Windows App Essentials: dev channel version scheme change

[josephsl]

Hi,

Preparation for NVDA 2025.1:

Currently Windows App Essentials dev channel version scheme is yyyymmdd.x.y where:

• yyyymmdd: dev build release date
• x: branch (usually 0)
• y: revision

With NVDA 2025.1, users can update add-ons automaticlaly, including across channels if "any" is selected from "default update channel" combo box. However, this wil not work for Windows App Essentials becasue dev channel will always be higher than stable channel. Therefore, to align more with stabel releases (yy.mm.revision), Windows App Essentials dev channel version scheme will change to yy.mm.revision just like stable releases (revision will be date * 100 (range: 100-3199). This change will allow dev channel users to switch to stable add-on releases without resorting to manual add-on reinstallation, more so with te impending end of add-on dev channel releases (although there will not be dev cahnnel builds, there will be some stable releases with higher version numbers).

To change version scheme, I propose the following process:

1. Add a dev channel with the new version scheme applied.
2. Remove Windows App Essentials dev channel releases of the form yyyymmdd.x.y from the add-on store.

The seocnd step will involve a pull request. The packages themselves will remain on the add-on repository.

Thanks.