0.3.19

Features

• Briefcase can now package command line apps. (#556)
• Templates that use pre-compiled stub binaries can now manage that artefact as an independent resource, rather than needing to include the binary in the template repository. This significantly reduces the size of the macOS and Windows app templates. (#933)
• Template repositories are now fetched as blobless partial Git clones, reducing the size of initial downloads. (#933)
• macOS now supports the generation of .pkg installers as a packaging format. (#1184)
• Android SDK Command Line Tools 12.0 is now used to build Android apps. (#1778)
• The new project wizard now includes links to known third-party GUI bootstraps. (#1807)
• The name of the license file can now be specified using a PEP 621-compliant format for the license setting. (#1812)
• The default Gradle dependencies for a Toga project no longer includes SwipeRefreshLayout. (#1845)

Bugfixes

• Validation rules for bundle identifiers have been loosened. App IDs that contain country codes or language reserved words are no longer flagged as invalid. (#1212)
• macOS code signing no longer uses the deprecated "deep signing" option. (#1221)
• If run is executed directly after a create when using an app template on macOS or Windows, the implied build step is now correctly identified. (#1729)
• Escaping of quotation marks in TOML templates was corrected. (#1746)
• The Docker version on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is now accepted and no longer triggers a warning message. (#1773)
• The formal name of an app is now validated. (#1810)
• macOS apps now generate info.plist entries for camera, photo library and microphone permissions. (#1820)

Backward Incompatible Changes

• Briefcase now uses a private cache of Cookiecutter templates, rather than the shared ~/.cookiecutters directory. You can reclaim disk space by deleting ~/.cookiecutters/briefcase-* and ~/.cookiecutter_replay/briefcase-* (or the entire ~/.cookiecutters and ~/.cookiecutter_replay folders if you are not using Cookiecutter for any other purposes). (#933)
• The macOS app packaging format has been renamed zip for consistency with Windows, and to reflect the format of the output artefact. (#1781)
• The format for the license field has been converted to PEP 621 format. Existing projects that specify license as a string should update their configurations to point at the generated license file using license.file = "LICENSE". (#1812)
• The PursuedPyBear bootstrap has been migrated to be part of the PursuedPyBear project. (#1834)

Documentation

• Documentation describing manual signing requirement for Android packages has been added. (#1703)
• Documentation of Briefcase's support for document types has been improved. (#1771)
• Documentation on Briefcase's plug-in interfaces was added. (#1807)
• Documentation on the use of passwords in Android publication now encourages users to set non-default passwords. (#1816)

Misc

• #1184, #1472, #1777, #1784, #1786, #1789, #1790, #1791, #1792, #1793, #1798, #1799, #1800, #1817, #1819, #1821, #1823, #1839, #1840, #1841, #1842, #1843, #1847, #1850, #1851, #1853, #1857, #1860, #1863, #1867, #1869, #1871, #1872, #1873, #1874

0.3.18

Features

• Existing projects with a pyproject.toml configuration can now be converted into Briefcase apps using the briefcase convert command. (#1202)
• Apps packaged as AppImages are no longer dependent on libcrypt.so.1. (#1383)
• The briefcase run command now supports the --target option to run Linux apps from within Docker for other distributions. (#1603)
• The hints and recommendations that Docker prints in the console are now silenced. (#1635)
• In non-interactive environments, such as CI, a message is now printed to signify a task has begun where an animated bar would be displayed in interactive console sessions. (#1649)
• Additional options can now be passed to the docker build command for building native Linux packages and AppImages via the --Xdocker-build argument. (#1661)
• The contents of pyproject.toml is now included in the log file. (#1674)
• When an app runs on an Android device or emulator, the logging output is now colored. (#1676)
• When deep debug is activated via -vv, pip now installs requirements for the app with verbose logging. (#1708)
• The listing of filenames for updating permissions for building native Linux packages is now only shown when verbose logging is enabled via -v. (#1720)
• When a platform supports a splash screen, that splash screen will be generated automatically based on the app icon, rather than requiring additional configuration. (#1737)
• New projects for Toga on GTK3 now recommend using gir1.2-webkit2-4.1 instead of gir1.2-webkit2-4.0 for WebView support. (#1748)

Bugfixes

• When Briefcase can't find rpmbuild on an RPM-based system, the message giving install instructions now uses the correct package name. (#1638)
• Creating new projects is now compatible with cookiecutter v2.6.0. (#1663)
• The minimum version of pip was bumped to 23.1.2 to ensure compatibility with Python 3.12. (#1681)
• On Windows, the Android emulator will always open without needing to press CTRL-C. (#1687)
• A spurious Android emulator named @INFO will no longer be included in the list of available emulators. (#1697)
• The configuration generated for iOS apps declaring geolocation permissions has been corrected. (#1713)
• When using -r/--update-requirements for building for Android, the app's requirements are always reinstalled now. (#1721)
• When creating a new project, the validation for App Name now rejects all non-ASCII values. (#1762)
• Packages created for OpenSUSE now depend on libcanberra-gtk3-module instead of libcanberra-gtk3-0. (#1774)

Backward Incompatible Changes

• WiX v3.14.1 is now used to package Windows apps. Run briefcase upgrade wix to start using this version. (#1707)
• Java JDK 17.0.11+9 is now used to package Android apps. Use briefcase upgrade java to update your Briefcase-installed JDK instance to this version. (#1736)
• The splash configuration option will no longer be honored. Splash screens are now generated based on the icon image. (#1737)
• iOS apps now require 640px, 1280px and 1920px icon image. (#1737)
• Android apps now require an adaptive variant for icons. This requires 108px, 162px, 216px, 324px and 432px images with a transparent background. The Android square icon variant requires additional 320px, 480px, 640px, 960px and 1280px images. (#1737)

Documentation

• The documentation contribution guide was updated to use a more authoritative reStructuredText reference. (#1695)
• The README badges were updated to display correctly on GitHub. (#1763)

Misc

• #1428, #1495, #1637, #1639, #1642, #1643, #1644, #1645, #1646, #1652, #1653, #1656, #1657, #1658, #1659, #1660, #1666, #1671, #1672, #1679, #1683, #1684, #1686, #1689, #1690, #1691, #1692, #1694, #1699, #1700, #1701, #1702, #1710, #1711, #1712, #1716, #1717, #1722, #1723, #1725, #1730, #1731, #1732, #1741, #1742, #1743, #1744, #1745, #1752, #1753, #1754, #1756, #1757, #1758, #1759, #1760, #1761, #1766, #1769, #1775, #1776

0.3.17

Features

• Android apps are now able to customize the libraries included in the app at build time. (#485)
• App permissions can now be declared as part of an app's configuration. (#547)
• The -C/--config option can now be used to override app settings from the command line. (#1115)
• The verbosity flag, -v, was expanded to support three levels of logging verbosity. (#1501)
• Briefcase now supports GUI bootstrap plugins to customize how new projects are created. (#1524)
• GitPython's debug logging is now included in deep debug output. (#1529)
• RCEdit v2.0.0 is now used to build Windows apps. Run briefcase upgrade to use this latest version. (#1543)
• The Flatpak runtimes for new projects were updated. org.freedesktop.Platform will now default to 23.08; org.gnome.Platform will now default to 45; and org.kde.Platform will now default to 6.6. (#1545)
• When creating new projects with the briefcase new command, project configuration overrides can be specified via the -Q command line argument. For instance, a specific license can be specified with -Q "license=MIT license". (#1552)
• New virtual devices for the Android emulator are created using the Pixel 7 Pro skin. (#1554)
• The web server for running static web projects now falls back to a system allocated port if the requested port is already in use. (#1561)
• Flatpaks are now created with permissions to access the GPU and sound devices. (#1563)
• AppImages can now be built for the ARM architecture. (#1564)
• Apps can now specify a primary color (for both light and dark modes), and an accent color. If the platform allows apps to customize color use, these colors will be used to style the app's presentation. (#1566)
• The version of PursuedPyBear for new projects was bumped from 1.1 to 3.2.0. (#1592)
• Python 3.12 is now supported on Android. (#1596)
• Android apps can now specify the base theme used to style the application. (#1610)
• The Java JDK was upgraded from 17.0.8.1+1 to 17.0.10+7. Run briefcase upgrade java to upgrade existing Briefcase installations. (#1611)
• When the Android emulator fails to start up properly, users are now presented with additional resources to help resolve any issues. (#1630)

Bugfixes

• When a custom Briefcase template from a git repository is used to create an app, Briefcase now ensures that git repository is always used. (#1158)
• The filter for iOS build warnings was improved to catch messages from Xcode 15.0.1. (#1507)
• When merging dependencies on macOS, file permissions are now preserved. (#1510)
• flatpak-builder 1.3+ can now be correctly identified. (#1513)
• The BeeWare icon of Brutus is now used as the runtime icon for new projects created with PyGame. (#1532)
• Linux System RPM packaging for openSUSE Tumbleweed no longer errors with FileNotFoundError. (#1595)
• Any ANSI escape sequences or console control codes are now stripped in all output captured in the Briefcase log file. (#1604)
• The detection of physical Android devices on macOS was made more resilient. (#1627)

Backward Incompatible Changes

• The use of AppImage as an output format now generates a warning. (#1500)
• Support for creating new projects using PySide2 has been removed. Briefcase's release testing will no longer explicitly verify compatibility with PySide2. (#1524)
• The Flatpak build process no longer strips binaries included in third-party (e.g. PyPI) packages that are bundled with the app. (#1540)
• New projects will now use manylinux_2_28 instead of manylinux2014 to create AppImages in Docker. (#1564)
• It is highly recommended that Android applications add a definition for build_gradle_dependencies to their app configuration. A default value will be used if this option is not explicitly provided. Refer to the Android documentation for the default value that will be used. (#1610)

Documentation

• The common options available to every command have now been documented. (#1517)

Misc

• #1504, #1505, #1506, #1515, #1516, #1518, #1519, #1526, #1527, #1533, #1534, #1535, #1536, #1538, #1541, #1548, #1549, #1550, #1551, #1555, #1556, #1557, #1560, #1562, #1567, #1568, #1569, #1571, #1575, #1576, #1579, #1582, #1585, #1586, #1589, #1590, #1597, #1606, #1607, #1613, #1614, #1615, #1618, #1621, #1622, #1623, #1624, #1628, #1632, #1633

0.3.16

Features

• Support for less common environments, such as Linux on ARM, has been improved. Error messages for unsupported platforms are now more accurate. (#1360)
• Tool verification for Java, Android SDK, and WiX have been improved to provide more informative errors and debug logging. (#1382)
• A super verbose logging mode was added (enabled using -vv). This turns on all Briefcase internal logging, but also enables verbose logging for all the third-party tools that Briefcase invokes. (#1384)
• Briefcase now uses Android SDK Command-Line Tools v9.0. If an externally-managed Android SDK is being used, it must provide this version of Command-Line Tools. Use the SDK Manager in Android Studio to ensure it is installed. (#1397)
• Support for OpenSuSE Linux distributions was added. (#1416)
• iOS apps are no longer rejected by the iOS App Store for packaging reasons. (#1439)
• The Java JDK version was upgraded to 17.0.8.1+1. (#1462)
• macOS apps can now be configured to produce single platform binaries, or binaries that will work on both x86_64 and ARM64. (#1482)

Bugfixes

• Build warnings caused by bugs in Xcode that can be safely ignored are now filtered out of visible output. (#377)
• The run command now ensures Android logging is shown when the datetime on the device is different from the host machine. (#1146)
• Briefcase will detect if you attempt to launch an Android app on a device whose OS doesn't meet minimum version requirements. (#1157)
• macOS apps are now guaranteed to be universal binaries, even when dependencies only provide single-architecture binary wheels. (#1217)
• The ability to build AppImages in Docker on macOS was restored. (#1352)
• Error reporting has been improved when the target Docker image name is invalid. (#1368)
• Creating Debian packages no longer fails due to a permission error for certain umask values (such as 0077). (#1369)
• Inside of Docker containers, the Briefcase data directory is now mounted at /briefcase instead of /home/brutus/.cache/briefcase. (#1374)
• The console output from invoking Python via a subprocess call is now properly decoded as UTF-8. (#1407)
• The command line arguments used to configure the Python environment for briefcase dev no longer leak into the runtime environment on macOS. (#1413)

Backward Incompatible Changes

• AppImage packaging requires a recent release of LinuxDeploy to continue creating AppImages. Run briefcase upgrade linuxdeploy to install the latest version. (#1361)
• The size of iOS splash images have changed. iOS apps should now provide 800px, 1600px and 2400px images (previously, this as 1024px, 2048px and 3072px). This is because iOS 14 added a hard limit on the size of image resources. (#1371)
• Support for AppImage has been reduced to "best effort". We will maintain unit test coverage for the AppImage backend, but we no longer build AppImages as part of our release process. We will accept bug reports related to AppImage support, and we will merge PRs that address AppImage support, but the core team no longer considers addressing AppImage bugs a priority, and discourages the use of AppImage for new projects. (#1449)

Documentation

• Documentation on the process of retrieving certificate identities on macOS and Windows was improved. (#1473)

Misc

• #1136, #1290, #1363, #1364, #1365, #1372, #1375, #1376, #1379, #1388, #1394, #1395, #1396, #1398, #1400, #1401, #1402, #1403, #1408, #1409, #1410, #1411, #1412, #1418, #1419, #1420, #1421, #1427, #1429, #1431, #1433, #1435, #1436, #1437, #1438, #1442, #1443, #1444, #1445, #1446, #1447, #1448, #1454, #1455, #1456, #1457, #1464, #1465, #1466, #1470, #1474, #1476, #1477, #1478, #1481, #1485, #1486, #1487, #1488, #1489, #1490, #1492, #1494

0.3.15

Features

• Windows apps can now be packaged as simple ZIP files. (#457)
• An Android SDK specified in ANDROID_HOME is respected now and will take precedence over the setting of ANDROID_SDK_ROOT. (#463)
• Android support was upgraded to use Java 17 for builds. (#1065)
• On Linux, Docker Desktop and rootless Docker are now supported. (#1083)
• The company/author name in the installation path for Windows MSI installers is now optional. (#1199)
• macOS code signing is now multi-threaded (and therefore much faster!) (#1201)
• Briefcase will now honor PEP-621 project fields where they map to Briefcase configuration items. (#1203)

Bugfixes

• XML compatibility warnings generated by the Android build have been cleaned up. (#827)
• Non ASCII characters provided in the briefcase new wizard are quoted before being put into pyproject.toml. (#1011)
• Requests to the web server are now recorded in the log file. (#1090)
• An "Invalid Keystore format" error is no longer raised when signing an app if the local Android keystore was generated with a recent version of Java. (#1112)
• Content before a closing square bracket (]) or .so) is no longer stripped by the macOS and iOS log filter. (#1179)
• The option to run Linux system packages through Docker was removed. (#1207)
• Error handling for incomplete or corrupted Github clones of templates has been improved. (#1210)
• Application/Bundle IDs are normalized to replace underscores with dashes when possible (#1234)
• Filenames and directories in RPM package definitions are quoted in order to include filenames that include white space. (#1236)
• Briefcase will no longer display progress bars if the FORCE_COLOR environment variable is set. (#1267)
• When creating a new Briefcase project, the header line in pyproject.toml now contains the version of Briefcase instead of "Unknown". (#1276)
• Android logs no longer include timestamp and PID, making them easier to read on narrow screens. (#1286)
• An warning is no longer logged if the Java identified by macOS is not usable by Briefcase. (#1305)
• Incompatibilities with Cookiecutter 2.2.0 have been resolved. (#1347)

Backward Incompatible Changes

• Names matching modules in the Python standard library, and main, can no longer be used as an application name. (#853)
• The --no-sign option for packaging was removed. Briefcase will now prompt for a signing identity during packaging, falling back to adhoc/no signing as a default where possible. (#865)
• The version of OpenJDK for Java was updated from 8 to 17. Any Android apps generated on previous versions of Briefcase must be re-generated by running briefcase create android gradle. If customizations were made to files within the generated app, they will need to be manually re-applied after re-running the create command. (#1065)
• Flatpak apps no longer default to using the Freedesktop runtime and SDK version 21.08 when a runtime is not specified. Instead, the runtime now must be explicitly defined in the application configuration. (#1272)

Documentation

• All code blocks were updated to add a button to copy the relevant contents on to the user's clipboard. (#1213)
• The limitations of using WebKit2 in AppImage were documented. (#1322)

Misc

• #856, #1093, #1178, #1181, #1186, #1187, #1191, #1192, #1193, #1195, #1197, #1200, #1204, #1205, #1206, #1215, #1226, #1228, #1232, #1233, #1239, #1241, #1242, #1243, #1244, #1246, #1248, #1249, #1253, #1254, #1255, #1257, #1258, #1262, #1263, #1264, #1265, #1273, #1274, #1279, #1282, #1283, #1284, #1293, #1294, #1295, #1299, #1300, #1301, #1310, #1311, #1316, #1317, #1323, #1324, #1333, #1334, #1335, #1336, #1339, #1341, #1350, #1351

0.3.14

Features

• Added support for code signing Windows apps. (#366)
• The base image used to build AppImages is now user-configurable. (#947)
• Support for Arch .pkg.tar.zst packaging was added to the Linux system backend. (#1064)
• Pygame was added as an explicit option for a GUI toolkit. (#1125)
• AppImage and Flatpak builds now use indygreg's Python Standalone Builds to provide Python support. (#1132)
• BeeWare now has a presence on Mastodon. (#1142)

Bugfixes

• When commands produce output that cannot be decoded to Unicode, Briefcase now writes the bytes as hex instead of truncating output or canceling the command altogether. (#1141)
• When JAVA_HOME contains a path to a file instead of a directory, Briefcase will now warn the user and install an isolated copy of Java instead of logging a NotADirectoryError. (#1144)
• If the Docker buildx plugin is not installed, users are now directed by Briefcase to install it instead of Docker failing to build the image. (#1153)

Misc

• #1133, #1138, #1139, #1140, #1147, #1148, #1149, #1150, #1151, #1156, #1162, #1163, #1168, #1169, #1170, #1171, #1172, #1173, #1177

0.3.13

Features

• Distribution artefacts are now generated into a single dist folder. (#424)
• When installing application sources and dependencies, any __pycache__ folders are now automatically removed. (#986)
• A Linux System backend was added, supporting .deb as a packaging format. (#1062)
• Support for .rpm packaging was added to the Linux system backend. (#1063)
• Support for passthrough arguments was added to the dev and run commands. (#1077)
• Users can now define custom content to include in their pyscript.toml configuration file for web deployments. (#1089)
• The new command now allows for specifying a custom template branch, as well as a custom template. (#1101)

Bugfixes

• Spaces are no longer used in the paths for generated app templates. (#804)
• The stub executable used by Windows now clears the threading mode before starting the Python app. This caused problems with displaying dialogs in Qt apps. (#930)
• Briefcase now prevents running commands targeting Windows platforms when not on Windows. (#1010)
• The command to store notarization credentials no longer causes Briefcase to hang. (#1100)
• macOS developer tool installation prompts have been improved. (#1122)

Misc

• #1070, #1074, #1075, #1076, #1080, #1084, #1085, #1086, #1087, #1094, #1096, #1097, #1098, #1103, #1109, #1110, #1111, #1119, #1120, #1130

0.3.12

Features

• Briefcase is more resilient to file download failures by discarding partially downloaded files. (#753)
• All warnings from the App and its dependencies are now shown when running briefcase dev by invoking Python in development mode. (#806)
• The Dockerfile used to build AppImages can now include user-provided container setup instructions. (#886)
• It is no longer necessary to specify a device when building an iOS project. (#953)
• Briefcase apps can now provide a test suite. briefcase run and briefcase dev both provide a --test option to start the test suite. (#962)
• Initial support for Python 3.12 was added. (#965)
• Frameworks contained added to a macOS app bundle are now automatically code signed. (#971)
• The build.gradle file used to build Android apps can now include arbitrary additional settings. (#973)
• The run and build commands now have full control over the update of app requirements resources. (#983)
• Resources that require variants will now use the variant name as part of the filename by default. (#989)
• briefcase open linux appimage now starts a shell session in the Docker context, rather than opening the project folder. (#991)
• Web project configuration has been updated to reflect recent changes to PyScript. (#1004)

Bugfixes

• Console output of Windows apps is now captured in the Briefcase log. (#787)
• Android emulators configured with _no_skin will no longer generate a warning. (#882)
• Briefcase now exits normally when CTRL-C is sent while tailing logs for the App when using briefcase run. (#904)
• Backslashes and double quotes are now safe to be used for formal name and description (#905)
• The console output for Windows batch scripts in now captured in the Briefcase log. (#917)
• When using the Windows Store version of Python, Briefcase now ensures the cache directory is created in %LOCALAPPDATA% instead of the sandboxed location enforced for Windows Store apps. (#922)
• An Android application that successfully starts, but fails quickly, no longer stalls the launch process. (#936)
• The required Visual Studio Code components are now included in verification errors for Visual Studio Apps. (#939)
• It is now possible to specify app configurations for macOS Xcode and Windows VisualStudio projects. Previously, these sections of configuration files would be ignored due to a case discrepancy. (#952)
• Development mode now starts apps in PEP540 UTF-8 mode, for consistency with the stub apps. (#985)
• Local file references in requirements no longer break AppImage builds. (#992)
• On macOS, Rosetta is now installed automatically if needed. (#1000)
• The way dependency versions are specified has been modified to make Briefcase as accomodating as possible with end-user environments, but as stable as possible for development environments. (#1041)
• To prevent console corruption, dynamic console elements (such as the Wait Bar) are temporarily removed when output streaming is disabled for a command. (#1055)

Improved Documentation

• Release history now contains links to GitHub issues. (#1022)

Misc

• #906, #907, #918, #923, #924, #925, #926, #929, #931, #951, #959, #960, #964, #967, #969, #972, #981, #984, #987, #994, #995, #996, #997, #1001, #1002, #1003, #1012, #1013, #1020, #1021, #1023, #1028, #1038, #1042, #1043, #1044, #1045, #1046, #1047, #1048, #1049, #1051, #1052, #1057, #1059, #1061, #1068, #1069, #1071

0.3.11

Features

• Added support for deploying an app as a static web page using PyScript. (#3)
• Briefcase log files are now stored in the logs subdirectory and only when the current directory is a Briefcase project. (#883)

Bugfixes

• Output from spawned Python processes, such as when running briefcase dev, is no longer buffered and displays in the console immediately. (#891)

Misc

• #848, #885, #887, #888, #889, #893, #894, #895, #896, #897, #899, #900, #908, #909, #910, #915

v0.3.10

Features

• iOS and Android now supports the installation of binary packages. (#471)
• Apps can now selectively remove files from the final app bundle using the cleanup_paths attribute. (#550)
• The Docker image for AppImage builds is created or updated for all commands instead of just create. (#796)
• The performance of Briefcase's tool verification process has been improved. (#801)
• Briefcase templates are now versioned by the Briefcase version, rather than the Python version. (#824)
• Android commands now start faster, as they only gather a list of SDK packages when needed to write a log file. (#832)
• Log messages can be captured on iOS if they originate from a dynamically loaded module. (#842)
• Added an "open" command that can be used to open projects in IDEs. (#846)

Bugfixes

• The Wait Bar is disabled for batch scripts on Windows to prevent hiding user prompts when CTRL+C is pressed. (#811)
• Android emulators that don't provide a model identifier can now be used to launch apps. (#820)
• All linuxdeploy plugins are made executable and ELF headers for AppImage plugins are patched for use in Docker. (#829)
• The RCEdit plugin can now be upgraded. (#837)
• When verifying the existence of the Android emulator, Briefcase now looks for the actual binary, not the folder
  that contains the binary. This was causing false positives on some Android SDK setups. (#841)
• When CTRL+C is entered while an external program is running, briefcase will properly abort and exit. (#851)
• An issue with running briefcase dev on projects that put their application module in the project root has been resolved. (#863)

Improved Documentation

• Added FAQ entries on the state of binary package support on mobile. (#471)

Misc

• #831, #834, #840, #844, #857, #859, #867, #868, #874, #878, #879