Aero7 Weekly Devlog — 2026-10-25

[memegeko]

Aero7 Weekly Devlog — 2026-10-25

Weekly report covering October 19–25, 2026.

This week focused on Programs Center, Aero7 Desktop, Control Panel packaging, and local VM testing. Beta 2 remains unreleased.

Programs Center

Eight updates reached the public beta branch:

• Added signed software-source management and a separate Settings window.
• Added bundled source and category icons.
• Improved Aero styling and narrow-window layouts.
• Fixed native package installation targets.
• Added an explicit authenticated retry when password-free installation is blocked.
• Added a read-only package-plan review showing possible conflicts before authentication.

Programs Center 0.2.0 was also published through the signed Aero7 package repository. The latest testing-only layout fix still needs its final clean-builder gate.

Aero7 Desktop

Ten commits were completed locally on testing:

• Fixed the desktop Personalize launcher.
• Prevented tests from modifying real HOME, XDG, activity, and D-Bus state.
• Fixed delayed taskbar geometry updates.
• Made installed Aero7 apps appear immediately in Start search.
• Added drag-and-drop between visible and hidden tray icons.
• Added tray ordering, default visibility, Apply/Cancel, and stale-change protection.

Local checks

Local and disposable-VM checks covered:

• Three tray CTest suites
• Fourteen real-QML tray transaction checks
• Dragging icons in both directions
• Overflow ordering and cancellation
• Empty-overflow drag handling
• Settings persistence after tray restart
• Start-menu searches and real application launching
• Taskbar minimize, restore, and close cycles after reboot

The final tray work was tested on the host with approval, but direct automated dragging on the final Wayland panel remains open.

Packages and Control Panel

The private package repository recorded 52 testing commits.

Work included:

• Theme packages 769–772
• Workspace and Font Management candidates 3.9–3.13
• Control Panel r85 with corrected bundled applet icons
• Native Help viewer packaging
• Region and numeric-locale checks
• Stronger package, fakeroot, rollback, and integrity validation

Control Panel r85 was installed in a disposable VM and displayed all 45 applets with the corrected icons. The full settings and physical-hardware audits remain unfinished.

Beta 2

Public documentation was corrected across the Aero7 repositories:

• Beta 2 has not been released.
• September ISO details describe old engineering candidates.
• Source tags and QA records are not public releases.
• No finalized Beta 2 ISO or checksum is available.

A new internal Beta 2 trailer and editable production kit were completed, but they document a development build and do not represent a release.

Public status

This week had:

• 27 public commits
• No merged pull requests
• No closed issues
• No GitHub Releases
• No new repositories

Aero7 Desktop CI passed. The main ISO source check failed because Node.js was missing from the runner container, causing one firewall-policy test to fail.

Beta 1 remains the current public release.