Robot Framework 7.0 has been released!

[Pekka Klärck]

Hello,

The release was done already yesterday, but we've had problems showing
release notes on GitHub . The problem still persists, so we generated
a PDF version of the release notes that can be viewed instead.
Unfortunately links don't work when the PDF is viewed on GitHub, but
they work if it is downloaded.

https://github.com/robotframework/robotframework/blob/master/doc/releasenotes/rf-7.0.rst
https://github.com/robotframework/robotframework/blob/master/doc/releasenotes/rf-7.0.pdf

This mess with the release notes is annoying, but the release itself
is awesome, so let's try to celebrate that instead of worrying about
GitHub bugs.

The release has several high priority enhancements targeted for people
creating external tools. These include big listener enhancements, JSON
result format, possibility to mix embedded and normal arguments with
library keywords, and enhancements to automatic argument conversion.
Let's see what kind of new and enhanced tools the awesome Robot
Framework ecosystem gets in the future!

There are also a lot of nice enhancements for normal users. These
include the native `VAR` syntax for creating variables and the dark
mode with reports and logs.

The biggest backwards incompatible change is that output.xml files
have changed so that most external tools processing them are
incompatible. To support tools that haven't yet been updated to
support RF 7.0, it is possible to use the new `--legacy-output` option
to get an output.xml file in the same format as earlier.

There are also some deprecated features. The most visible one is the
deprecation of the `[Return]` setting. It should be changed to the
much more versatile `RETURN` statement that was introduced already in
RF 6.0. If you have used `[Return]` a lot, the easiest way to update
it is using the Robotidy tool:
https://robotidy.readthedocs.io

If you are interested to learn more about the new features in Robot
Framework 7.0, join the RoboCon conference <https://robocon.io/> in
February, 2024. I will go through the key features briefly in the
onsite conference in Helsinki and more thoroughly in the online
edition. The conference also has dozens of other great talks,
workshops and a lot of possibilities to meet other community members
as well as developers of various tools and libraries in the ecosystem.

Huge thanks for Robot Framework Foundation
<https://robotframework.org/foundation/> and its member organizations
for sponsoring the development. If your organization is using Robot
Framework and not yet a member, try to convince them to join. All
money the foundation gets, including profits from RoboCon, is spent
for developing the framework and tools in the ecosystem further.

Thanks also to everyone who has contributed code and to everyone else
who has tested preview releases, submitted bug reports, proposed
enhancements, debugged problems, or otherwise helped with Robot
Framework 7.0 development.

Cheers,
.peke
--
Agile Tester/Developer/Consultant :: http://eliga.fi
Lead Developer of Robot Framework :: http://robotframework.org