AbiWord Weekly News #128

AbiWord Weekly News #128, (2003, week 04, released 2003.01.26)

Welcome to this issue 128 of the AbiWord Weekly News.

Follow-ups:

Though no word exists on where to get Jeremy's wallpaper, news does travel on the subject of Martin's footnote work. Martin has begun incorporating footnotes and endnotes to share the same architecture and therefore code. With 1.0.4 now promptly out the door, I've been told that Project Blue Ant will gear back up into testing. This time, perhaps, more (or at least some) of the bugs found will be addressed. We're pleased to announce that, yes, the developers' releases (and the future AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom) can indeed handle MSWord documents with tables (in case you kept missing that). And if you jump to The 2.0 HackDown, you'll find a copy of Dom's roadmap message (also mentioned in the developers' mailing list. A week after a double prize patch announcement...no more announcements (conspiracy theories welcome).

This week in development

Lee Harr single-handedly and unintentionally started an extensive discussion that nearly turned holy war over the subject of insert vs. over-write mode. Randy thanks contributors to the Twiki and has a special message for those interested in participating. Hub gets back to a little hot Cocoa with a build fix, just in time for the freezing of the cvs trees. In fact, Hub even goes on what Johan calls a "warning rampage." Raphael Finkel creates a how to on the list for those interested in assisting in translation. And hey, does anyone remember when I told you that Dom's dead GNOME died when he found out he was dead? Well, Dom begins the ground work for the future of GNOME optimized builds in 2.0.

Silliness of the Week

Last week, you had the option to view a silly image showing off the difference between the ideas of superscript and subscript. That had a nasty table import, so, I want to show you this, functioning tables in the Word Perfect Library.

Also, this week, I learned Dom had announced, "I'm not accepting bugs against Eric Zen's demented brain." I didn't close this bug, as all anti-me bugs are redundant. Ok, technically, I forgot that I really should have moved it to closed, but Hub just got that, I see.

Also, a smashing piece of news not reported on Wired about a programme Frank didn't actually write:

"A new craze hits the internet as the popular e-monk programme has more downloads off of savannah than any previous project on sourceforge. The RIAA denounced the e-monk as a tool for committing copyright infringement, but the Vatican denounced the concept that a monk would steal."

Next week, a follow-up interview* with Frank about his e-monk project and how its success has been affecting him. If you have questions that you would like to see asked regarding e-monk, Frank or anything else Frank knows about (like waffles), feel free to write me in advance.

*follow-up interview: If Frank's not up for faking an interview with me, one will be fictionalized in it's place.

This Issue

And remember, I give you an email address so you can talk to me, in case you're not on either mailing list.

In this issue:

Discussion
Development
Bug Update
Release HackDown

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:

Announce: 2.0 release plan : Dom gives the details of what will lead to AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom. Go here for a one time listing in the AWN. The March 1st freeze only affects would-be new features; polish on pre-existing features will still be allowed. Will and Marc hope to have a decent WordPerfect plugin ready by this time, and Will hopes to clean up work on the frame refactoring code. Questions about tables to rectangular selection generalizations leave Martin wondering how MSWord implements pasting of such objects; if you have the answer, I'm sure he'd love to hear from you.
commit: abiword2.nsi : Jeremy's NSIS2 work verges on making English just another language. As Jeremy points out to Andrew, the main reason with the semi-hardcoding of English comes from not wanting a different build for every language. Jeremy takes a good look at what it will take to push all standing logic on maintaining English obsolete.
INS : This was fun. Andrzej learns what a "hornet's nest" is when he mentions this one simple concept. For years, even before there was such a thing as a personal computer, when there were no "word processors" but text editors, the concept of the Insert key and the Delete key in these conditions have been P*ing people off. In fact, the first official complaint is just under twenty-eight years to the day (March 18th, Michael Warren). As some of you more casual users may have accidentally noticed, the delete key can, at times, result in an odd behaviour, one where typing automatically over-writes the letter beneath the cursor. Novice to casual computer users often go into a total state of panic as they watch their documents disappear, letter by letter. Andrzej repeats a mistake Alan made some time ago- -asking for a warning to the occurence. Dom closes this anytime he sees it. If the concept of a warning (or a virtual LED light or whatnot, or my preference, a system beep) were to appear in a usability guide or the GNOME HIG, Dom might be more welcome to it. At the same time, Andrew starts considering the benefits of unofficial patches, much like separately maintained kernel trees. He and others believe there could be some benefits to those who would devote the time to such work. Good luck to anyone who tries anything in reference to any idea that incurs Dom's wrath.
INS, caret colour, etc. : I'm breaking chronological order for the sake of sanity. Thomas, being the diplomat that he is, has gone into his own means of warning the casual user, on top of the Nedit example. The cursor itself is to change when in over-write mode. Nice to know for the more casual readers; however, those of you interested in development may want to read on about the evils of XOR. In short, it's limitedly implemented on platforms (not even existent on some), it doesn't have its own means of redrawing (instead, it does quite a bit of handing off to the windowing system), and it's the cause of much of Abi's existing pixel dirt (which now has its own bugzilla complaint area).
commit: Initial Barbarism support documentation : Jordi begins to document the method of supporting barbarisms. In case you forgot from two dozen AWN's ago, barbarisms are incorrect terms, due to spelling and usage, that often occur where more than one language is sufficiently common in an area. Jordi and others came up with a means of supporting the issue via xml files for each language set. I'm sure you're welcome to help (otherwise, why document?).
"can't open font" at startup : Font problems still happening in head. The cause appears to be non-scalable fonts; Dom explains that, to paraphrase, when font config returns non-scalable fonts on start-up, Abiword "chokes on that garbage." Detailed explanations and hopes for a work around detailed therein.
More Contributors to the TWiki : Randy thanks those of you who have recently been posting to the AbiTwiki (that is just the cutest li'l word). He also reminds those of you who are now posting or considering posting to the AbiTwiki that any help you may need can be attained by asking the list. However, it is recommended that you check out the twiki home for help on AbiSource first. Anyone amused by the concept of a TwikiTwiki? Toki Poga.
End Notes. : Martin discusses Patrick's old work on the 1.0.x endnotes and how to implement them in head. A short but detailed dialogue with Tomas discusses the fun and misfortune of MSWord's pattern of controlling & connecting endnotes and other references. Both Martin and Tomas would like to re-use a great deal of the footnote work; however, Martin wants to hear Patrick's opinion on the best means of implementing said work.
commit: Footnotes exported to/imported from RTF. : Martin implements his glorious footnote work into the RTF filters. Though Microsoft doesn't support LaTeX style footnotes*, many other features otherwise available are hoped to be implemented.
Commit (HEAD): MacOS X work : Hub appears to have returned to doing work on OS X, which will make many a Ricci-like kid's day a happy one ^_^
Announce: Tree closed for 1.1.3 and Announce: 1.1.3 release : These threads contain the official announcements for the preparation and releases of both 1.1.3 and 1.0.4. For good measure, I'm going to also mention Thank you to all developers for 1.1.3 from a very happy Alberto Cabello Sanchez; the phrase "killer app" is used ^_^
Commit (STABLE): slender, firm, incredibly sexy address space : Mark wants a nobel prize for altering some arcane code used to get around the 256 character limitation on gtk1. Though he's all up on binary shrinkage and enhanced stability, the slow process of antiquation is beginning to take hold. We look forward to Mark's future donation to the AbiFund.
Commit: GNOME work Commit: make gnome build link, run : The man who declared GNOME dead has begun laying the framework for the future "specially build for GNOME" option of AbiWord. This means all that fun Bonobo stuff and all the other environmentally friendly features will start popping up. Yay GNOME!
commit: Layout horizontally with screen units. : Cleaning up layout using Tomas' work on screen units, Martin begins an adventure on the topic of how to map a document's layout to the screen. This discussion covers a variety of topics: The beauty of XFT, Questions to Tomas about his units work, Not jumping the gun for a good idea, Rounding errors messing with fonts and Subpixels for proper mapping.
translation issue, .po and .strings related questions : Jeremy starts looking for the source of a simple problem with why some English appears where it's not welcome, only to find a small project with a couple opinions of "what we've been doing wrong all this time." As is expected in these circumstances, Dom reminds whomever has the KungFu to tackle the issue that, "the proper way to create patches or diffs for AbiWord development is cvs diff -u > file.diff or 'the unified diff format.' "
(Fwd) Multilingual AbiWord? (Russian/Linux) : Ever need to work with two languages in the same document? Sakari Aaltonen's wife needs to for creating documents for the Russki classes she teaches. Assuming one succeeds at the installation of the necessary fonts, Rui's got the cure for the spell checking blues.
AbiWord's printing architecture : Robert Roebling, an author of the wxWindows library, is curious as to how AbiWord implements its printing architecture. While Tomas explains why AbiWord has shifted away from Pango in relation to portability issues, Dom goes into the details of how AbiWord manages printing control, fontage and so forth. Martin refers to the units discussion to explain that not even AbiWord has completely decided on the best solution to the issues Robert's asking about.
Newby: getting started on Win32 compilation : John Coonrod is interested in helping AbiWord make its way to "two-point-oh," and is trying to get past the compiling stage. Dom recommends checking in with Mike Pritchett or Jordi Mas for some help in getting started with Windows.
How to do translations : Raphael Finkel places a cute HowTo to the list for those interested in helping with the translations of AbiWord. Andrzej has his own thought (and script) that he'd like to contribute to the discussion. Dom pops in with a "got there first" concept by including a quickie about --dumpstrings.
commit: Code for formatting Footnotes/Endnotes. : Martin creates a new framework dialogue for formatting both footnotes and endnotes. Stay tuned for more developments on the footnotes/endnotes saga.
EncodingManager usage note : Andrew proposes a fifth means of fetching native encoding to prevent problems from occurring where to allow for encodings that, under some builds, become mutually exclusive to each other. Though he originally explains he can't afford the bill to do the work right away, that funny li'l internet cafe haunter throws in the work anyhow.

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 importance or points of great interest. This week, interesting topics on the user list included:

Re: insert / overwrite mode and Change cursor shape in overwrite mode : Lee Harr, he who'd dare inspire Andrzej, started this whole mess in the middle of the night. It's all bloody Lee's fault. Let's burn him at the stake! Well, ok, it was a simple question followed by a simple suggestion, but...you did read INS, right? It's really quite amazing how little of what happened in the developers' list returned to the user list. One might even venture to think that this was just a footnote had they not seen what happened in the developers' list.
Paras : Charles Smyth wishes to do some manual document cleaning, e.g. getting rid of extra paragraph marks, etc. Many major word processors allow this feature, and it is quite a useful one. In fact, Martin is asking for votes to encourage the completion of this RFE. Dom has several bugs under [META] Find/Replace bugs and enhancements. However, he specifically pointed to these: Make control characters work with find/replace (paragraph, linebreak, tab, etc), RFE - Enable a find/replace option to search for formatting codes and Advanced Find/Replace. Though these are all related to find&replace, there is one bug with some decent votage that could be considered when creating the means for some of these other RFE's: AbiWord needs 'view codes'. Of course, I say lots of stuff.

Traffic outside of AbiSource is monitored and occasionally reported. Today includes a selection from FootNotes.

compile issue : No one in particular has had problems compiling from CVS. Marc recommends filing a bug report or joining the chat (#abiword on irc.gimp.org). This is just a reminder that, if you've followed the instructions and can't build, it's probably not your fault. When you ask for help, you help us help others. I apologize for the after-school special moment.
Re: AbiWord 1.1.3 and 1.0.4 Release : No one in particular is curious how capable MSWord and table import has developed. The answer appears to be a unanimous, "beautifully."
Re: AbiWord 1.1.3 and 1.0.4 Release : Having problems with FontConfig 2.1? So was gerla, who receive help from no one in particular. Said problem was caused by having more than one copy of XRender and not removing the X11 font path from fonts.conf. Technically, the latter causes a relating problem, but should be kept in mind.

*LaTeX style footnotes: The [n] implementation used by many scientific journals, which is the default means for AbiWord, because they're Martin's favourite ^_^

Development

CVS Stats

Track 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 2003.01.19 - 2003.01.25
Who	Commits	In summary
dom	90	psell compile fix, code cropping & file clearing, Remember, don't pollute; help keep code clean & green! rework/refactor caret insert mode, begin GNOME special optimizations framework, unbreak xp & posix builds, add `virtual` keyword for spelling, fix funny bug where the spelling dialogue was editable, po->strings fixes from raphael, and bugs ( 3348, 4526, 4527 and 4542, )
mpritchett	85	expat upgrade
msevior	63	Footnotes: work in justified paragraphs, deletable, export/import/cut/copy/paste in RTF, corner case bug fixed; nasty hack to prevent insert symbol from crashing on systems with numerous fonts- -later changed array to vector and made sure symbol fonts were drawn on posix, layout in screen units which fixes justification issues, crash on print fix, formatted a footnotes/endnotes dialogue
phearbear*	33	extra graphics context bug fix, package update, clipboard memory leak, drawChars use off set (italics look nicer), implemented setLineProperties, Mark Revisions dialogue fix (previous version was "sanity check not included"), optimizations and fixes to graphics, dialogue password fixes for UTF8 and memory leak, language dialogue has the li'l dictionary next to them when you have the li'l dictionary on your system, OSHasBidiSupport() function added and another memory leak fix, cleanups Remember, don't pollute; help keep code clean & green! removed extensive amounts of commented (and obsolated) gtk reminents, pixel dirt cleanup, added cache for getHeight, package fix for launcher (corrected to abisuite's actual directory), "fix the qnx build after hub's warning rampage" (@: datetime insert)
tomas_f	33	Win32: Bidi work removed unnecessary UCS4->utf8 conversion, more processing to WM_INPUTLANGCHANGE, fixed toolbar bugs and added comments in frame implementation; INS/OVR character handling, added missing initialisers to ispell code, language methodes bug fix, removed superfluous new/delete functionality to TextRun, FRIBIDI_TYPE_IGNORE added to recognized fribidi character types, xp bidi fixes, added missing _fixInsertionPointCoords() to setBlockFmt(), MSWord97 bidi fix, add AV_CHG_MOTION to all formatting buttons, donut fix??? Donut fix???? DOM OWES DONUTS!?, I dunno, "donut fix," bidi fixes for proper arabic shaping (not wierd run-together broken squiggly things)
hippietrail	24	removed unused variable in RTF import, massive refactoring of ispell code--moving to private members of ISpellChecker class for the old pointer-based function work (done via changing language to C++ from the pre-existing C work), UT_ICONV_INVALID instead of -1 now used in all ut iconv routines, UT_iconv_isValid() now checks iconv validity
hub	16	pbx project updated to remove absolute path, project files updated (match up with hippitrail's refactoring) & general update-i-ness, Cocoa build fix by changing saveRect() and restoreRect(), Cocoa keyboard optimization, "hub's warning rampage,"
cuenca	3	fixed the startup delay due to Xft
dchart	2	Update 1.1.3 Changelog to 22/1/03
jeremyd	2	string extraction to enable translations
jordimas*	2	property sheet fix
mgilbert	2	Commit (HEAD): Don't free() stuff over and over and over and over and..., foreported something to the unix encoding manager I didn't quite catch
fjfranklin	1	build fix for non-Xft
phma	1	Malay string update by Sharuzzaman Ahmat Raslan
plam	1	remove redundant #ifdefs
rms	1	initial work towards gnome2 rpms
uwog	1	partial removal of a patch for columns because it was "just plain wrong."

*jordimas: system-related work is Windows unless stated otherwise.
*phearbear: system-related work is QNX unless stated otherwise.

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.

And the award goes to:

No One!
No one was awarded the prize between the 19th and 25th of January.

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).

Name: 4465
Description: This bug contains a compilation of numerous spelling-related bugs. Interested parties can do simple work, like Q&A to see what's still there, to more complex work, like dialogue fixin' and locale conversion If you have a current Abi and some time, you, too, can help
Advertisement: My spelring dilog isn nt ther
Recommended Outline: Whatever's easiest for you
Comments: All in all, there's something for everyone in there.
System: Any and every OS.
AbiVersion: Current (1.0.3, I would guess, dev and cvs releases may occur as well)
Challenge level: Variable
Current Heros: First week available

Name: Project Blue Ant.
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: 1.0.5 only (for now at least)
Challenge level: *.... 1 star out of 5
Current Heros: "Some of the most active were Mikey Cooper, Tom Purl and Eric Blom."

^_^ More People find More Bugs ^_^ Back to normal POW status. However, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, and we'd love to see you help! After the hyperbolizing this POW, interest has been dwindling, and there really is a lot left to get done. Personally, I think it's the holidays; however, you can't go by me, because I was going to add ASCII breasts to get more attention. On that subject, if any cute geekettes want to pose nekkid with an Abi the Ant tattoo, contact Mark Gilbert.
^_^ More People find More Bugs ^_^

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: Mike, Jordi and Jeremy 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......
3550	60	---	Mouse wheel still bugged in documents >59 pages
4057	60	---	Thesaurus Shift+F7 keybindings shortcuts consistancey
428	54	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
2362	30	1.0.x	AbiWord only prints across half of page
3970	30	---	changing layouts can lead to showing other location than ......
4049	30	---	Crash on open file from floppy or network drive.
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...
2421	20	2.0	TM, Bullet, Euro, Smart Quotes and other symbols originat......
3488	20	---	Weird crash when editing
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
2183	249	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
2321	70	---	[RFE] Maths/Equation Editing, as a plugin maybe?
1144	67	Future	Improve KWord import/export filters
515	41	Future	columns change should only affect selected text
2490	41	2.0	Finish Cocoa Frontend
1929	37	Future	Hyphenation is missing in Abiword
2365	31	---	AbiWord needs 'view codes'
2186	30	Future	The insert page break setting is lost for custom styles
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
3233	21	2.0	New Language preference menu
1762	20	2.0	import html
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	27
Verified	3
Closed	3

This Week's Bug Squishers:
Verified	Name
14	Dave "Can we listen to Korn?" Null
3	Hubert "Are we there yet?" Figuiere
3	Dom "No, and that goes double for you, Dave"Lachowicz
3	Jordi "Marty's biting me" Mas
3	Martin "Nuh-uh" Sevior
2	Frank "I have to goto the bathroom" Franklin
1	Joaquin Cuenca Abela "has not seen his car since"
1	Patrick Lam "refuses to go on holidays to this very day"

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	4
Duplicate	7
Won't Fix	3

This Week's Most Active Bug Flushers:
Verified	Name
11	Dave "Never-ending" Null
3	No one "should listen to the editor"

Caught Bugs

Bug spotters, beware, we're watching you!

Bugs Found this Week
Caught	Number
Unconfirmed	2
New	1
ReOpened	4

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!?"

Stable

This is vestigial and will remain until a comprehensive list is compiled for 1.0.5. There will probably be something by next week. Oh, and Mark blah-blah-blah twenty-smegging-bucks.

HackDown to 1.0.4
Bug ID	Description
~~1225~~	down arrow on last line must goto EOL
~~2174~~	Can't import Cocoa RTF
2223	cannot open psiWord files (re-opened)
~~2715~~	crash on zoom
~~3008~~	Cursor not initially in hyperlink dialog
~~3109~~	Smart Insert Hyperlink, check to see if selected text is a hyperlink
~~3171~~	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
~~3489~~	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
~~3686~~	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
~~3840~~	Loading World.abw crashes AbiWord"
3858	export wrong content when choosing export to "Simplified Chinese GB_2312-80" encoded text
~~4039~~	Too Many Curly Brackets in Exported LaTeX (duplicate)
~~4046~~	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
~~4212~~	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
4481	Format > Tabs dialog box completly broken
~~4487~~	Build error on ap_UnixApp.cpp

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.

Head

On our way to two-point-oh, affectionately referred to as, AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom.

HackDown to AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom
Bug ID	Open of Total	Description
2921	2 of 2	abi can leak memory [tracker bug]
3064	7 of 8	[TRACKER] AbiWord Performance
3239	30 of 37	[META] Windows printing bugs
4425	0 of 0	squash all warnings
4465	21 of 29	[META] Spelling bugs
4466	16 of 22	[META] "Motion" Bugs
4467	10 of 11	[META] Find/Replace bugs and enhancements
4488	4 of 12	[META] Help System Bugs
4489	2 of 2	[META] Accessibility bugs

Announce: 2.0 release plan

AbiWord development has been progressing at a marvelous clip and it's getting to the point where we should put another big, fancy DOT-OH release out there. These past 8 months or so have seen an absolutely tremendous amount of work. The 2.0 release will be focussed on stabilizing and polishing those new features, adding a few remaining features, and making sure that we haven't regressed with regard to our previous (1.0) feature set. I said this before I released 1.0 - "This isn't to mark the end of AbiWord development, it marks the beginning." Well, 2.0 marks an incremental advancement towards that mythical end. 2.0 will have bugs. 2.0 will lack features. This is to be expected. But we promise to do our best to keep the nasties to a minimum and incorporate missing features into future releases. Target Platforms: Win32 *NIX (Linux, BSD, Solaris, XDarwin in particular) QNX If the MacOSX/Cocoa build progresses substantially, we might have an "experimental" release of it. I will not hold back the 2.0 release on MacOSX's behalf. At present, I'm using bug 4468 as a tracker bug for many of the issues that stand in the way of the 2.0 release. 4468 is not complete, but we'll work on making it better represent how we want 2.0 to come out. Expected New Features (in addition to our current feature set): * Better mail merge UI * Gnome Port (GnomePrint, GAL toolbar widgets, and the Bonobo control only for now) Expected polish/bugfix/improved 2.0 features: * Tables (UI, interaction, imp/exp) * Footnotes (needs imp/exp to RTF, DOC) * Endnotes (make work again, imp/exp) * Revisions (make work properly, imp/exp) * BiDi * XFT fonts on unix * Unix printing * OpenOffice importer/exporter * Mail merge * Barbarisms Expected polish/bugfix/improvements over 1.0 features: * HTML import/export * GTK2 UI (ideally remove any deprecated widgets/functions, make work on both GTK 2.0 and 2.2) * XSL-FO import/export * Spelling problems * Help problems * Crash problems These lists are by no means meant to be exhaustive. All suggestions should be sent to the list in a reply to this email. So, timelines... This needs to be a delicate balance between a set schedule and a "release it when it's ready" mentatlity. Tentatively, I'm thinking that we should AIM to have 2.0 out by May 1st, 2003. Jan 22: 1.1.3 release. Soft feature freeze. No features not listed above allowed in. February 22: 2.0alpha1 release. March 1: Hard feature freeze (1 1/2 months for above feature work). Only polish and bugfixes on above "New" features allowed. Anything missing punted to beyond 2.0. 2.0beta1 release. 2 months until release. March 30: String and documentation freeze. Translations accepted, no new en-US. 2.0beta2 release. April 6: 2.0beta3 release April 13: 2.0rc1 release April 20: No more strings, even translated ones (3 weeks from March 30). 2.0rc2 release April 27: Tree frozen. No more commits except for HUGE problems, trivial provably non-regression-causing, or build fixes. May 1: 2.0 released, with various source and binary packages available. May 5, 2003: Partying stopped, hangovers getting (marginally) better. All commits in the "RC" period (April 13->May 1) need to be authorized by myself and/or Martin. No exceptions. Patches are to be sent to the list in 'cvs diff -u' format. All commits from March 1->May 1 may not break the tree intentionally. Stub functionality on alternate platforms, or coordinate your work with the other platform maintainers. There will be nightly builds and testing thereof during the "RC" period. KJD has win32 nightlies, Marc has Linux RPMs from his tinderbox. Matthew Craig is working on a regression and unit test suite. Some of us have helped him with it so far. He's rounded up some testers and seems to be off to a good start. We'll need help from all involved during these upcoming months. We'll need patience from the developers, as I know you'll all be itching to work on new features and hating the seemingly endless bugfixing. Please do your best to squash bugs. I know better than anyone how much the 1.0 process hurt. Hopefully this will be less painful. But be prepared to endure it again. We'll need help from the users. We'll need people to scour bugzilla, fill in the twiki, fill up bugzilla with new bugs, work on the testsuite. Please respond to this mail with thoughts and ideas. I'd write more here, but my hands hurt. Cheers, Dom

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
Interest earned: $7.00

Expenditures: $860
$400 to pay for Martin's Boston Gnome Summit Trip
$400 to buy Andrew Dunbar a new computer
$ 60 to misc./entertainment expenses at GNOME summit, GUAD3C, other, paid out of dom's pocket
$135 Patch Prize (those already successfully awarded)
- $ 45 Will Lachance
- $ 45 Marc Maurer
- $ 45 Ruud Vring

Unique contributors: 58*
paypal: 57
check : 3
cash : 1
*58: plusse 3 repeat offenders whom we love dearly

Contributions: $2723.00
Less paypal and other banking fees: $115.00

PLEASE! Help promote AbiWord development by donating money. The money go to a general AbiWord "fund", presently hosted by Dom Lachowicz (cinamod@hotmail.com).

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.