A Nightly build with upgraded Python 🐍 and Conan 🐸
During the last months, we have been pretty busy upgrading 2 core components of Cura:
- Python has been bumped from
3.10to3.12. Athough this is not major, Python is the engine that runs the Cura front-end and even the slightest change in its behavior can have an impact. - We are now using Conan 2 instead of Conan 1. This tool is the basis of our build system, as it orchestrates the way each component of Cura is built and packaged. Cura uses multiple Python and C++ packages altogether, so assembling them all to a standalone application on 3 platforms is a sensitive task.
Why are these changes required ?
- Python keeps evolving, and we want to take advantages of its upgrades and last features. This also allows new developers to use the most recent version.
- Python 3.12 also comes with native speed improvements, so it is always good to take 🙂
- Conan 1 is on a deprecation path, so we really needed to switch to version 2, which is considered the more mature and robust version. Recent packages are now using Conan 2, so if we want to keep up-to-date, we need to use it.
Why do we need you ?
- We have tested many builds of Cura, on many systems, but we know everyone has a different execution environment. The idea of this Alpha release is to make sure that it still works on all the platforms where it used to work before.
- We don't exactly know how everyone uses Cura. There may be some actions that you do, which will reveal a bug we didn't see in our tests.
- There are tons of plugins, all based on Python code. So we want to make sure that they keep working with the new version.
What do you need to do ?
Well, not much, just download this version, use it as you would usually do, and send a brief feedback on the discussion: describe your environment, and tell us if everything went fine, or if you encountered some crashes or strange behaviors !
⚠️ Remember that this is an Alpha version, which means that only the basic functionalities have been tested. Some features are missing, incomplete or still in development, and may not be usable for production.