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AbiWord Weekly News #136, (2003, week 12, released 2003.03.23)
Welcome to this issue 136 of the AbiWord Weekly News.
Updated:
This has been updated to match current events including correcting the Latest Releases reference, and re-adding the Updated heading. Also, the latest of Marc's HIGification gets added, along with a grrr-ladification notice in SOTW.
Follow-ups:
Targeting to Blank has also been removed historically, and you editor got yelled at for much earlier mistakes (specifically non-xhtml html, read: all caps tags). I didn't quite get to nagging Dom about the fund due to a silliness in the family. Marc, the Nederlander, has made some mention of actually coming up with a "best way" for handling the POWs. Marc, as you might have noticed, has an eye candy obsession, and, if given enough room, would turn the AWN into something Apple Computers would sue under the theft of their "look and feel." Marc is currently haunted by knomes (more on them much later), his girlfriend and a need to get AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom out the door, so, I'm not holding him to a light-headed moment in chat, but if it changes, you'll know why and who's fault, I mean, hard work it is.
This week in development
Smell that? It's the sweet scent of Wisconsin Maple Syrup and a new release cycle! The latest stable that's just come out, 1.0.5, has been joined by a new developers' build, 1.1.4. The Latest Releases page will be updated with information through-out 1.1.4's and 1.0.5's release building. Large portions of the on-list discussions focus on the two releases while commits focus towards bug squashing. Also, this issue includes one of Marc's latest HIG-ification in some before and after screenshots.
Request for user assistance
Windows users, your help is doubly requested. We would like to see more bug reports coming from the Windows crowd, so, if you're feeling more daring, please download and try out the Win32 binaries when they're available. If you want some sweet functionality in AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom, you will have to participate. You could also consider joining Project Blue Ant.
Like those dedicated and good-hearted people on American Public Television, we would like to ask for a financial donation.* We would like to pull out an extra $400 minimum for a "dedicated 19" 2U rack server, 2.4Ghz P4 (533 FSB) on a 100 Mbit full duplex connection. That should fix all the speed issues for us European guys (and maybe it's even faster for you en_US guys)." This was discussed in chat, and was never cleared for me to actually mention it in AWN, but, technically, it wasn't not cleared, either. Under any circumstance, the money would certainly go to a good cause, and if we raise $13 Million USD, we could buy Microsoft's Corel stock.
Silliness of the Week
The greatest psychic prediction of all time: There may someday be a greatest psychic prediction of all time.
Also, "Grrrr is a registered trademark of MPrittchet"
*financial donation: I know I haven't gotten to whining at Dom for the latest update on the AbiFund, but I promise to send something Tuesday-ish, and when he responds, I'll put it in the next AWN.
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:
Editor(s) of this issue: E. A. Zen
If you're interested in using AbiWord for the first time, receiving a more up-to-date 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:
-
commit: abi: remove bad color names, don't special-case ffffff : Frank has caught Martin in the act of breaking SVG standard by using "FFFFFF" as "transparent". Martin explains this was done for backwards compatability with previously created abw documents. Will learns that this can't be handled at the filter level, as the abw filter directly (read literally) translates the XML to its post-scripty format.
-
commit: abi: property defaults & values : Frank has written a guideline to Abiword's internal state settings, an eventual must read introduction to hacking Abiword; perhaps Stephen Waters should have a look. There's a pretty table there to simplify searching ^_^
-
Intent to release 1.1.4 Really Soon. , 1.1.4 and ATTN: 1.1.4 will be released Sunday, March 23 : In Intent..., Martin is toying with a release date of the twentieth. With that date in mind, there are some binary builders who point out that their binaries would be late (hence ATTN's date of the 23rd. Marc, not wanting to change his faulty numbering scheme for his tinderbox, asks to make this an alpha quality release, 1.99.x. Mark, with a k, explains that Rui's build correction scheme and un-installing of the old package is much preferred for one major reason -- people using the developers' build aren't typically unknowledgeable cretins, and can probably figure out how to handle that bit of package management. Dom does point out the possibility* of making the next-next release a 1.99.x release.
In 1.1.4, Mark explains to James Ogley that only --gnome-enable'd builds will require GNOME2.2 libraries.
In ATTN, Dom solidifies the date of the 1.1.4 release, and asks specifically for you Windows users to pick this one up and file every single bug report you can! -
commit: win32 top and left ruler fixes : If there were a Prize Patch this week, it would have gone to Jordi; with this commit, Win32 becomes usable, and Dom is happy to postpone 1.1.4 until the 23rd. Jordi can may find the following praise from Dom to be work $45 USD: You are my new personal idol.
-
Intent to Release 1.0........5, right? , AbiWord 1.0.5 Unleashed! and Problem compiling 1.0.5 and fix : Within Intent..., Mark announces an approximate time of the next stable release of Abiword, 1.0.5. He also informs us that, due to the impending absence of both him and Hub, Marc will be in place to manage uploading the binaries. Both bidi and non-bidi builds will be available again. We also find out that David's been secretly writing a book in AbiWord! In a few months, if you get an RPG book by "David Chart," you should try to get that autographed at the next GUADEC ;o)
In AbiWord 1.0.5 Unleashed!, Mark points out the latest release has its announcement on SourceForge, and is as pleased as a peach* to announce that UTF-8 will allow for perfect viewing of Japanese characters.
Problem... identifies a problem located and fixed by Jonathan Drews with just a few lines of adjustment. -
Paper for GUADEC. : Martin posts a draft of his paper for GUADEC. Other than misspelling France*, I'm completely clueless as to why you'd want to see this.
-
Success - Thanks! (was) Re: Sample bonobo2 container. : So, how's that bonobo work coming along? Martin's happy to show us the cutest li'l example! The code is expected to be posted sometime after the 1.1.4 release.
-
style/diction in Abiword : Stephen Waters has looked at and carefully smelled the style/diction plugin(s) POW. He must really want that $45 USD.
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:
-
abiword starts minimized : Michael Honeyfield has found the most interesting problem in a virtually untouched Lycrois system. Check up on this thread to see if it develops to something even more informative. Oh, sure, you Xandros nutters are going to get all up on this one, aren't you?
*possibility: Actually, he seems quite sure on this, but I've decided to give him some room to back out later.
*pleased as a peach: In reality, peaches are one of the most depressed fruits, surpassed only by the kumquat and the marshmellow*.
*marshmellow: Marshmellows are unaware that they are not fruit. Telling them the truth would only make matters worse*.
*France: Numerous times, he misspells France as "Melbourne."
*worse: I'm just using this to point out I managed to spell kumquat right but managed to misspelled misspell.
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 2003.03.16 - 2003.03.22 | ||
| Who | Commits | In summary |
| dom | 37 |
oo style import work, abicommand plugin fixes for schurro, changes for abicommand plugins, bump required gucharmap version #,
aiksaurus plugin fix, remove unneeded macros, fix win32 font preview dialog, fix hdr/ftr crash, insert page # crash,
remove the ucs2 string classes, as they're just unused, fix some signed-ness warnings, fix some edit method signatures,
"fix dis" ( abi/src/wp/ap/win/ap_Win32App.cpp ) POSIX: fix some bgcolor brokenness in the font chooser dialog, make columns dialog prettier, make footnote dialog have cancel button instead of close, fix format footnote/endnote dialog, fix gnome color selectors again, some code cleanups relevant for the zoom preview not working properly, fix compilation problem; Bugs: 4697 and 4720 |
| uwog | 19 |
lots of nl_NL translation fixes because "nl_NL rocks!" Yes, yes it does. Marc screams a lot. gnomes=Good friendly creatures inside your computer, knomes=Evil li'l bastards out to cause trouble (especially for GNOME lovers) whitespace removal and cleanup |
| msevior | 15 |
small fix for invalid delete [] in the RTF exporter, click in "Insert Symbol" works again,
make font preview appear when you first load it up, footnotes/endnotes/header/footer bugs --- but not all,
fix David Chart's secret crash; Bug: 4706 |
| jordimas* | 13 | extensive toolbar fixes, spelling options fixes, frame drawing bugs, image drawing bugs, caret is back and saveretangle fix |
| fjfranklin | 7 | fix the ffffff and transparent fiasco, fix potential segfault - sprintf() to fixed buffer was myopic, correct spelling of property name "homogeneous", property defaults & values |
| hub | 7 |
ev_EditMethod_invoke takes an UT_String, not a char*, project builder: fix file reference, fix project by removing absolute path, popt.framework |
| hippietrail | 1 | corrected spelling, typos... |
| sam | 1 | unbreak configure for people with only aspell |
*jordimas: system-related work is Win32 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.
No One
No one received the Patch Prize between the ninth and fifteenth of March.
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 pow5 (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). Oh, and in case you didn't notice, they're a great way to get money from Dom, really!
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 (1.0.4, I would guess, dev and cvs releases may occur as well)
Challenge level: Variable
Current Heroes: You must be magical to know how to fix this
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: 1.0.4 only (for now at least)
Challenge level: *.... 1 star out of 5
Current Heroes: "Some of the most active were Mikey Cooper, Tom Purl and Eric Blom."
Name: Style and/or Diction Plugin(s) (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
The MoFos who had the Huevos for this POW:
(crash on print)
Daniel Jensen
(text work around)
Name: More Windows Maintainers
Description: 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 Heros: Jordi Mas, Jeremy Davis
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 |
| 376 | 80 | 2.0 | File associate problems for all file types with Win32Slu...... |
| 428 | 44 | 2.0 | Hitting return at the beginning of a paragraph changes fo...... |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 2924 | 15 | --- | printing abw documents defaults to black pages |
| 3216 | 15 | 1.0.x | [Tabstops Cannot be Set in Second (or Third) Column |
| 3801 | 15 | --- | Incremental loader seems to struggle with large files |
| 4538 | 15 | 2.0 | Crash when cutting and pasting |
| 1865 | 13 | --- | Header/footer not loaded properly from .doc |
| 2962 | 13 | 2.0 | Printer problems with Lexmark printers on Windows |
| 1613 | 11 | 1.0.x | undo does not know about replacing |
| 2584 | 11 | 1.0.x | MS Word Rendering problem. |
| 1333 | 10 | Future | Inserting a word is O(n) in the number of words in the do...... |
| Top 20 Requests For Enhancement | |||
| ID | Votes | Milestone | Summary |
| 2183 | 289 | Future | Fully Support OpenOffice's XML file format |
| 1374 | 96 | Future | [RFE] print odd and/or even pages only (for front & back ... |
| 1950 | 94 | Future | Wish for automatic Table of Contents |
| 3668 | 76 | --- | Support for window tabs instead of separate windows |
| 2565 | 72 | Future | Add true MS Word .doc export capability |
| 2490 | 71 | 2.0 | Finish Cocoa Frontend |
| 2321 | 70 | --- | [RFE] Maths/Equation Editing, as a plugin maybe? |
| 1144 | 67 | Future | Improve KWord import/export filters |
| 4057 | 60 | --- | Thesaurus Shift+F7 keybindings shortcuts consistency |
| 515 | 41 | Future | columns change should only affect selected text |
| 2365 | 39 | --- | AbiWord needs 'view codes' |
| 2366 | 39 | Future | implement floating frame |
| 1929 | 37 | Future | Hyphenation is missing in Abiword |
| 2186 | 30 | Future | The insert page break setting is lost for custom styles |
| 2219 | 27 | Future | AUTONUM wanted in [ Insert/Field/Number ] menu |
| 2164 | 25 | Future | Ability to set default print command anywhere |
| 2296 | 25 | Future | doc import: footnotes |
| 2169 | 24 | Future | Line numbering |
| 3233 | 21 | 2.0 | New Language preference menu |
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 | 19 |
| Verified | 7 |
| Closed | 0 |
| This Week's Bug Squishers: | |
| Verified | Name |
| 14 | Dave Null |
| 4 | Martin "I'm not French!" Sevior |
| 2 | Patrick "Explain this K'Nome thing to me, again" Lam |
| 2 | Jordi "Screw worship; I want my $45!" Mas |
| 2 | Sam "Could someone explain to me why the Dutch rock" TH |
| 1 | Hubert "Target Blank This" Figuiere |
| 1 | Dom "Marshmellows aren't fruit?" Lachowicz |
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 equivalent 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 | 3 |
| Duplicate | 4 |
| Won't Fix | 1 |
| This Week's Most Active Bug Flushers: | |
| Verified | Name |
| 8 | Dave Null |
Caught Bugs
Bug spotters, beware, we're watching you!
| Bugs Found this Week | |
| Caught | Number |
| Unconfirmed | 0 |
| New | 4 |
| ReOpened | 0 |
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 documents the progress of various bugs and features Hub hopes to have ironed out by 1.0.5. May the source be with him, always.
| HackDown to 1.0.5 | |
| Bug ID | Description |
| 2223 | cannot open psiWord files (re-opened) |
|
|
crash on zoom |
| 3239 | [META] Windows printing bugs |
|
|
Crashes repeatably while attempting to edit header |
| 3488 | Weird crash when editing |
| 3561 | Crash on embedded AbiWord in Evolution |
| 3625 | Multi Substitution waste memory |
| 3632 | editing the numbering style of a roman numeral list hangs/crashes |
|
|
Page setup has a problem with margins in millimeters |
| 3678 | [STABLE]Crash when editing this Word document |
| 3697 | [crash] blank AbiWord document viewed as text (View Source) |
|
|
AbiWord crashes during import of this MS Word document |
| 3766 | Dvorak Keyboard |
| 3858 | export wrong content when choosing export to "Simplified Chinese GB_2312-80" encoded text |
| 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 |
| 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 |
|
|
Format > Tabs dialog box completely broken |
| 4531 | Page breaks ignored in RTF |
| 4559 | section break handling is broken |
| 4647 | Abiword 1.0.4 crashes with zh_CN Chinese font locale |
|
|
Abiword.exe Entry Point Not Found |
|
|
AbiWord 1.0.4 does not compile with gcc-3.2.2 and perl-5.8.0 |
|
|
|
| 1 | Unconfirmed |
| 12 | Unapproached |
| 10 | Assigned |
| 7 | Resolved |
|
*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. *Normal bug numbers and normal text have not yet been approached. |
|
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 |
| 2145 | 2 of 3 | FCC 508 accessibility regulation compliance |
| 2921 | 2 of 2 | abi can leak memory [tracker bug] |
| 3064 | 6 of 7 | [TRACKER] AbiWord Performance |
| 3239 | 27 of 38 | [META] Windows printing bugs |
| 4142 | 3 of 12 | make AbiWord comply with GNOME HIG |
| 4425 | 0 of 0 | squash all warnings |
| 4465 | 23 of 36 | [META] Spelling bugs |
| 4466 | 12 of 22 | [META] "Motion" Bugs |
| 4467 | 8 of 11 | [META] Find/Replace bugs and enhancements |
| 4488 | 2 of 13 | [META] Help System Bugs |
| 4627 | 15 of 16 | [META] Copy/Paste bugs |
A fix for STABLE, however, no new bug squashing has happened there. HEAD also remains unchanged in squishing, but 4627 has gained one new bug.
See Announce: 2.0 release plan for more details on the intended route towards Abiword II: The Wrath of 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
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. | |