Introducing a smaller, more frequent update cycle

Hey everyone :wave:

As some of you have noticed Bricks 1.5.1 was briefly available as a one-click update on Wednesday (Sept, 7th). We had to take it down within an hour or so, due to a server-related download issue (which has been fixed).

That being said the 1.5.1 on Wednesday should have been the RC2, not the one-click update.

This goes to show that we still pack way too much into a single release.

Having to go through all those betas & RCs in almost every release is unnecessarily stressful & frustrating for everyone.

Those massive releases (often containing 100+ changes) also further delayed getting required bug fixes out in a more timely manner.

So let’s try something else …

Weekly to biweekly updates

First, we’ll release Bricks 1.5.2 early next week (calendar week 37) as a one-click update (as some users are already on 1.5.1). So everyone who already downloaded 1.5.1 can update without having to do it manually.

We’ll then switch to a default weekly release cycle. So Bricks 1.5.3 will be out one week after 1.5.2, and so on.

If there is a week, in which we don’t have any noticeable fixes ready we’ll do a biweekly release. But the plan is to not go beyond those two weeks.

So the new standard update cycle is going to be one to two weeks.

There won’t be any major announcements for those minor releases, they’ll just happen as one-click updates.

In terms of release videos, we’ll probably focus on creating more dedicated Academy articles & videos instead of an hour-long release video showcasing 20 new features.

Improved visual regression tests

Besides those smaller, more frequent updates we will also allocate more resources to further improve our software tests, which will help to catch more bugs pre-release.

We know that we have introduced plenty of significant changes over the last few months, and are extremely grateful for everyone’s patience & continuous feedback while the builder is taking shape.

While it can be a real pain to deal with those changes at the moment, we try our best to only introduce changes, that we believe will benefit the overall user base in the long run. The earlier we tackle those, the better.

Looking at the roadmap at its current stage, none of the NEXT or IN PROGRESS features should significantly impact your existing layouts.

Greetings,
Thomas & team!

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