Major Update Notice

We are excited to announce Kingfisher 8, a major update that brings several important enhancements and features to our library:

• Full Support for Swift Concurrency: Kingfisher 8 now fully supports Swift concurrency under strict mode, allowing for more efficient and simplified asynchronous programming.
• Compatibility with Swift 6: This update includes support for Swift 6, aligning Kingfisher with the latest advancements in the Swift programming language.
• Language Backward Compatibility: Despite the new updates, Kingfisher 8 continues to support Swift 5, ensuring that your existing projects remain compatible.

[!WARNING] This version introduces breaking changes. If you are planning to upgrade, please review the migration guide to ensure a smooth transition. The migration guide is available here: Migration to Kingfisher 8.

Kingfisher v8 is currently in an early alpha release. While most of the development work has been completed, the library may undergo further changes to adapt to any updates in future versions of Xcode 16.

We warmly invite you to try out this version to take full advantage of the new Swift language features and improvements. Should you encounter any issues or have feedback, please do not hesitate to open an issue. Your feedback and support are crucial in helping evolve the library.

Happy coding!

Add

• Full Swift 6 support. Now Kingfisher compiles with both Swift 5 and Swift 6 language mode. #2259 @onevcat
• Strict Swift Concurrency prepared. All necessary public APIs in Kingfisher are now async compatible. Kingfisher is also now built under strict concurrency mode. #2239 @onevcat
• Xcode 16 support. Explicitly built modules option is enabled and now Kingfisher can get better build performance under Xcode 16. #2260 @onevcat
• Refined documentation and beautified tutorials with DocC. Check it out here! #2160 @onevcat

Fix

• MD5 is deprecated by the system. Now the hash method for file URL is replaced with SHA256. #2117 @kmaschke85
• Now the view extension methods are created in a more generic way, which provides better compatibility and extensibility. #2244 @Mx-Iris @onevcat

Prebuilt Frameworks

To accommodate users of both Xcode 15 and Xcode 16, Kingfisher will offer two variants of the prebuilt framework on the release page:

• Kingfisher-${version}.zip: Built with the Swift 5 compiler in Xcode 15, this framework is compatible with both Xcode 15 and 16. It does not include optimizations from Swift 6 and Xcode 16.
• Kingfisher-swift6-${version}.zip: Built with the Swift 6 compiler in Xcode 16, this binary is exclusively for use with Xcode 16. As we eventually phase out support for Xcode 15, the Swift 5 variant will be discontinued in future releases.

This information pertains only to users who prefer to install Kingfisher with the xcframework bundle. If you are building Kingfisher from source, such as through Swift Package Manager or CocoaPods, you have the flexibility to choose the Xcode version and the language version you prefer. Kingfisher v8 is compatible with both Swift 5 (Xcode 15 and Xcode 16 with Swift 5 language version) and Swift 6 (Xcode 16).