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andy edited this page Oct 6, 2026 · 11 revisions

Work plan

Last updated: 2026-10-06. This page lists what is being worked on now and the order of what comes next. It is updated as items are finished or the order changes; the issue tracker has the details of each item. There are no dates; the order is the order of work, not a schedule.

8.x (stable-8, latest v8.18.6) receives bug fixes only. Everything below is 9.x work on main.

Now: 9.0.0-alpha.6

The next preview, being tested (teaching calculation set, application, session, launch and queue suites, and checks by hand on Debian 13). It replaces 9.0.0-alpha.5, which was tagged but not released, because the session identifier followed within a day.

  • A session identifier in place of $DISPLAY (#233): two ecce on one display are independent sessions, an ssh -X reconnect keeps the session, and session liveness no longer needs /proc.
  • Register Machines as a tabbed editor (#234): Machine, Connection, Codes (program, environment such as g16root, command line), Job script and Queues (limits and defaults); each setting shows where it comes from; grey examples in empty fields; a help page behind the window's Help button; a "Machine settings..." button in the Launcher; an administrator can change a central server's site settings from a client over ssh.
  • CONFIG: site and user settings merged per key in the applications, as in the job script; key: - clears a site value; saving keeps hand edits.
  • File dialog: file-type filter, typed paths, layout.
  • Builder: File > New, Open..., Add Structure from File..., Close; Save As a calculation into any local folder.
  • Images without ImageMagick (#231); local shells follow the Terminal preference; distinct run-state colours.
  • Groundwork for native clients (#232): no X Toolkit in the job store, X11 only on Linux.
  • Builder panels in one column to the right of the 3D view, with a choice of layout (View > Panel layout) and a button that collapses the column.
  • Jobs followed after logout (#208, first version): a job whose monitor is lost waits for the next login and is then picked up again.
  • Vibrational spectrum viewer (#214) and shorter displacement vectors.
  • Queue editor (#212): discovers a cluster's queues, job-script preview, test submission.
  • ORCA import (#235): point group, multiplicity, basis set and ECPs recorded from the output.
  • ecce --local: a session with a local data folder and no data server.
  • Help in a window of its own (#219), from the installed pages.
  • No passwords in request URLs: the password-change and account-creation requests are removed (#236, step 0).

Next, in order

# Item
1 Encrypted connections to a central server (#236): HTTPS for the data server and TLS for the broker, opt-in at first, with the server's certificate stored per installation.
2 Native macOS client (#133): CI builds an ECCE.app in a .dmg that runs on GitHub's runner; next are older macOS versions and Intel Macs, and tests on real Macs.
3 Windows (#133): native build under MSYS2 in a test machine; Perl and Python bundled at first. Once native macOS and Windows builds work, local data mode becomes the default.

Alongside, when there is room

  • User help (#219): the "Getting started" chapter, checked against the program; Help in every window opens its own chapter.
  • Bond visibility (#227), together with the look of the program (#210).
  • Removing the vendored SGI Open Inventor now that Coin3D is the default (#166).

Under consideration

  • Jobs followed by the ECCE server for any machine, including centres with two-factor authentication (#208, options B-E).
  • A standalone MO diagram tool.

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