Attendees

Eric, Greg, Zach, TomG, Scooter

On-site in N453.

Agenda

• ChimeraX
  • Qt 6 tech preview, when should daily build switch to Qt 6?
  • Make ChimeraX 1.4 roadmap.
  • Upgrade Trac to mysql for better reliability.
  • Is Windows crash reporting ever useful? Should we disable it? Will Qt 6.2 fix spurious file dialog errors?
  • Should we remove pywin32 (20 MBytes) and wmi used only to report computer model in bug reporter on Windows? Ticket #5528
  • Task termination at app quit
  • Rename ChimeraX.exe on Windows?
  • Does pip need to be stabilized?
  • Do we still need Tristan's compiled OpenMM, can we get it from conda?
  • Do we still need six (Python 2/3 compatibility package)?

• Chimera
  • Switch Chimera daily builds from Windows 7 to Windows 10

• Webservices
  • Where should internal documentation live?

• Action items

Discussion

• Qt 6 in daily builds
  • Is it time to make daily builds use Qt 6?
  • 541 techpreview downloads by 151 unique IP addresses since Jan 28.
  • 3000 daily build downloads from 900 IP addresses in same time
  • Zach has all Qt 6 bugs fixed, except toolbar rollover arrow fixed in next Qt release.
  • For mid-May release would need late April release candidate. Qt 6 in daily builds would give 1.5 months to release candidate.
  • Greg will put Qt 6 in daily builds today or tomorrow, except on old Linux (CentOS 7) that will remain Qt 5.

• FlatPack for Linux distribution
  • Greg will explore packaging Linux ChimeraX distribution as a FlatPack.
  • Will see if Qt 6 with CentOS 7 can be packaged this way.
  • If Qt 6 works as FlatPack can release ChimeraX 1.4 with Qt 6 for older Linux.
  • Scooter thinks it is ok to investigate this but has doubts it will be feasible. Spend minimal time needed to rule it out.

• Reducing useless bug reports
  • TomG suggests dropping Windows and Linux crash reporting, too little useful info.
  • Could just comment out a few lines to not use Python faulthandler on those platforms.
  • Eric suggests waiting for Qt 6 in daily builds to see if it solves many Windows crashes in Open dialog.
  • Eric suggests different way to cut down less useful bug reports, only allow reports from most recent production release.
  • Error dialog would not offer Report a Bug button and instead say you should try the most recent release.
  • TomG suggests maybe allowing users to submit with older ChimeraX if the will provide their email address.
  • May be that duplicate submissions of fixed bugs from older ChimeraX are rather few compared to useless Windows/Linux crash reports. So may not need to solve the duplicate submission problem.

• Linux install instructions
  • Eric says Linux install command does not work when downloading with Mozilla because file does not go into Downloads directory.
  • Might have download page say the command may not work if the download location is different.

Action Items

• Present github continuous integration tutorial. Zach
• Remove pkg-config prereq if it is not being used for builds. Tom