Spark 3.0.0 Released

The Ignite Realtime community is happy to announce the release of Spark 3.0.0 version.

We decided to increase major version to 3.x to coincide with a complete UI refresh of Spark which was contributed by Amos . Now Spark uses only FlatLaf Look and Feel. We are very much grateful for his incredible work. Along that Pade Meetings plugin was added by Dele. Spark now uses the latest version of the Smack 4.4 library, thanks Flow. Now Spark works on any Java 8 and more. Improved file transfer compared to Spark 2.9.4 and also updated the HttpFileUpload plugin for file transfer.

Pade Meetings (formerly SparkMeet) plugin is included in this release. You can find it in a chat window, a button with P letter. This plugin works with Openfire Meetings and enables audio and video chat. It was modified by Dele Olajide to use Electron technology. First time a user logs in using this version Spark will download required libraries into user’s profile (it is around 150 MB on Windows, so can take a minute to download). You can also manage all plugins in Spark via Client Control Pluigin and disable them if you want.

Installers:
For Windows has been added 64bit installer and MSI installer, which will be useful for use in a corporate environment.
For MacOS has been replaced the installer because modern versions require a digital signature.

The release also contains bug fixes and many improvements.

Full list of changes can be found in the changelog .

We encourage users and developers to get involved with Spark project by providing feedback in the forums or submitting pull requests on our GitHub page.

You can download Spark from the Downloads page. Below are the sha256 checksums:

5254d3559c74715f2ffebc4f30c55c873013e5dfb225d767577a8bda6434ffd9  spark_3_0_0-64bit.exe
69946b260155ffb5b2cd5cf6c6b44fe4cff7cf3d43a3583b4817bc7673d06205  spark_3_0_0-64bit.msi
79297356f681f4e470d4f99b29f110e93dce40b2cfd55845487cdc6e92f37d85  spark_3_0_0-arm.exe
6e21e29dd954df7bb38523ac620082fd13baf26477cf380307620721a14acb97  spark_3_0_0.deb
51f4cb414618a33f18f0b29002899ade2668b115c508d3579c2323d346211c6c  spark_3_0_0.dmg
b942e1a68bbe4dbc3641041d4e26c85926811f429cbb106653b22c838d96cdbb  spark_3_0_0.exe
9bb898ea398719ce548875c3447f3dcb18dc6af7a68ff521f6aeb211192ebc4d  spark_3_0_0.msi
6035bb35e8f52ea715de371620f855ab8975ea96e3edddc991eeff45c8e1c28e  spark-3_0_0.rpm
016d728edb6236aa8fc0bd77a2269cb0e39c3c2d587441b782f0e8cecb61b3b8  spark_3_0_0.sh
f5125d672424deec105066b29d36fd655e10b979213aab134a39edf0c9a92fbc  spark_3_0_0.tar.gz
84efa849883d5f96f67f3ac6c74fd3a42869167be6cc3f7b36da41b0c7ce4d46  spark_3_0_0-with-jre.dmg
f9beacca9b1633dc6be0b84baec065c9f876351ce19c16bf5077c6c8cbc59459  spark_3_0_0-with-jre.exe
96b853cb3e44aad1c9a01c3b42b9f85f564a53aaf877e7145b1314d3b2be8af3  spark_3_0_0-with-jre.msi

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5 Likes

Great Job @ilyaHlevnoy and @k33ptoo! Thank you again for all you have done!

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Did you time it to be exactly two years since last release? :smiley:

Congrats on this release! That’s a huge amount of time and work you have poured into this project, Ilya :slight_smile:

typo: need to remove Beta in downloads paragraph :wink:

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It’s a coincidence :smiley:
Thanks, fixed it.

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I like the new look.

I had some issues with the install. I used the 64 bit offline msi, but it failed to upgrade my existing install. It looked like it worked, but the spark.exe file would not launch the program. Also, it does appear to be installing the 64 bit version into the C:\Program Files (x86) folder, even though it’s 64 bit.

32 and 64 bit are correctly installed.
It’s just that the MSI installer doesn’t know how to remove EXE. If you don’t have much need MSI just use EXE installer, it’s great to remove previous installations.

I was under the impression that 64-bit programs should install under C:\Program Files. Can you explain why this is correct, if it’s not installing a 64-bit program in this location? I’d prefer to use the msi is possible.

Msi detected your current installation and tried to overwrite it at its current location. This is why it was in (x86) folder. If you do clean install of msi, it will install into 64-bit Program files.

That did not work for me. I uninstalled everything, and it still put it under (x86) after installing again using the msi.

For me it did install into 64-bit folder.

Well for me it doesn’t…

I uninstalled Spark again, launched spark_3_0_0-with-jre.msi and it defaults to (x86).

image

This is a 32-bit installer. 64 is spark_3_0_0-64bit.msi
There are no 64-bit installers with jre included.

Speaking of 64 bit. When i tried 64-bit msi i noticed that i need external Java. So i took 8 or 11 from Adoptium. And installer then located it and installed. Also was able to open Spark. But when logging in to igniterealtime.org server it was giving SSL errors, so i just went back to 32-bit with jre included :slight_smile:

Ah, that makes sense! Is it possible to make a 64-bit with the JRE included?

I am not a dev, but i think team wants to stop bundling java completely in all products. I think leaving it in 32bit 3.0.0 was for a transition period. And also binaries and build config is already there, so it was easy to produce. Btw, jre binaries included are very old, more than 3 years (8.0.202). That’s one the reasons. Oracle changed licensing, so bundling newer versions is impossible. Adjusting build process for some OpenJDK flavor and keeping it up to date is cumbersome and costs time. So, eventually installers with jre will be phased out. Or i should say 32bit installers altogether probably.

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Great release guys! Congrats to all involved!

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Thank you for getting this release out. Great to see that this project is still alive. We have been using Spark and Openfire for years now.
Any chance of adding the Dark version of FlatLaf in the future?

yes, I think it will be in future releases.

2 Likes