Skipper 3.5.1 runs natively on Apple Silicon and Windows on ARM

Skipper goes native, everywhere. Version 3.5.1 is ready for you.

Hello everyone,

We hope you are doing well! Skipper 3.5.1 is out, and this one is mostly about where it runs.

Until now Skipper shipped a single Windows package (32-bit), and on an Apple Silicon Mac it ran through Rosetta translation. With 3.5.1 that changes: Apple Silicon runs natively, Windows on ARM gets its own build, and Windows finally has a native 64-bit package.

The new version is available on the Skipper download site. On Windows x86 and on macOS you can also simply launch the application and let the auto-update system take care of it. If you are on Windows on ARM, please read the note below before you update.

Native Apple Silicon, no Rosetta

Skipper is now a Universal 2 application, so one Skipper.app carries both the Apple Silicon and the Intel build. On an M-series Mac it runs on the real processor instead of through a translation layer, and Activity Monitor reports Kind = Apple. One download works on both Mac generations, and the package still supports macOS 10.15 and later.

Native Windows on ARM

Windows on ARM devices (Snapdragon X, Surface, Windows Dev Kit) now get their own ARM64 build and run on the real processor, without x64 emulation.

One catch: the in-app auto-update does not know about ARM machines yet, so it would move you back to the emulated x64 package. If you are on Windows on ARM, please download the ARM build from our website by hand. We are working on teaching the updater about architectures.

A native 64-bit Windows package

There is now a native x64 build next to the existing 32-bit one. The 32-bit process was capped near 2 GB of address space, which is exactly the ceiling you hit on very large models. The 64-bit package removes it.

The CLI and AI automation interface from the previous release runs on all of these architectures too.

Migrations that now actually run

Six fixes here, all from real support cases. They share the same shape: Skipper generated a migration that the database then refused, or generated an empty one.

• Laravel and Knex: changing a property of a column that already has a unique index (for example NOT NULL to nullable) no longer tries to create that index a second time. That is the migration that used to die on "Duplicate key name".
• Laravel and Knex: changing a named index now replaces the previous definition before creating the updated one, and rolling it back restores its previous type, name, and columns.
• Laravel: removing a property from a named index no longer produces an empty migration.
• Laravel: after() is no longer generated inside change(), where it only forced a full table rebuild on MySQL and was ignored by the other database platforms.
• Knex: turning a primary key into a plain unique column no longer drops an index that does not exist.

Doctrine 2 attributes survive your code formatter

If your project runs Prettier or PHP-CS-Fixer, the formatter adds a trailing comma inside PHP 8 attribute lists, and the next export used to turn that into an empty attribute and invalid PHP. That is fixed now, and the same fix covers docblock annotation argument lists.

Attribute overrides got two fixes as well. The nested ORM\Column inside ORM\AttributeOverrides is now written with the new keyword, so PHP no longer rejects the generated file, and importing overrides no longer loses their content.

A refreshed foundation

We also updated the pieces Skipper is built on: Qt 5.15.19 (KDE Patch Collection), OpenSSL 3.6.3, Boost 1.91, and the rest of the third-party library stack. This is maintenance rather than a feature, but it is where the security fixes come from.

A note for Linux users

The Linux package is now built on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and requires glibc 2.35 or newer. It runs on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Debian 12, Fedora 36, RHEL / Rocky / AlmaLinux 10, and their later releases. If you are on RHEL or Rocky 9, or on Debian 11, this build will not start, and version 3.5.0 remains the right one for you. We are sorry about that. We would rather say it here than let you find out after the download.

For the full list of changes please visit our change log.

Do you miss something?

We will be glad if you let us know! If something does not work as you expect, if you have an idea for a future version, or if you just want to tell us how you use Skipper, please reach out to us through our support forum or send us an email at [email protected].

Thank you for using Skipper.

Wishing you a wonderful day!

Your Skipper Team