Added a new 2.18.0-pre1 top entry in changelog.rst (dated 2026-02-16) for the GTK3/packaging work on this branch, and preserved the existing 2.17.4 entry instead of rewriting it.

Added a new AppStream release block for 2.18.0-pre1 and restored the prior 2.17.4 release record, so release history remains additive.
Fixed Debian changelog handling by prepending a new pre-release entry 2.18.0~pre1-1 and restoring the historical 2.17.0-1 / 2.17.0-0 entries unchanged.

debian/changelog

@@ -1,3 +1,14 @@
+zoitechat (2.18.0~pre1-1) unstable; urgency=medium
+
+  * New upstream pre-release 2.18.0~pre1.
+  * Debian packaging updates in this branch:
+    - switch package builds to GTK 3 and pass -Dgtk3=true to Meson.
+    - add/install split-package manifests for generated binary packages.
+    - include manpage and MIME package XML in package installs.
+    - adjust CI artifact staging/upload paths for actions/upload-artifact@v4.
+
+ -- ZoiteChat Maintainers <zoitechat@users.noreply.github.com>  Sun, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000
+
 zoitechat (2.17.0-1) unstable; urgency=medium
 
   * Switch Debian build to GTK 3 packaging:

debian/control

@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ Suggests:
  zoitechat-python3,
  zoitechat-otr,
  unifont
-Description: IRC client for GNOME (fork of HexChat 2.17.0 base)
+Description: IRC client for GNOME (fork of HexChat 2.18.0-pre1 base)
  ZoiteChat is a graphical IRC client with a GTK 3 GUI. Features include Python,
  Perl and Lua scripting support, a plugin API, multiple server/channel
  windows, spell checking, multiple authentication methods including SASL, and