macOS AppCast/Sparkle could include link to release notes page

[mitchellh]

Discussed in #4709

^{Originally posted by colindean January 6, 2025}

Summary

I got the prompt to upgrade to v1.0.1 after launching Ghostty for the first time in a few days. Finding release notes took me longer than I thought it should have. I think a small change — link to a list of release notes on the site — could be a significant improvement and easily delay for a while including release notes in the AppCast XML.

Impact

I generally like to read release notes of packages before I upgrade them.

Current Behavior

Upon launch, I got ye olde Sparkle upgrade window, and it says in the release notes box:

Ghostty v1.0.1

This release was built from commit 3f7c3afa on 2024-12-31.

We don't currently generate release notes for auto-updates. You can view the complete changelog and release notes on the Ghostty website.

When I click on that last link, it takes me to the website. The only two navigation options there are Download and Documentation. The latter makes sense, so I click on it and I'm taken to https://ghostty.org/docs. Looking in the sidebar and the topbar, I don't see any link like "Release Notes" or "Changelog". I see a GitHub link, click, and click through to releases but there are no GitHub releases and the annotation on the v1.0.1 tag is empty. Frustrated, I return to the Ghostty website and expand the sidebar sections. I eventually spot the Release Notes section and I get what I want! 🎉

Expected behavior

The top option would be, of course, to include the release notes in the AppCast XML. There are greater priorities right now. I understand!

The second option would be to link to the release notes page itself in the AppCast XML body, e.g. adding https://ghostty.org/docs/install/release-notes/1-0-1 in that body.

The third option — which I think is the easiest — is to make https://ghostty.org/docs/install/release-notes work and include an index of all releases, then link to that in the AppCast XML. I gave about 60 seconds to look into how to do this in Next.js MDX before giving up and filing here.

A fourth option is to link to promote the Release Notes section from the Install section to the top of the docs index.

A combination of 3 & 4 is probably the quickest fix.

Related

• I am new to Ghostty but can't seem to locate the release notes. #4417
• Post-1.0 thoughts: CHANGELOG.md #3071

[mitchellh]

The third option — which I think is the easiest — is to make https://ghostty.org/docs/install/release-notes work and include an index of all releases, then link to that in the AppCast XML. I gave about 60 seconds to look into how to do this in Next.js MDX before giving up and filing here.

This is what we should do to solve this issue. The others are far too involved. :)