Draft v2.0.0-alpha.2 release notes

[khawkins98]

Draft release notes

v2.0.0-alpha.2 overview

One month after alpha.1, alpha.2 is here and brings new features, patterns, more documentation, fixes, optimisations and more, on a relatively settled architecture.

As the second alpha has much change (though far less than alpha.1), we won't present a detailed changelog, but rather some high level notes on where we are and what got us here.

• What is the VF 2.0? A modular, compatible framework for life science websites and services. Need to know more? Read this

📚History

• Initial conceptual planning of the VF 2.0 began in summer 2017 and we starting writing code in July 2018.
• There are few (if any) major architecture changes and small refinements to make the directory structure more consistent (creates a vf-core component (module?) #145).
• Outreach remains a priority (there's the issue queue on GitHub and Slack)

⚙️Technical improvements

• Approach for JS Framework support Supporting JS frameworks #115
• The folder structure has been simplified creates a vf-core component (module?) #145
• More EMBL.org specific tooling, include EMBL Breadcrumbs and ContentHub imports
• The pattern library is now also available on GitHub pages in addition to the beta.embl.org URL. In alpha.3 we expect to have a better approach for where global and local patterns show
• You set the pattern library name and prefix in through package.json in vfConfig
• CSS stats are available on Wallace (updated with each commit to dev)
• Multiple tabs are now supported Support multiple tabs #123
• SVGs are automatically optimised Idea: Add SVG optimiser to build process #140
• Margins on the mixin set-type are now more flexible Make set-type margins optional #141
• An alpha vf-child-template is now available
• The vf-banner pattern is much improved and allows more modular control of look, JS dismissal and cookie-based hiding of seen messages

📒Documentation

• The README.md has been greatly improved to make getting started easier
• Guidance on how to use and write VF JS
• Compiled CSS is available for each pattern

🥙All the things

👉See a full list of issues and branches in the alpha.2 milestone

What's next?

Alpha release are planned for the last Thursday of each month.

• Further work on the vf-child-template
• Finalising versioning approach for patterns QUESTION: How do we version patterns on npm? #119
• Further separation of patterns by 'ownership' separation of patterns by 'ownership' #179
• More patterns, including and EMBL notification system PATTERN: embl-notifications #169
• Further work on "blog" type patterns and the nested vf-inlay pattern
• Further directory structure optimisations Should we change the components folder to modules #170 DOCS - Add a "filesystem" tree map #128
• Visual regression testing CHORE - add Visual Regression Testing #31
• List core audiences/user types DOCS - List core audiences/user types #127
• VF Working Group DOCUMENTATION - VF Governance #114
• A lot of documentation, howtos, and outreach

🗂 See all issues tagged for alpha.3

Release to-do script

1. Finish up outstanding ticket/tasks
2. Do release notes
3. Push to npm (lerna)
4. Merge develop to master
5. Tag release on master