About roadmap #1: Stable & beta branches

[Fabio286]

Hello everyone!

I have decided to start a series of roadmap update posts to keep people using Antares up to date on what development is focused on in the near future.

Until now I have always considered the current Antares releases to be a kind of alpha where both bug fixes and features are made available fairly quickly.
However, I have realized that more and more people are choosing to use Antares in their daily toolchain in their work teams. These people expect stable software to complete their work tasks in the most efficient way.
Therefore, the time has come (finally dare I say 😅) to have a stable and a beta branch.

The stable branch will receive less frequent but more secure updates with priority on bug fixes.

The beta branch will receive all the newer features and therefore will be less stable.
Users who wish to do so may choose to switch to this channel and contribute to this project by reporting bugs or abnormal behavior.
I remind you that Antares does not collect any kind of data from users, so every report is very important. I cannot notice a bug if it is not reported to me.
I realized that many people use Antares very differently than I do, and before safely release features I need feedback.

The distributions that will provide a beta channel at the moment are:

• Windows: all .exe distributions enabling "Include beta updates" in app settings.
• Linux: .AppImage enabling "Include beta updates" in app settings, and Snap Store installing from "latest/beta".
• MacOS: .dmg enabling "Include beta updates" in app settings.

Speaking of features instead, I aim to implement the import and export functionality of Antares connections and configuration, as requested in #600.
I think this feature is very useful for teams or even for those who will decide to follow the beta channel to have a backup in case of problems.

Feel free to use the comments below to ask questions or tell me what you think about it ❤️.