Zesty News 1.0 alpha is feature complete

Calling an “alpha” feature complete is kind of funny. In my book, an “alpha” release is one that is missing some features that are planned for the final release. A “beta” release has all of the planned features, but is not fully tested.

At this point, I have put together all of the features planned for Zesty News 1.0 alpha. So, the alpha is feature complete… but Zesty News 1.0 final is not.

Last week, I put on my product manager hat and decided that I would let me do a little feature creep. I added automatic update detection and the ability for the user to download and install a patch file for most updates. I have not yet done size optimization on the Zesty News releases, so the builds are pretty large. While going through the testing cycle, I’d really rather not force people to re-download a few megs when a couple hundred K will suffice. Beyond the download size, though, this update system lets the user know what is new and lets them download and install with a single click. That’s a lot more convenient than downloading and running the installer.

Thus starts cleanup work: fixing known issues and niggles and making the interface look better.