[ghex] Update NEWS, appdata and ALPHA-INFO.txt for 4.alpha.2

[Logan Rathbone <larathbone src gnome org>]

commit 9405045a6ca14e2fd01cc4c16f34c7438d8a14df
Author: Logan Rathbone <poprocks gmail com>
Date:   Wed Dec 29 17:43:05 2021 -0500

    Update NEWS, appdata and ALPHA-INFO.txt for 4.alpha.2

 ALPHA-INFO.txt                        |  6 +----
 NEWS                                  | 47 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 data/org.gnome.GHex.appdata.xml.in.in |  1 +
 3 files changed, 49 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
---
diff --git a/ALPHA-INFO.txt b/ALPHA-INFO.txt
index ae49ce7..7ec696c 100644
--- a/ALPHA-INFO.txt
+++ b/ALPHA-INFO.txt
@@ -38,11 +38,7 @@ Blockers for beta:
  - HexBufferIface (and to a lesser extent, GtkHex and HexDocument): things
    need to cook a bit more to ensure the API will be stable before moving to
    beta. This GObject Interface is quite new, and I want to ensure the API is not
-   missing anything glaring before locking it into place. Specifically missing
-   is...
-
- - ... HexBufferIface/HexDocument: Implement asynchronous API for read/save
-   operations.
+   missing anything glaring before locking it into place for beta.
 
 Blockers for stable release:
 
diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 64103fb..fc0d3ec 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,50 @@
+==============
+GHex 4.alpha.2
+==============
+
+As can be seen from the git logs, many commits have been made since 4.alpha.1.
+The plurality of the effort went into getting as close as possible to an
+API/ABI I'm happy with respect to libgtkhex, and documenting same. To that end,
+the GtkHex widget has been renamed to HexWidget, so that we don't pollute the
+GTK namespace. I recognize that this has been its name for 20+ years, but since
+this is a new impending major release, API can be broken. It is not part of GTK
+and never has been, so placing it under that namespace was confusing.
+
+I was on the fence about calling this a beta, but there have been so many
+changes, so I'll let things cook for a bit and ensure that the API is where I
+want it to be for libgtkhex 4.0.0 before declaring a beta and being in an API
+freeze.
+
+Changes and Bugfixes (Logan Rathbone):
+
+- lib: Rename GtkHex to HexWidget
+- lib/docs: Initial API documentation (gi-docgen required)
+- GUI/settings: support quadwords grouping
+- lib/app: asynchronous APIs for many operations, and integrate with
+  application features
+- Error handling improvements
+- HexBufferIface: Standardize on GFile when it comes to file handling
+- HexWidget: Rework the "busy" spinner to be at the widget level
+- lib: Rework data types so that we have a minimum cursor pos and file
+  size that works with files larger than 2 GB
+- HexBufferMmap: improvements, fixes and optimizations
+- HexWidget: dynamically sized offset column, and fix calculation of offset
+  cols required (#41; thanks to Jonas Stein for reporting)
+- findreplace: watch/busy feedback and cancellable
+- converter: a11y update
+- meson: add `introspection` and `gtk_doc` options
+- meson: remove `experimental-mmap` option; replace with `buffer-backend` (with
+  mmap being the new default, where supported; see meson_options.txt)
+- lib: Make some raw structs into boxed types for GI
+- HexWidget: restore hex_widget_set_geometry API
+- Various code cleanups and miscellaneous bugfixes
+
+Translation Updates:
+
+- Yuri Chornoivan (uk)
+- Enrico Nicoletto (pt_BR)
+- Piotr Drąg (update POTFILES.in)
+
 ==============
 GHex 4.alpha.1
 ==============
diff --git a/data/org.gnome.GHex.appdata.xml.in.in b/data/org.gnome.GHex.appdata.xml.in.in
index 7c22b2b..9a02fdd 100644
--- a/data/org.gnome.GHex.appdata.xml.in.in
+++ b/data/org.gnome.GHex.appdata.xml.in.in
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@
     <kudo>UserDocs</kudo>
   </kudos>
   <releases>
+    <release version="4.alpha.2" date="2021-12-29" type="development" />
     <release version="4.alpha.1" date="2021-12-16" type="development" />
     <release version="3.41.1" date="2021-12-04"/>
     <release version="3.41.0" date="2021-09-24"/>