Major Enhancements
VS Code is the new default IDE, Theia is deprecated
This is our first step to discontinue the support of Che-Theia as Che editor. We have been packaging VS Code and JetBrains IDEs as editors for Eclipse Che for a long time now. With these new editors we have adopted a new workspace architecture that doesn't use sidecar containers anymore. The injection of the IDE and its extensions in one "universal development container" (see diagram below) has been preferred to the use of isolated sidecars based on numerous feedbacks.
Che-Theia still uses the old workspace sidecar architecture and today we should either start packaging a sidecar-less version of Che-Theia or discontinuing it. The team that is currently maintaining Eclipse Che (primarily composed by Red Hat employees) does not have the resources to implement and maintain the sidecar-less Che-Theia.
As a consequence, unless there are volunteers ready to take this work over, Che-Theia is going to be discontinued in Che v7.60.
Allow Che administrators to enable container build capabilities for developers workspaces
An administrator can enable container builds using devEnvironments.disableContainerBuildCapabilities: true in CheCluster configuration. This allow using podman build on any workspace (adding the attribute controller.devfile.io/scc: container-build in a Devfile is not required anymore) .
Handle gracefully when an invalid devfile is found in a git repository
Workspace creation doesn't fail anymore if the developer provides an invalid Devfile (or if an invalid Devfile is found in the git repository provided by the developer). Instead a warning is shown asking wether the workspace should be started anyway with a default Devfile. This is particularly useful when a developer is editing and testing a Devfile.
Allow to specify arbitrary fields of the workspace Pod and containers using a Devfile
Using a Devfile in the git repository, a developer can override any workspace Pod and containers fields. This includes runtimeClassName, schedulerName and kubernetes extended resources such as nvidia.com/gpu.
Removed a VS Code built-in extension results in faster workspace startup
The built-in extension che-on-start has been removed as it's primary feature is not needed anymore (see this PR). The result is a faster start of VS Code in a user browser. The side effect of this change is that the terminal isn't opened at startup anymore.
Don't show the problem matcher prompt for Devfile commands in Che-Code
Every time a user runs a Devfile command in Che-Code they need to choose a problem matcher for scanning an output. This extra step is annoying and it is redundant in 99% of cases so it has been removed.
Add options for configuring DevWorkspace ServiceAccount
Support running chectl on Apple M1
Support git repositories with names containing underscores and other characters not compliant with RFC-1123
Major Bug Fixes
VS Code loading twice at workspace startup
An extension was used to open the project folder at VS Code startup. The result was VS Code beeing loaded twice in the user browser. This is not necessary anymore as we use the VS Code startup parameter --default-folder that has been (re-)introduced recently.
Gitlab repository support problems 1 and 2
Starting a workspace using a GitLab link when OAuth had been enabled, or a Personal Access Token secret had been created by the developer, failed. This has been fixed in this release.
Fix ported to 7.52.x