Major release with possible enhancements & breaking changes

[brody4hire]

Major

Under consideration, as of February 2019:

• browser platform support using kripken / sql.js as discussed in WIP: initial browser platform #576
• combine this plugin version together with cordova-sqlite-ext, no more separate version to get pre-populated databases and other extra/extended features (Whether to keep separate cordova-sqlite-ext version or not? #529)
• will likely be moved to a new organization name due to personal rebranding (Rebranding #770)

Highly desired (not promised):

• Include typings from DefinitelyTyped (Add plugin typings #768)
• use UTF-8 internal encoding format on Windows in addition to Android, iOS, and macOS (Use UTF-8 encoding for Windows? #652, Major release items #687 (comment))
• link to recommended starting point for Ionic 3
• Arbitrary database location, especially for Android & Windows ref: Database storage in arbitrary path (Android/iOS/macOS/Windows) #681

Breaking changes

• SQLITE_DBCONFIG_DEFENSIVE database option (SQLITE_DBCONFIG_DEFENSIVE flag #838) - to be part of a special major release in January or February 2019
• drop support for old Android versions as discussed in Ending support for old Android versions #771:
  • definite: Android pre-4.0
  • extremely likely: Android 4.0
  • very likely: Android 4.1-4.3
  • planned (open for feedback and discussion): Android 4.4, old armeabi CPU (seems to be replaced by armeabi and arm64-v8a, does not seem to be supported by Android 5.0 and greater)
• error code going away, will be set to 0 in the coming major release (Error code member going away #821)
• drop support for iOS 8.x (was already dropped by cordova-ios@4.4.0)
• drop Android NDK build for x86_64 (Drop Android x86_64 build #772, open for discussion; x86 NDK build will also work on x86_64 device, if no other plugins have NDK build for x86_64)
• legacy location: 0-2 values will no longer be supported; please use location: 'default' or iosDatabaseLocation setting in openDatabase as documented

Possibly breaking changes

• Use of databases with multi-byte UTF-8 characters, control characters, and other special characters may be broken by changes for UTF-8 internal encoding (Use UTF-8 encoding for Windows? #652) on Windows (already NOT RECOMMENDED in the existing documentation)
• iOS/macOS remove workaround for missing objc_arc feature & remove extra @synchronized blocks no longer needed (iOS/macOS backgrounding fix #769; risk of actual breakage is expected to be very low)
• iOS/macOS signal error result in case of attempt to open database with no name in internal JSON interface (internal plugin error) - already done
• Update default page size ref: Update default page size #781

Other

Time permitting:

• SQL result rows with array index access ([...]) in addition to .item(...) member function (Result rows with array & map access brody4hire/cordova-sqlite-ext#71)
• more sensical androidDatabaseImplementation value such as 'system' to select use of system builtin android.database.sqlite access implementation instead of default NDK sqlite-native-driver implementation
• resolve crash issue on Android in case of SELECT X'FFD1FFD2'
• remove internal qid from JavaScript (no longer needed)
• use coffeescript@2 to compile SQLitePlugin.coffee.md
• clarify use of SQLite3 NDK build on Android in documentation
• fix git repo URL in package.json ref: Master #701
• non-static db runner map on Android ref: sql operations hangs on Android #763 (comment)
• Fix CoffeeScript/JavaScript to handle backgroundExecuteSqlBatch error callback as an internal error ref: sql operations hangs on Android #763
• Fix Android implementation to block attempts to open database after onDestroy is called ref: Fix ProGuard issue with map.keySet() on Java 8 #697
• try to fix Travis CI / Circle CI
• check U+0000 behavior on iOS vs Android, Windows, Web SQL, ...
• consistent whole number bindings on all platforms
• other major release changes listed in Major release items #687