Consider releasing version 2.29

[maclomhair]

It seems that version 5 of python-lxml doesn't support using the old "CSSSelector evaluate" style. As this version is now slowly landing in the repos of distributions, urlwatch 2.28 needs patches to continue working. However, the new call style is already implemented in the urlwatch master branch, so releasing a new version would keep urlwatch working without patches in distros upgrading python-lxml. Thank you for your great work!

[Jamstah]

We also have #806 in flight which works around new behaviour in python 3.12.2, which is also landing in distro repos.

With those two in, I agree, a new release makes sense.

[maclomhair]

Great news! Thank you, also for the quick response!

[Jamstah]

I don't know about great news, I agree for the need but don't have the power to do it!

That responsibility rests on the shoulders of @thp alone. I only try to help where I can.

[dairiki]

Why was this issue marked as completed? The latest release on PyPI is still 2.28 (from May 2023).

As things stand, in order for the css filter to work, one must manually pin lxml < 5 (ref #784) when installing urlwatch from PyPI.

PR #786 fixes things in the master branch, but that is not available from PyPI.
A new release should continue to be considered.

[hohav]

@thp ping for visibility. This issue should still be open.

[K900]

Any updates here?

[thp]

I'm working on this project in my spare time only.

A new release will be done when it's ready (and I have time to do the release).

Meanwhile, you can help by testing urlwatch from Git and reporting any issues you find.

Also, talking about reducing the patchset of distributions, I see a few patches that might make sense cleaning up and merging upstream, help there is also appreciated:

https://sources.debian.org/patches/urlwatch/2.28-3/
https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/aports/-/tree/master/testing/urlwatch
https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/urlwatch
https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/urlwatch
https://www.freshports.org/www/py-urlwatch
https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-misc/urlwatch
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixos-unstable/pkgs/tools/networking/urlwatch/default.nix
(etc)

If you have time @K900 @hohav @dairiki @maclomhair feel free to comb through https://repology.org/project/urlwatch/versions and check out any other distro-specific patches and see if they can/should be submitted upstream.

[Jamstah]

Looking through those links (and some more from repology), the most common patch is the LXML one which is already fixed, and the appdirs->platformdirs which again, is already fixed. Debian has the most patches, but they're either in the codebase already, or shouldn't be.

Are there any specifics you spotted that should be done?

[mwerlen]

I'm the maintainer of the Debian package.
I confirm, all patches that should be applied are already applied here.

[K900]

NixOS also only has one backport.

[thp]

Done in cbc8eb0

If you enjoy my work, feel free to buy me a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/thpx86