because the software has read and write access on the full filesystem. On the software page on Flathub appears a notice "Potential unsafe: Full file system read/write access". This notice is also on the majority of softwares available through Flathub. Improvements have been made to xdg-desktop-portal, need to investigate further.

Need to test again the software to open and save with Flatpak sandbox and restricted permissions.

Note

Note: Qt internally uses GTK+ API to a limited extent to open and write files and directories.

Note

Note: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (2024, EOSS: June 2029, EOL: April 2034), contains xdg-desktop-portal version 1.18.3; Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS (2024, EOSS: June 2027, EOL: April 2032), contains xdg-desktop-portal version 1.14.4; Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS (2023, ESM, EOSS: April 2025, EOL: April 2030), contains xdg-desktop-portal version 1.6.0; Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS (2021, ESM, EOSS: June 2023, EOL: April 2028), contains xdg-desktop-portal version 1.0.3.

2) WebAssembly (save and open multiple files)

Demo was built with Qt for WebAssembly.

At present the online demo has limitations imposed by remote use.

On Qt WASM is not possible to open and save multiple files from file dialog. Multiple files is the nature of the Enigma2 directory format. Qt WASM has support to open and save directory, but is currently not implemented in the public API, maybe unstable.

Evaluate whether the demo with almost full functionality can be useful or not for spreading the software.

Multi-windowed GUI

Multi-windowed GUI allow multiple software session and multiple window and drag tab from one session to another.

Need to extend: QTabWidget, QTabBar, QStackedWidget to make Drag and Drop of tabs and widgets possible.

Need to extend also: e2se::gui, e2se::tab, may also be involved pointers and threads.

This could increase the software complexity.

 

Suggestions of any kind, open a Feature request.