Release 1.7.0 - Sagarmatha

Summary

This release brings significant architectural refinements, performance optimizations, and user-facing enhancements focused on data handling, recommendations, and catalog management. It introduces Redis-backed caching for catalogs, a revamped recommendation and profile system, and several UX improvements to catalogs, add-ons, and templating. Documentation improvements and targeted fixes ensure more reliable behavior and clearer guidance for users and developers.

Features

• Redis caching for catalog retrieval and Redis service integration: dramatically improved responsiveness and scalability for catalog data delivery.
• Implemented a redesigned recommendation stack and profile system: more accurate, faster recommendations with improved error handling and clearer service boundaries.
• Poster rating enhancements: adds configuration to tailor top_posters for better poster quality and relevance.
• Catalog experience enhancements: ability to enable/disable movie series catalogs separately and improved frontend-backend integration for catalogs and genres.
• Loved and liked catalogs: new categories for expressing user affinity in recommendations.
• Jinja2 templating integration: reorganized HTML components for cleaner rendering and easier templating.
• Data shuffling controls: new options to shuffle data more intelligently (only_discover and random shuffle) and a centralized shuffle_data_if_needed flow.
• Add-on metadata improvements: last updated time is shown on addon descriptions after updates.
• Recency and genre diversification: recommendation logic now emphasizes recency and genre variety to improve discovery.
• Documentation enhancements: expanded per-catalog descriptions, new badges, and visuals to better communicate catalog scope and contents.

Improvements

• Data handling and caching: streamlined caching logic for libraries and catalogs, with better response headers and more predictable cache lifetimes.
• Recommendation and discovery: consolidated and clarified logic for fetching recommendations, enhanced error handling, and more maintainable discovery task construction.
• Frontend and backend integration: improved catalog and genre data alignment with backend data models for a more coherent UI.
• Profile and scoring: updated profile constants and scoring logic to deliver more meaningful recommendations.
• Performance: caching-related improvements reduce repeated data fetches and latency across catalog retrieval and recommendations.
• Documentation quality: added detailed descriptions for catalogs, improved README with badges, and screenshots for better onboarding.

Refactors (meaningful architectural changes)

• Introduced shuffle_data_if_needed to streamline data shuffling logic in CatalogService.
• Consolidated recommendation fetching logic in ItemBasedService for improved clarity and error handling.
• Streamlined discover task creation in TopPicksService for maintainability and consistency.
• Enhanced frontend catalog and genre integration with backend data for smoother rendering.
• Updated strong signal item percentage and simplified scoring parameters to improve recommendation quality.
• Enhanced catalog configuration and user experience with only_discover and random shuffle options.
• Simplified recommendation filtering and theme-based service logic for clearer behavior.
• Updated profile constants and enhanced recommendation logic to improve personalization consistency (several commits).
• Improved caching logic for library items in ManifestService to reduce redundant fetches.
• Updated caching logic and response headers for catalog retrieval to optimize client-side caching.
• Miscellaneous maintenance refactors, including removal of outdated manifest request data and alignment of modules for better extensibility.

Bug Fixes

• TopPicksService: adjust max items and update item ID retrieval method to ensure accurate sampling.
• TopPicksService: correct item reference to ensure accurate recommendation processing.
• Add-on and UI: replace description instead of append on addon update to prevent duplicate metadata.
• User profile: fix timezone import issue to ensure correct user-time related data.
• Metadata and IDs: ensure only valid IMDb IDs are returned during metadata cleaning; fix handling for TMDB IDs in several paths.
• Add-on and UI: fix get started button functionality issues observed in some flows.
• Manifest and catalog: remove unnecessary last updated date on manifest requests to keep responses clean.

Documentation

• Docs: add detailed descriptions for each catalog to help users understand contents and scope.
• Docs: add screenshots and visuals to improve guidance and onboarding.
• Docs: add badges on readme for quick feature/glossary visibility.

Performance and Infrastructure

• Redis-backed caching for catalog retrieval and Redis service integration to improve latency and throughput.
• Template-driven UI restructuring via Jinja2 to support cleaner rendering and easier future templating changes.
• Parallel and more efficient data fetch paths introduced to improve responsiveness during catalog and recommendation loads.

Note: This release continues the iterative improvement cadence with several RC iterations preceding a stable release, reflecting ongoing work to harden caching, recommendations, and catalog delivery.

Release 1.6.1 - Sagarmatha Summit

Release Notes

Summary

This v1.6.1 release focuses on performance and accuracy improvements: optimized caching for library items, refined recommendation logic, and targeted bug fixes in the TopPicksService. A minor version bump marks preparation for the updated changes.

Improvements

• ManifestService: Refactored caching logic for library items to reduce redundant fetches and improve lookup efficiency, leading to faster startup and smoother recommendation flows.
• Profile constants and recommendation logic: Updated profile constants and refined the recommendation computation to improve consistency and relevance.

Bug Fixes

• TopPicksService: Adjusted maximum items in sampling and updated item ID retrieval method to ensure the sampling process evaluates the correct candidates.
• TopPicksService: Corrected item reference usage to ensure recommendations are processed against the intended items, improving accuracy.

Chore

• Version bump to v1.6.1 (release prep and changelog alignment).

Release 1.6.0 - Sagarmatha

Summary

Version 1.6.0 focuses on performance, templating enhancements, and richer recommendation capabilities, while tightening payloads and improving documentation. The update introduces Redis-backed caching for catalogs and recommendations, a modern templating approach with Jinja2, expanded recommendation catalogs with liked/loved signals, and several small but meaningful improvements to payloads and docs.

Features

• Integrate Jinja2 templating engine and restructure HTML components to enable cleaner templates and easier customization of the UI.
• Add Redis-backed caching for catalog retrieval to speed up responses and reduce backend load.
• Extend Redis caching to cover the recommendation services, improving latency and scalability for catalog-driven recommendations.
• Introduce liked and loved catalogs in the recommendation system, enabling richer user sentiment signals across all recommendations.
• Documentation improvements: README now includes status badges for quick visibility.

Improvements

• Refined caching logic and updated response headers for catalog retrieval to ensure correct caching behavior and better client-side caching semantics.
• Remove unnecessary last updated date from manifest requests to reduce payload size and bandwidth.
• Overall performance improvements driven by Redis caching and smarter data access patterns.

Bug Fixes

• Addon updates: fix ensures that the description field is replaced rather than appended when updating an addon, preserving accurate metadata.

Documentation

• Add issue templates for bug reports and feature requests to streamline contributor workflows.
• Update README with badges and clearer contribution guidelines.

Release 1.5.0 - Sagarmatha Summit

Release Notes

Summary

This release introduces two new personalization features for recommendations, adds visibility into addon freshness, and fixes a persistence issue after updates.

Features

• Introduced Loved and Liked catalogs across all recommendation catalogs, enabling users to save and quickly access items they care about.
• Show last updated timestamp in the addon description after an update, providing clearer visibility into content freshness.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where catalog names reset to defaults after updating the app. Catalog names now persist across updates, preserving user customizations.

Release 1.4.5 - Gosaikunda Dawn

Summary

This release (v1.4.5) introduces a brand-new recommendation services suite and a user profile system, enabling richer personalization and improved content suggestions. Platform updates include upgrading to Python 3.12 and refreshed dependencies, along with a crucial fix to ensure correct timezone handling in user profiles.

Features

• Implemented a new recommendation services layer to deliver personalized content suggestions across the app.
• Introduced a comprehensive user profile system to support personalization, user preferences, and saved items.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a timezone import issue in user_profile to ensure correct timestamps and scheduling behavior across the app.

Improvements

• Upgraded development/runtime to Python 3.12 with updated dependencies to benefit from latest language features and security improvements.
• Version bumped to v1.4.5 to reflect the new features and stability improvements.

Release 1.4.4 - Gosaikunda Dawn

Summary

• Introduces a new Recommendation Engine and a Profile System to personalize content and improve user data management. (#82)

Features

• New Recommendation Engine delivers personalized content based on user interactions, with a scalable architecture. (#82)
• New Profile System enables storing and updating user preferences, settings, and basic profile data for more accurate personalization. (#82)

Improvements

• Backend data model extended to support profiles, enabling future enhancements and analytics. (#82)
• Performance improvements through recommendation caching and more efficient query paths. (#82)
• Security and privacy enhancements for profile data with clearer access controls. (#82)

Migration / Notes

• This update is additive; existing client integrations remain compatible while new APIs are introduced for recommendations and profiles. (#82)

Release 1.4.3 - Sagarmatha Sentinel

Summary

Release 1.4.3 delivers data integrity improvements and performance enhancements. It includes fixes to metadata cleaning to only include valid IMDb IDs, improved handling to avoid using TMDB IDs as final metadata, better item fetching when genres are excluded, and a caching improvement to speed up catalog loading.

Improvements

• Cache catalogs for 6 hours to speed startup and reduce repeated fetches. (#123)

Bug Fixes

• Ensure only valid IMDb IDs are returned during metadata cleaning, preventing invalid IDs from polluting data. (#123)
• Remove items that improperly use TMDB IDs as final metadata to ensure data consistency and correct linking. (#123)
• When genres are excluded, fetch more items to maintain catalog completeness and accuracy (refs: #79). (#123)

Release 1.4.2 - Sagarmatha Dawn

Summary

This patch introduces a performance improvement by caching catalog data for 6 hours and bumps the release version to v1.4.2.

Improvements

• Cache catalogs for 6 hours to reduce repeated catalog fetches and improve startup and runtime performance. (#123)

Maintenance

• Bump version to v1.4.2 to align with the patch release. (#123)

Release 1.4.1 -

Bug Fixes

• ci: fix release generation script
• fix: handle redirection on announcement url

Other Changes

• chore: bump version to v1.4.1
• chore: set default environment to production

Release 1.4.0 -

Features

• docs: add hostname and typo fixes
• feat: add option to enable/disable movie series catalog separately (#75)

Bug Fixes

• fix: use integer value for catalog update interval

Other Changes

• chore: bump version to v1.4.0