Talk:Kodi v16 (J) changelog

Posted initial placeholder of condensed changelog for J
I have here only posted an initial placeholder for a condensed changelog list here at Kodi v16 (J) changelog just to help anyone get started. I am not sure if any the features and functions that will be posted here will eventually actually made it into Kodi v16 (J) before the future feature freeze for it or not, or if some of them will bumped to the next (or next next) of future version of. Please also note that some things that will be put in it can and will probably be sorted into the wrong category initially. I am however sure that (many) things will be missed and that this list may never be fully completed, even as just a condensed changelog, so please, as an ongoing work. any assistance in improving it will be much appreciated. Gamester17 (talk) 02:48, 6 July 2015 (EDT)

Tips for maintaining release changelogs
Hiya all! If any of you guys are looking to volunteer assisting with maintaining a condensed changelog then may I suggest that you utilize the Kodi article on Wikipedia and/or Kodi's own Wiki here on http://kodi.wiki/index.php

condensed changelog is available on Wikipedia today as release history listed under the Releases section (click "[expand]" to see the list):
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodi_%28software%29#Releases

Best source today is the closed pull requests, and you also have all non-pull repository checkins under Timeline on Kodi's Trac site:
 * https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/milestones?state=closed
 * Example for new features see the "feature" tag https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/issues?q=label%3AFeature+is%3Aclosed
 * http://trac.kodi.tv/timeline

Most of that information has been copied the Changelog (for a full changelog) and Releases (for condensed changelogs history) articles on http://kodi.wiki/index.php or vice verse:
 * Releases

Before the changelogs http://kodi.wiki/index.php was listed per point release:
 * http://kodi.wiki/index.php?title=Category:Point_releases
 * http://kodi.wiki/index.php?title=XBMC_9.04_point_release

There used to be a condensed changelog available as Roadmap on Kodi's Trac but that has not been maintained for a long time:
 * http://trac.kodi.tv/roadmap
 * http://trac.kodi.tv/milestone/Future%20/%20Pending
 * http://trac.kodi.tv/milestone/10.0%20%22Dharma%22
 * http://trac.kodi.tv/milestone/11.0%20%22Eden%22
 * http://trac.kodi.tv/milestone/12.0%20%22Frodo%22
 * http://trac.kodi.tv/milestone/13.0%20%22Gotham%22

Some more information on the new Isengard features also look to be available in the kodi.tv wiki today, and hopefully this will become a tradition to follow in future releases as well:
 * http://kodi.wiki/index.php?title=Category:Isengard_feature

Personally I think it is mostly uninteresting to keep a condensed changelog for each nightly or even alpha releases, as the monthly blog posts on kodi.tv main news page work better for those. Regards // Gamester17 (talk) 02:48, 6 July 2015 (EDT)

Features and functions that did not make it into Isengard?
Here below is a condensed list of larger features and functions that it looks like they did not make it into Isengard but there still are opened pull requests or development branches for these things. These might or might not make it into the v16 (J*) release or they might never make it into Kodi at all Gamester17 (talk) 02:48, 6 July 2015 (EDT)


 * Add initial framework for media importing and library integration for UPnP / DNLA sources
 * Add initial framework for media importing and library integration of new sources
 * Add initial support for media provider addons for the new media importing framework
 * Add initial support for media import addons for the new library integration framework
 * Add a unified Games Manager Library and GUI front-end launcher with online metadata web scraping support
 * Add Games entry to the GUI, also introduces Game Addons as new type of addons with just-in-time emulator installation
 * Add Games Library for Game Metadata, exposing info (current level, number of lives, number of coins earned, etc.) to GUI
 * Add "Heimdall" new multi-scource metadata extraction engine and web scraper framework and addon API for compatible scrapers
 * Add new "Heimdall" compatible scrapers for Games (e.g. TheGamesDB.net), Movies, TV Shows, Music Videos, and Music, etc.
 * Extend the Addon API to support Game Client Addons, supporting Kodi's VFS (Virtual File System), etc.
 * Add RetroPlayer Video Game Console Emulator (ROM image player) interface supporting the libretro API and emulator cores
 * Add generic and user-mappable cross-platform Joystick (and Gamepad) abstraction layer for joystick APIs and joystick clients
 * Add support for "Peripheral" Addons for updatable configuration of input devices
 * Add UPnP Multi-Client support with full UPnP server/backend Bi-Directional client/frontend communication and sharing
 * Add support for flagging of local verses remote content, and flagging of online verses temporary offline remote content
 * Add support for handling duplicate media in several ways (ex. multiple versions of same movie in different resolutions)
 * Add Pictures (Digital Images) Library GUI with metadata tags scraper to database and OSD interface
 * Add further optimizations to Kodi's GUI engine for faster rendering on low resource embedded devices
 * Add abstracted scene-graph deferred rendering for GUI renderer abstraction
 * Add framework support for binary addons (inc. closed source proprietary addons) for media player cores
 * Extend Addons API to support binary addons (inc. closed source proprietary addons) for media player cores
 * Add support for C#, Java, Go, Modula-3, OCaml, Octav], and Scheme addons via Groovy and SWIG code-generation
 * Add support for Lua, Perl, PHP, R, Ruby, Tcl scripting languages based add-ons via Groovy and SWIG
 * MIPS processor architecture support for Sigma Designs MIPS SoCs on Android
 * MIPS processor architecture support for Sigma Designs MIPS SoCson Linux
 * ARM processor architecture support for Sigma Designs MIPS SoCs on Android
 * ARM processor architecture support for Sigma Designs MIPS SoCs on Linux
 * Add support for display on DirectFB support via Mesa and DRM for OpenGL ES 2.0 support
 * Added initial native support for rendering display and input on Wayland compositors
 * Add support for Place-Shifting streaming videos / music output ability to UPnP Server, Web Server and JSON-RPC API's
 * Add on-the-fly video transcoding output ability to the UPnP Server, Web Server, and JSON-RPC API's for remote apps
 * Add on-the-fly audio transcoding output ability to the UPnP Server, Web Server, and JSON-RPC API's for remote apps
 * Add on-the-fly image transcoding output ability to UPnP Server, Web Server, and JSON-RPC API for remote apps
 * Add initial optional X11 support on EGL (EGL-X11) based systems on Linux, full-screen mode only
 * Add native BD-J (Blu-ray Disc Java) and BD-Live menu and navigation support for decrypted Blu-ray Disc (via libbluray)
 * Add Blu-ray AACS decryption and DRM encrypted playback via third-party library (libaacs)
 * Move music lyrics addon core handling to core and added native support for lyric plugin services
 * Move LCD API and LCDproc support out of Kodi's core and instead into a Python script service add-on
 * Move Last.fm scrobbler and Love/Hate scrobbling out of Kodi's core and instead into an add-on
 * Replace cximage and imagelib with the freeimage
 * Add support for PVR addons to handle RDS radio signals in UECP and Rass formats
 * Add FM Radio receiver based upon RTL-SDR as PVR Addon backend client
 * Add a Stalker Middleware Addon backend clients maintained and available from Kodi's community
 * Add HDHomeRun (SiliconDust) PVR Addon backend client maintained and available from Kodi's community
 * Remove internal SiliconDust HDHomeRun VFS client code in favor of external PVR Client Addons
 * Add support to PVR API for Scheduling Recordings of TV Shows / TV Series (EPG based DVR Timers)
 * Add possibility for series recordings to Kodi's PVR API for improved DVR capabilities
 * Add possibility to utilize multiple PVR clients addons at the same time
 * Improve ability to utilize multiple PVR clients addons at the same time
 * Improve PVR API and database adding many new EPG and Channel properties
 * Add basic support for audiobooks (.m4b, .mka and .mp3 files with chapters), with resume support
 * Add support for flagging of local verses remote content, and flagging of online verses temporary offline remote content
 * Add support for handling duplicate media in several ways (ex. multiple versions of same movie in different resolutions)
 * Add support for Audio DSP (Digital Signal Processing) plugins and addons for Kodi's AudioEngine
 * Add framework support for binary addons (inc. closed source proprietary addons), for video codecs
 * Extend Addons API to support binary addons (inc. closed source proprietary addons), for video codecs
 * Add VAAPI hardware decoding for HEVC (H.265) and VP9 in Linux/BSD/Unix where the hardware supports it
 * Add VAAPI hardware decoding for VP9 in Linux/BSD/Unix where the hardware supports it
 * Add VDPAU hardware decoding for HEVC (H.265) and VP9 in Linux/BSD/Unix where the hardware supports it
 * Add VDPAU hardware decoding for VP9 in Linux/BSD/Unix where the hardware supports it
 * Add DXVA hardware decoding for HEVC (H.265 in Windows where the hardware supports it
 * Add DXVA hardware decoding for VP9 in Windows where the hardware supports it
 * Add support for VP9 hardware decoding for MediaCodec API in Android 4.4.2 and later when the VPU supports it
 * Add support for VP9 hardware decoding on Amlogic SoCs in Android 4.4.2 and later when the VPU supports it
 * Add automatic refresh rate switching support for video playback on Android 5.0 and later, including Android TV
 * Add initial AudioTrack API support for Android 5.0 "Lollipop" and Android TV
 * Add "accessibility" options for hearing impaired and visual impaired
 * Add support for WSGI (Web Server Gateway Interface) to extend the Python support in Kodi's integrated webserver
 * Add support to AudioEngine for devices with up to 72 audio channels (64 unknown + 8 mapped)
 * Add Google Breakpad implementation on Android for minidumps
 * Add keymap for Nexus Player
 * Added ability to open the SmartPlaylist Editor for a given playlist
 * Add support for specifying image scaling algorithm for image resizing/caching
 * Add support for reading tags in .mka and .dsf containers (using new FFmpeg tagloader)
 * Add support for caching font vertices on GPU side (requires Windows 8 and DirectX 11)
 * Add support for hardware based Stereoscopic 3D (requires Windows 8 and DirectX 11)
 * Add support for interleaved Stereoscopic 3D mode on Windows platforms
 * Add support for checkerboard Stereoscopic 3D mode on Windows platforms
 * Add DNS Name Cache to native IPv6 support
 * Add support for multiple source inputs stream/demuxer to DVDPlayer video player core
 * Add support for handling external audio track / stream files to DVDPlayer video player
 * Update rendering system on Microsoft Windows platforms to DirectX 11 and Direct3D 11
 * Update to "MilkDrop2" audio visualization addon (only DirectX/Direct3D version for Windows)
 * Improve touchscreen input support on all supported platforms
 * Improve the "GlobalSearch" function by adding EPG search support
 * Add support for lossless software decode of DTS-HD tracks/streams in videos using libdcadec in FFmpeg
 * Improve binary addons buildsystem with support for downloading and installing MSYS/MinGW environment
 * Add thumbnail support for info provider group in addons
 * Improve Stereoscopic 3D video playback and rendering support
 * Add support to fetch and display season year based on first aired episode
 * Add support for RGB -> BGR convertion for RenderCapture on Freescale iMX.6
 * Add initiial support for DACP (Digital Audio Control Protocol) over AirTunes
 * Add support for PNG coverart over AirTunes
 * Update AirPlay / AirTunes protocol support library (libshairplay)
 * Add OSD control option to enable sharpness control for MMAL Renderer (Raspberry Pi)