Nicotine+

Development

This document contains important information about Nicotine+ design decisions and development procedures for maintainers, developers and code contributors alike.

Sections

Language and Toolkit

Python

Nicotine+ is Python application, originally based on backend code from the PySoulSeek project started in 2001. We only use Python in our codebase, as this allows for running Nicotine+ on almost any system without compiling anything. Developing in a single language is also easier for everyone involved in the project.

We aim to support the oldest Python version still receiving security updates, up to the latest. There is no rush to bump the minimum version requirement, since LTS distributions may use older Python versions, but a smaller range of versions is easier to test.

GTK

Nicotine+ and its predecessors PySoulSeek and Nicotine were originally developed with GNU/Linux in mind, at a time when the official Soulseek client only supported Windows. The Nicotine project opted to use GTK as the GUI toolkit, as opposed to wxPython previously used by PySoulSeek. This decision was made due to various issues encountered in wxPython at the time, such as large memory overhead and long compile/build times.

GTK fits our needs, and we have no plans of switching to another toolkit.

Dependencies

Nicotine+ aims to be as portable as possible, providing access to the Soulseek network for people who cannot run the official Soulseek client. Nicotine+ runs on almost any architecture and system available, and has active users on a plethora of different systems. This also means that the introduction of an external software dependency can be an inconvenience for both packagers and users.

Modules included in the Python Standard Library should be preferred whenever possible. Avoid introducing “convenient” and “new hotness” dependencies, if the standard library already includes the required functionality to some degree. If a new dependency is necessary, think about the following points:

The current dependencies for Nicotine+ are described in DEPENDENCIES.md.

Design

Keep it simple. Many applications fall in the trap of adding endless options without thinking about the bigger picture. Nicotine+ is feature-rich, but attempts to provide well-designed, well-integrated features that work out of the box.

The same principle applies when writing code. Try to simplify code as much as possible. Avoid overengineering. We want to write code that is maintainable and readable by humans.

Performance

Profiling code changes from time to time is important, to ensure that Nicotine+ performs well and uses fewer system resources. Our goal is to develop a lightweight client that runs well on older hardware, as well as small servers.

Due to Python’s interpreted nature, addressing performance issues can be a challenge. There is no straightforward way of solving every performance issue, but these points generally help:

py-spy is an excellent tool for profiling in real time while running Nicotine+ directly from a local Git folder and starting with:

py-spy top ./nicotine

The console will continuously display a top like view of functions consuming CPU. Press L to aggregate by line number, and R to reset the view.

Debug Logging

Verbose logging can be enabled to ease debugging. The following log categories are available:

In order to enable debug logging:

If you want to log debug messages to file, Menu -> Preferences -> Logging -> Log debug messages to file. Remember to disable debug logging when you no longer need it, since it impacts performance.

Soulseek Protocol

The Soulseek network uses its own protocol for interoperability between clients. The protocol is proprietary, and no official documentation is available. Nicotine+’s protocol implementation is developed by observing the behavior of the official Soulseek NS and SoulseekQt clients.

SLSKPROTOCOL.md contains unofficial documentation maintained by the Nicotine+ team.

Continuous Integration Testing

It is important that all changes pass unit and integration testing. To properly validate that things are working, continuous integration (CI) is implemented using GitHub Actions workflows, which run tests on various platforms for each commit.

Creating Tests

Tests are defined in the pynicotine/tests/ folder, and should be expanded to cover larger parts of the client when possible.

Running Tests

Although GitHub Actions runs tests automatically when pushing changes to the repository, it is also possible to run them locally. This can be helpful to quickly test smaller changes, but local testing should not be relied upon for changes that affect packaging or are likely to break on other platforms.

To run unit and integration tests using Python’s unittest module:

python3 -m unittest

To check the code style using pycodestyle:

python3 -m pycodestyle

To perform code linting using Pylint:

python3 -m pylint --recursive=y .

To test building the application:

python3 -m build

Translations

Translations are largely handled by Weblate, but certain manual operations need to be performed at times.

Adding a Language

When Nicotine+ is translated into a new language, the following should be done:

Updating Translation Template

The translation template file po/nicotine.pot should be updated after modifying strings in the codebase. To update the template, run the following command:

python3 data/scripts/update_translation_template.py

Merging Translation Updates

When translations are modified, Weblate creates a pull request with the changes within 24 hours. In order to preserve author information for commits, use the Create a merge commit option when merging the pull request.

Releases

Nicotine+ uses the following versioning scheme: A.B.C, e.g. 3.3.8

Release dates are not set in stone, as Nicotine+ development is done by volunteers in their spare time. However, keep the following points in mind:

Creating a Nicotine+ Release

The following is a step-by-step guide detailing what a Nicotine+ maintainer should do when releasing a new version of Nicotine+.

  1. Ensure that Nicotine+ launches and works well on at least these operating systems:
    • Windows
    • macOS
    • Ubuntu 18.04 (oldest supported GTK 3 and Python 3 versions)
    • Ubuntu 22.04 (oldest supported GTK 4 version)
    • Latest Ubuntu/Fedora release
  2. Update the translation template by running

    python3 data/scripts/update_translation_template.py
    
  3. Ensure that the source distribution (sdist) includes all necessary files to run Nicotine+. A source distribution can be generated by running

    python3 -m build --sdist
    
  4. Add a new release note entry to NEWS.md. Release notes should contain a user-readable list of noteworthy changes since the last release (not a list of commits), as well as a list of closed issues on GitHub.

  5. Increase the Nicotine+ version number / add new version entries in the master branch. The following files need to be modified:
  6. Ensure that the Windows and macOS packages generated by GitHub Actions still work.

  7. Create a new GitHub release.
    • Both the release tag and title should use the format x.x.x, e.g. 3.2.1.
    • Include the release notes from NEWS.md as the description.
    • Download the Windows and macOS packages previously generated by GitHub Actions to packaging/release/ and run
      python3 packaging/release/generate_sha256_checksums.py
      
    • Attach the resulting files to the new release.
    • Once the release is published, verify that GitHub Actions successfully uploads it to PyPI.
  8. Generate a stable PPA release for Ubuntu / Debian. First, ensure that the repository mirror on Launchpad is up to date. Once it is, update the contents of the stable build recipe, replacing the previous commit hash with the one used for the release you tagged on GitHub. Then, generate stable builds by pressing Request build(s).

  9. Create a new release on Flathub.

  10. Create a new release on the Snap Store.