Planning: what's going in the next few MultiBit releases

[jim618]

I thought you would be interested in what is planned in the next few MultiBit releases.
The current plan (up to probably about Christmas) is:

Version 0.5.14
Point release - basically a refresh and update.

(There may be additional point releases depending on any required bug fixes etc).


Version 0.6
Conversion of the UI over to Java FX. This a different UI library compared to what is being used now. This should drag the GUI into the 21st century rather than the 'late 90s' it is at at the moment. :-)

In parallel to this Gary and myself will be working on the trezorj library, an open source Java project that anyone can use to talk to the Trezor. Gary has been making good progress on this - he got our Raspberry Pi Trezor shield actually signing a transaction he sent over TCPIP from trezorj at the weekend.

If you follow the bitcoinj mailing list, you will have noticed that there is now activity based around Matija Mazi's HD code (that is in bitcoinj 0.10). We are taking a close interest in this as we will need it for then next release which is . . .


Version 0.7
This will include Trezor support (which also, necessarily, will include hierarchical deterministic wallet support).


To keep everything organised I have set up the MultiBit github.com issue database with:
+ milestones for each of these versions
+ assigned various issues to the relevant milestones.
+ they will then all get worked on in separate branches and merged into the code in the usual fashion.

The issue database is here:
https://github.com/jim618/multibit/issues?state=open

I have also started marking the support issues people raise with the a yellow 'support' label so that they are a bit more visible.

[fsb4000]

will you return  fee  control?

[jim618]

I can see that being able to set the fee per KB would give the user more control but I don't expect the user to be able to set a particular fee on a transaction no. (for the reasons explained upthread in the MultiBit thread).


This overall plan isn't really at that level of detail though - it is more high level than that.

For instance, it does not even mention the payment protocol work Mike has being doing (which is a substantial chunk of work). This is mainly as I have not figured out exactly what it will entail.

The work outlined in the OP is pretty substantial so I expect there will be more things NOT done than done. I think people forget that there is only really me working on it.

'Boring' things like stability, reliability and testing are becoming more important than new functionality now.

:-)

[PJim]

Conversion of the UI over to Java FX.

That is cool. Actually, I was going to do this. Just for the fun of it and to learn JavaFX.

[jim618]

Help is always appreciated !

I have also had an offer of UI design help from a J.R.Merlan - he's done some very nice mockups of what he thought the Satoshi client could be transformed into.

I don't expect I'll start on it before the Amsterdam conference as I am concentrating on Trezor at the moment. When the work starts in earnest it would definitely be worth collaborating.

Cheers,

Jim

[Mike Hearn]

JavaFX is a very flexible and modern toolkit, it makes stuff like animations really easy. What would really help is if someone with graphics design skill mocked up some UI ideas in Flash or whatever. To get peoples imaginations going.