LVGL v9 call to test, and review of 2023 schedule

This is the copy of the monthly newsletter sent out to our subscribers.

I think the best Christmas gift I can give you is the many great new features of LVGL v9. We’ve updated the Docs, written the Changelog, and added a lot of tests. Now, I can say with great confidence and happiness:

Please, come and try out LVGL v9!

The best ways to do it are using:

• The Eclipse PC project
• GitHub Codespace (Online VSCode IDE)
• And, of course, if you can: try it out on embedded hardware. (See the updated Porting guide)

To iron out all the final issues before the release on January 15, your feedback is very important! So, if you find anything unusual, something is not working, LVGL crashes, there is a regression in performance, or something is not obvious, please write to us. No matter what, how, or when, just share your experience with us. We read every email and GitHub issue. You can even reply to this email!

And now, let me summarize the greatest achievements of the year…

What happened in 2023?

• Let me start with news that is closest to my heart. We have crossed an important number: we now have more than 400+ LVGL contributors shaping LVGL. I have really not seen this coming when I published the first version of LVGL. I am so grateful for you all! You are the ones who make LVGL so great by giving feedback, sharing your ideas, fixing issues, and adding new features. In my book, you are the “men and women of the year”.

• Let’s start with the “ultimate indicator”: we now have almost 14k Stars on GitHub! 🤘 It really takes LVGL into the league of the big open-source projects!

• 2023 has also been the start of LVGL’s Official Partnership Program. It seems to be a great success so far. Official Partnership means in exchange for sponsoring LVGL, a vendor company can prioritize features they need, and we add them faster. We support their technology like GPUs. And we participate in their conferences and events. Four companies have already joined us as Official Partners: NXP, Espressif, Xiaomi, and Nuvoton. And - just in time for today’s newsletter - Renesas also became an Official Partner! Their GPU, called DAVE2D, is already supported in LVGL. We are having conversations with several others vendors so this list will get longer soon. 🙂

• We got a significant contribution from Arm as well. Actually, we have started to optimize the rendering pipeline of LVGL based on the idea of Gabriel.

• This year Xiaomi started to contribute into LVGL, which was truly transformative. Their professionalism and great ideas added a lot to v9 and LVGL in general. I’d like to send them a special thank you here.

• There is a good reason for Xiaomi’s contribution: they use LVGL as a UI library in VelaOS which powers Xiaomi’s consumer electronic devices. I don’t know the exact numbers, but I’m pretty sure it’s a huuuge amount of devices

• In the past half year we had weekly meetings with Xiaomi to discuss all kinds of development related questions. During this time I made sure of that they have a really good mindset and imaging the future of LVGL the same way as I do. Therefore, I have invited FASTSHIFT to the LVGL repository with write permission. In January we will figure out the exact standards of collaboration.

• We have certified 10 boards this year! The last one - from General Plus - was published yesterday and it received a Professional certificate.

• And finally, a few months ago, LVGL became NXP Gold partner!

We will stay committed to being open, inclusive, and shipping the greatest UI features for you under the free MIT license.

Despite the major issues all around the world, I hope 2023 was a successful year for you and 2024 will be even better!