AbiWord Weekly News #122, (2002, week 50, released 2002.12.22)
Welcome to this issue 122 of the AbiWord Weekly News.
Follow-ups:
This is two days later than I wanted it out (obviously); however, it looks like I'll be caught for the end of the year! The Debian fanatics have a much stronger sense of humour than I anticipated (or they know me to well), but the Mandrake-lovers made up for it...this week. Additionally, I'll have uploaded this before going into chat, just so Mikey doesn't have to hit reload more than once.
This week in development
A couple of chunks of eye-candy just waiting for you in this issue--the greatest of these is the OS X font clean ups. Frank does quite a bit of work in html, xhtml, phtml...one might say, award winning work, but I don't get to say that. And, a database plugin fresh from Dom and a PERL fix that's illuded developers due to it limited reproducibility because the issue is caused by specific build-types and revisions (often distro specific). Plus, Mandrake users learn how to build a binary! This is good fun!
Quote of the Week
"Is C++ just trying to make my life impossible?
I swear, there's just no right way to do anything in C++, just three kinda-sucky ways."
-- Will LaChance, during a re-implementation of a WordPerfect variant, before a prayer to Linus.
Yes, I really prayed (emailed) Linus.
Last I heard...it apparently worked.
This Issue
And remember, I give you an email address so you can talk to me, in case you're not on ither mailing list.
In this issue:
Editor(s) of this issue: E. A. Zen
If you're interested in using AbiWord for the first time, receiving a more uptodate version, any particular version or special release, feel free to visit the new Latest Releases page.
DISCLAIMER: It should be generally noted that anything said before the "In this issue:" line is purely editorial.
Discussions
Traffic on the developer mailing list has settled at about 200-400 postings per week. This week, interesting topics on the developer list included:
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Commit (HEAD): MacOS X fonts : Hub's latest on the land of Aqua includes improving font appearance in line spacing plus some potential speed improvements. "What's that? Fonts? Hey, Eric, shouldn't that require a screenshot?" Well...Hub thought so; begin your drooling!
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commit: abi: new dialog for HTML export options : Frank adds a dialogue (off by default) for placing PHP script in an html/xhtml document. Hint to Dickie: This is related to the work I was telling you about last time. For the rest of you thinking, "New dialogues require a screenshot," I present to you Frank's screenshot.
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Copy, Paste, and Styles : David has an issue trying to connect to bugzilla. Since most people use http://bugzilla.abisource.com, there is the freakish moment when the domain (anything before abisource.com) won't resolve. Hub informs David that one may also connect via http://www.abisource.com/bugzilla/
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AbiWord Weekly News #119 (2002, week 47) released : Your AWN editor returned for the first time in three weeks. I forwarded هن؟، 's (dunno how that'll come out in ASCII/whatever-encoding) abi-ant ascii art at Alan's request. And, Jeremy and Andrzej sent in some corrections which I made pretty quickly. Note: Jeremy's correction sent offlist was just a message informing that only the nightly tinderbox builds are nolonger available, and that nightly builds for Win32 would continue to be available soon-ish....
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Re: How to include hindi in abiword, translation : Andrew replies to the list on some information that maybe of interest for Linux users whose native language is not available for AbiWord. It's pretty minimalistic in simply stating for Windows users how to get the native encoding while informing Linux users that some googling may be necessary to find a keymap.
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Patch for build of perl bindings : Chris Winne has had some issues with the magical world of PERL, and after some reproducibility, was able to get help from Shane Mason of PerlBox.
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Commit: GDA Database plugin : Far beyond plain, old mail-merge, Dom creates a plugin to allow users to connect to a database for related functions. Though it is, as he puts it, "not the most user-friendly thing in the universe," it is functional and ready, so long as you know a bit of SQL.
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E-mail change in Bugzilla : Karl needs to change his email address, which the version of Bugzilla that AbiSource is using doesn't allow. Hub not only adjusts Karl's email but gives an approximate on the next upgrade of AbiSource's Bugzilla. For those interested, Hub anticipates the chance to upgrade may occur in early (read: first nine months of) 2002.
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Proposed Patch: bug 4419 : Mikey, the same as in Project Blue Ant, sent up a patch to fix a Win32 issue with improperly labeled text boxes in the list dialogue (bug 4419).
Traffic on the user mailing list is sporadic at best. Often, a good topic comes up, but users tend to only respond to the original poster rather than the list (as well), which limits what I would add, as the only lone threads I post are announcements of great interest or importance. This week, interesting topics on the user list included:
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problem installing on Mandrake 9.0 : Dern it! A near PR disaster not caused by me! I mean.... Luis Hurtiz asks why the RPM on the site isn't working on his Mandrake system. Hub's quick response of, "The RPM that we provide is NOT meant to be installed on Mandrake," is interpreted by a couple of users as anti-Mandrakian. As Dom explains, the binaries provided by AbiSource, whether on AbiSource or SourceForge, are provided in turn by developers and users alike; therefore, if a Mandrake binary isn't provided by AbiSource, it wasn't provided by a Mandrake user or developer. Dom also give explicit instructions, here, on how to build an RPM for your system.
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Language (still!) : An ironic title from Bernard Lambey, as it might make more sense if he just used his native French (warning: assumption). From what I can extract, this appears to be another Abiword.Profile issue, where hand editing is required and retention fails. I still stick to blaming RH, but no distro/OS is listed (though it appears POSIX-y). Note to Bernard: Really, if a developer may speak your language (say Hub), the occasional non-English post will be fine; also, there's the option of coming to chat to clear up your problem, irc.gimp.org #abiword .
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1.0.3 crashes/weird fonts on Windows XP Professional : Richard Thomas appears to be having various character, encoding and formatting issues under Windows XP. Concurring with much of the given list is Chris Stovall using Windows Millennium Edition. Perhaps either/or may have added a bug report to reproduce, triage and track....
Traffic outside of AbiSource is monitored and occasionally reported. Today includes a selection from FootNotes.
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Re: AbiWord Weekly News #121 : No one in particular is pleased to see the progression of AbiWord and appreciates how it has stuck with WordProcessor roots.' The development of Abiword has focused purely on the wp-functionality and 2.0's only exception will be the included necessities, which includes tables, more x/html functionality, true .doc and improved .rtf import and export, and much nicer font functionality.
Development
CVS StatsTrack who put in how much and why. And, while you're at it, consider whether you'd like to keep your own cvs build as well. Tables...ooh....
CVS checkins 2002.12.08 - 2002.12.14 | ||
Who | Commits | In summary |
fjfranklin | 40 | Pango consistency, ttfutils fix for Solaris/GCC, new P/X/HTML exporter options (new dialogue, external file support, multi-part documents, MIME-embedding LISP(images in particular)), add am-ET "Amharic (Ethiopia)" )(probably Daniel Yacob's, though not mentioned in commit), add MHT sniffer if eps found, specialize ABI_ROOT (ABI_XX_ROOT) for fribidi builds on Win32 |
msevior | 34 | fix mergecell undo/redo, return race detection to refactored frames, cut/undo for whole tables, fix numerous crashes, begin work on verticle row sizes |
dom | 32 | fix Unix font breakage (remove constness), re-arrange loader closing/getting pixbuf order, improve WMF-size handling, update requirement libwmf2 ≥ 0.2.8, print ps image fix, gda plugin functional framework plusse later mail-merge field inclusion, 4406 patch from Mark Gilbert, UT/UTF8 string assertion fix, pseudo-MSWord export removed, image scale/import fix and bugs ( 1225, 4353, 4391 and 4394 ) |
uwog | 15 |
image dragging more intelligent plusse some code cleanup, |
jeremyd | 9 | fix previous refactoring work |
mpritchett | 9 | Added HTMLOptions Stub to get build to work again, updated project files for MSVC6 for HEAD |
hub | 6 | Commit (HEAD): MacOS X fonts, invert mouse coordination events to correct ruler reference. |
phma | 4 | Amharic string update, system profile, and add to list of languages by Daniel Yacob |
rms | 3 | RPM work: launcher for AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom and template correction to build plugins correctly; Polish update by Adrzej |
plam | 2 | cleanup of fp_VerticalContainer::draw, add dropped negation, apologized to Marc for secret and unexplained reasons |
*jordimas: system-related work is Windows unless stated otherwise.
*phearbear: Johan is missing in action
*hippietrail: Andrew is missing in action
Weekly Prize Patch
Dom, with the help of all those of you who donated to help keep AbiWord great,
re-established the Weekly Prize Patch.
Established at $45 pre-charges (read: the financial companies cut), the prize is awarded by the decision of Martin and Dom,
both of whom must agree on the winner.
Though neither Dom nor Martin may vote for themselves, they posses to "trumps" that allow them to vote for the other,
therefore nullifying that other's vote.
Most importantly, winning is entirely dependent on how lagered-up Martin and Dom are at the time in question.
Patch Prize Winner
The MacOSX port has grown by leaps and bounds in the
past week or two. And for his outstanding work, Hub,
you are this week's prize winner. Congratulations, and
thank you.
Dom
POWs
The concept of a "Project Of the Week" is to single out tasks of major interest that outside developers might be interested in providing assistance to. Until a "best way" of listing POWs come to mind, they shall be listed in a short description. Any user interested is welcome to assist in tackling these POWs. If you know someone who's interested, you can link directly to a POW, in order, they're pow4 (at the top) through pow1 (at the bottom). Reminder to developers, I can't post them if you don't submit them. Additionally, feel free to announce if one of these is finished (in case you don't mention it on the list or in the cvs) Also, what a great way to get money from Dom!
Name: Regression tests for the front-end AbiWord components.
Description: Perform component-specific tests, document procedural changes and open bugs as necessary.
Advertisement: Play the game and get a hero credit; more recognition than QA!
Recommended Outline: Email abiwordtesting@matthewcraig.com and include available system types, AbiVersions and previous testing experience. Receive testing instructions which will take one to two hours to complete.
Comments: No experience required. A good way to be introduced to AbiWord contribution efforts.
System: Any and every OS.
AbiVersion: 1.0.3 only (for now atleast)
Challenge level: *.... 1 star out of 5
Current Heros: "Some of the most active were 'Mikey', Tom Purl and Eric Blom."
Name: Style and/or Diction Plugins (bug 3281) (do either/or or both!)
Description: build a plugin to allow Abiword to check style and diction
Advertisement: me got no grammar fixer, help mes can't you?
Recommended Outline: Create a plugin for AbiWord that allows the checking of style and diction. The source code for the gnu style and diction tools is available here: http://www.gnu.org/software/diction/diction.html
As a prototype you might be able to hack something using the AbiCmd plugin to wrap the style and diction tools. The AikSaurus (Thesaurus) plugin should also be a helpful guide.
When you get the basics working you could try to get Abiword to display green squiggle underlines to mark errors, or otherwise work on a good user interface.
Comments: A great way to start playing with the AbiSource
System: Any OS will be fine.
Challenge level: ***.. 3 stars out of 5
Current Hero: The mastery of Kung Fu has yet to appear.
Name: Fix Windows printing boogs (bug 3239)
Description: Tackle some or more of the various bugs that cause issues in attempting to print under Windows
Advertisement: ????????????????????????????? (no, that's really the ad!)
Recommended Outline: You must become magical to know how to fix this.
Comments: "The problem is that printing on Windows is broken with several brand of printer drivers (see dependent bugs). It appears that with standard PostScript driver it does not happen. It appears also that version 0.9.6 had less problems than 1.0.1 so we might find out where the regression is bu diffing.
"Please, be sure to read all the bug reports. Even partial fix are accepted.
"Fixes must be done against STABLE tree and possibly ported to HEAD (the later can be done as a second step)."
This comes from Hub
Notice: This may already have been fixed with the libiconv upgrade, stay tuned!
System: Windows
Challenge level: ****. 4 stars out of 5
Current Hero: Not one MoFo yet has had the Huevos for this POW
Name: More Windows Maintainers
Description: Jordi could always use help
Advertisement: Help free people from the oppression of MSWord today!
Recommended Outline: You must become magical to know how to fix this.
Comments: Wouldn't be a bad idea to start with the printing bug...
System: Windows
Challenge level: ****. 4 stars out of 5
Current Hero: Jordi Mas
Bug Update
Bug Votes
These are the week's Top 20 Bugs in the categories problems and requests for enhancements. Influence next week's results by casting your own votes. Ah, another release, another change of what bugs are on the "Most Wanted" list.
Top 20 Problems | |||
ID | Votes | Milestone | Summary |
3269 | 130 | 1.0.x | Crashing on printing |
3525 | 90 | --- | font incorrectly printed and spaced |
376 | 80 | 2.0 | File assosciate problems for all file types with Win32Slu...... |
1406 | 61 | 1.0.x | xhtml documents fail to open: "Bogus html document" msg |
428 | 57 | 2.0 | Hitting return at the beginning of a paragraph changes fo...... |
3457 | 51 | --- | Crash under GNOME when printing |
1747 | 42 | 2.0 | background colour of text selection is always grey |
4432 | 36 | --- | GTK2 Input Methods Unavailable |
2362 | 30 | 1.0.x | AbiWord only prints across half of page |
3845 | 30 | --- | Scroll wheel reversed when a Windows XP setting selected |
3970 | 30 | --- | changing layouts can lead to showing other location than ...... |
4049 | 30 | --- | Crash on open file from floppy or network drive. |
4057 | 30 | --- | Thesaurus Shift+F7 keybindings shortcuts consistancey |
3778 | 29 | --- | Hanging indent setting ignores units |
4216 | 29 | --- | Wrong line length, wont justify either... |
2868 | 25 | 2.0 | character widths are not calculated correctly for some fonts... |
1394 | 17 | 2.0 | on-screen landscape actually prints portrait in Win95 |
2299 | 15 | 1.0.x | Prints incorrect margins with split page. |
2924 | 15 | --- | printing abw documents defaults to black pages |
Top 20 Requests For Enhancement | |||
ID | Votes | Milestone | Summary |
1261 | 573 | 2.0 | Need to support footnotes and endnotes |
2183 | 248 | Future | Fully Support OpenOffice's XML file format |
1374 | 96 | Future | [RFE] print odd and/or even pages only (for front & back ... |
1950 | 88 | Future | Wish for automatic Table of Contents |
2565 | 72 | Future | Add true MS Word .doc export capability |
1144 | 67 | Future | Improve KWord import/export filters |
2490 | 41 | 2.0 | Finish Cocoa Frontend |
1929 | 36 | Future | Hyphenation is missing in Abiword |
515 | 35 | Future | columns change should only affect selected text |
2186 | 30 | Future | The insert page break setting is lost for custom styles |
2365 | 30 | --- | AbiWord needs 'view codes' |
3668 | 28 | --- | Support for window tabs instead of separate windows |
2219 | 27 | Future | AUTONUM wanted in [ Insert/Field/Number ] menu |
2296 | 25 | Future | doc import: footnotes |
2169 | 24 | Future | Line numbering |
1935 | 22 | Future | inconsistecy re "units" selection in 3 different places |
1762 | 20 | 2.0 | import html |
3233 | 20 | 2.0 | New Language preference menu |
3419 | 20 | Future | [RFE] Add microspacing feature (tracking) for characters |
This shouldn't be here.
Resolved Bugs
In the past week, the following Bugs have been verified as fixed. The listed Bugs have all been put in either CLOSED or RESOLVED mode as FIXED. Can you believe I said QA will return next week when it's been here (or not been here) for three weeks? Final reminder, owners are the squishers and qa are the flushers (in case there's some question).
One other note, and this will apply across the bug area when the idea of credit comes up,
Bugs Resolved This Week | |
Resolution | Number |
Resolved | 32 |
Verified | 16 |
Closed | 11 |
This Week's Bug Squishers: | |
Verified | Name |
22 | Dave "Still Kickin' Class" Null |
10 | Sam "I am...bloody well not a Dr. Seuss character" TH |
8 | Dom "Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth" Lachowicz |
7 | Martin "There's a newsletter?" Sevior |
5 | Frank "No more jokes about committing in my sleep!" Franklin |
4 | Jordi "This is just a practice spiking of the Eggnog" Mas |
2 | Hubert "CRT's are PERFECT Holiday decorations!" Figuiere |
1 | Matthew "Maybe you should make the POW flash" Craig |
Flushed Bugs
What you see here are either invalid bug reports or duplicates. So, basically, I'm showing everyone else how doofy you are sometimes. On average*, confirming duplication or non-validity takes four minutes and thirty-five seconds. That's the equivelant of 8LLOC of time for Dom. Any other questions why development isn't as fast as you want?
Non-Bugs Flushed this Week | |
Flushed | Number |
Invalid | 7 |
Duplicate | 16 |
Won't Fix | 2 |
This Week's Most Active Bug Flushers: | |
Verified | Name |
21 | Dave "No one really takes me seriously" Null |
2 | Mark "Another reason to mention the $20" Gilbert |
2 | No One "I take Dave seriously" |
Caught Bugs
Bug spotters, beware, we're watching you!
Bugs Found this Week | |
Caught | Number |
Unconfirmed | 0, as in, still nothing (bug?) |
New | 7 |
ReOpened | 1 |
Release HackDown
This is an AbiWord Weekly News original concept: The Release Hackdown. In the table below, you can watch what bugs are being fixed in preparation for the very next release. Check the key at the bottom to understand formatting.
No pressure, guys, I'm sure only 2000 or so people will be watching to see what you do weekly. That breaks down to about 285 people daily and 12 people hourly, so, it's like being peeked at once every five minutes, literally. "Isn't that veird!?"
HackDown to 1.0.4 | |
Bug ID | Description |
|
down arrow on last line must goto EOL |
|
Can't import Cocoa RTF |
2223 | cannot open psiWord files (re-opened) |
|
crash on zoom |
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Cursor not initially in hyperlink dialog |
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Smart Insert Hyperlink, check to see if selected text is a hyperlink |
|
rtf sets top and bottom margins to 0 (re-opened) |
3239 | [META] Windows printing bugs |
3453 | Crashes repeatably while attempting to edit header |
3488 | Weird crash when editing |
|
Crash when deregistering plugins |
3561 | Crash on embedded AbiWord in Evolution |
3625 | Multi Substitution waste memory |
3632 | editing the numbering style of a roman numeral list hangs/crashes |
3645 | Page setup has a problem with margins in millimeters |
3678 | [STABLE]Crash when editing this Word document |
|
XAbiword version for bundle not properly set. |
3697 | [crash] blank abiword document viewed as text (View Source) |
3755 | AbiWord crashes during import of this MS Word document |
3766 | Dvorak Keyboard |
|
Loading World.abw crashes AbiWord" |
3858 | export wrong content when choosing export to "Simplified Chinese GB_2312-80" encoded text |
|
Too Many Curly Brackets in Exported LaTeX (duplicate) |
|
The spellchecker has gone gonzo since upgrading from 1.0.2 to 1.0.3 |
4068 | Crash when mouse leaves selected header |
4070 | [META] crash on load bugs |
4093 | Program Terminates on Open |
4097 | Save dialog file extension weirdness |
4125 | .doc file does not import correctly (BiDi issues). |
4183 | Save/reload puts spurious characters in simple file in 1.0.3 |
|
Phantom Text appears after loading file with custom tab settings |
4283 | // comments expose lots of bugs |
4304 | crash when changing font of certain text (e.g. page numbers) |
4363 | [STABLE] Abi crashes after document open/close if text selected |
4449 | EV_EditBindingMap::removeBinding() leaks |
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removed from list: | 3324 |
*Strike-out bug numbers and greyed text are resolved. *Bold bug numbers and bold text are assigned. *Italicized bug numbers and italicized text are unconfirmed. *Removed bugs are a sign you're being screwed. |
By the way, 4449 is assigned...I'll mark it as such now.
Open Source, Open Books. Approximately once a month, don't hedge bets, I'll get this updated by asking (read: whining at) dom. In the meantime, whenever you want to see how much is in and where it gets diverted, just peek down here.
Current Balance: $1616.00
Expenditures: $860
Unique contributors: 58*
Contributions: $2723.00 | |
In order to donate money, you must have a PayPal account. If you do not already have one, the links above will allow you to open one. Please consider putting cinamod@hotmail.com in the "Referral ID" field, which results in a one-time $5 donation from PayPal to AbiWord development if you verify your account. Note that only donations of $3 or more are of interest. Sorry, this is due to the fees imposed by credit card companies and PayPal. |