AbiWord Weekly News #145

AbiWord Weekly News #145, (2003, week 21, released 2003.05.25)

Welcome to this issue 145 of the AbiWord Weekly News.

Follow-ups:

No 1.9.1 binaries for Win32 are known, at least by me, to exist. If you have the experience, you're welcome to do one for us. Otherwise, there's David Bolack's MSYS build mentioned here

This week in development

Quite a bit of bug squishing, some noteworthy work on Windows and Footnotes and Endnotes exporting to the HTML format await you. Some HIGrrrification™ work was done, but no one sent me pretty screen shots :*( Well, maybe next week!

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.

Silliness of the Week

That C++/C mixup last week never happened. You didn't read that. Go away, Andrew. ~_O

Want to stop unjust things from happening in chat? Join! It's #abiword at irc.gimp.org

*requested: Danger, a recent incident suggests that this may cause anxiety, anger and/or mood shifts. Windows users not taking MAOI's should have some level of alcohol within their bloodstream.

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 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. Actually, everything I say is purely editorial. You kind of get used to it.

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: Verious things. and commit: Export Footnotes and endnotes to HTML. : Martin has added limited capability to export a document's footnotes & endnotes to HTML by placing the text at the end of the page.
unique id generation , unique id generation and commit (HEAD): UT_UniqueId class && PD_Document : Tomas has come to the conclusion that UT_rand, the class that gives document objects an identity, is currently unsatisfactory. Even though, as Martin points out, the probability of reproducing the same identity is 1 in 2³², roughly one in 4.3 billion, the high randomness doesn't guarantee the identity is unique, as none of the previously used identities are compared to the new one. For all of you lottery winners, Tomas has implemented UT_UniqueId.
The Wrath Of Dom : Dom, after witnessing too much work being put into re-casting and new classes, has come down from Mount Sinai with his edicts. Something that would be commonsense to many people need to be repeated to otherwise ambitious developers: These pre-release moments are to be dedicated to bug fixing and final feature polishing... and the features look almost entirely polished--hint, hint.
windows IME (bug 3447) : If you've been having difficulty typing in Abiword on Windows, as in no text makes it to the document, your problem may lie with Abiword's limited ability to work with Microsoft's Input Methode Editor, IME*. Bug 3447 was specifically setup in reference to this issue. Daniel Glassey may have finally come up with a solution to it, thanks to a little help from a MS website.
Building under Linux on a FAT32 partition : Andrew want to work the code to a point that compiling can be done from the same source code base. His first step is to ensure that he can successfully compile Abiword without needing root permissions.
Win32 keyboard broken!!! : A small, imperfectly tested patch has rendered non-English keyboards totally useless. At this point, it would be nice to have a small group of Win32 users, ranging from 98 to XP, who could test the AbiCVS in internal settings. Rumours of AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom being released by June 10th are now considered unrealistic.
commit: HIGified format footnotes. Commit: Glade/HIG/GTK+ work and Commit: Glade/HIG Password dialog : Remember when we used to post our screenshots for debuting in the AWN? Bad developers; may your compilers replace assembly with ADA!

*IME: Microsoft link pertains to the global IME, but the intent is purely educational.

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 2003.05.18 - 2003.05.24
Who	Commits	In summary
Hubert "1.0.6 is more of a running gag, really, if you think about it" Figuiere	47	new glyph measurment caching, fix a typo, added width cache to project builder, fix things that break on gcc 2.95, cache to build on unix (but still disabled), fix warnings, small unix graphics optimization, implement caching methods on Cocoa, major speedup in drawChars() on Cocoa, using width cache on UNIX, status bar that works on Cocoa, rintf -> rint for libc tardos For more on Hub's Width Caching for improved glyph mamagement, read Commit (HEAD): glyph measurement caching (PLEASE READ) For entertainment on Hub's Width Caching, read Commit: using cache on UNIX Bugs: 5118 and 5137
Dom "Roberto" Lachowicz	28	fix compilation problem, fix some bugs that would have affected us in a non-debug build HIGrrrification: Touchups[Mail Merge, Format Footnotes] New[Language, Encoding, Window More (?), menu label, password] Bugs: 5131 and 5140
Andrew "casts not class" Dunbar	27	brought MSVC6 build system up-to-date, cast fix, updated MSVC6 project files
Tomas "BiDi Shears" Frydrych	25	uid work, fix build breakage, add missing assignment, more Arabic glyphs and ligatures, destroy UT_contextGlyph's shared data, added getLastFrag() method, removed incorrect assert concerning section id, import of headers shared by several sections, call gr_CharWidthsCache::destroyCharWidthsCache(), modified Arabic ligature data, fix bidi-related crasher on deletion, fix handling of zerow-width spaces in drawChars, set text-alignment to right for RTL paragraphs, comments on hdr/ftr handling, fixes regarding stylesheets and list format Bugs: 3283
Martin "Can I paint his table gold; it's sorta my thing, you know" Sevior	17	decrease pixel dirt, export docs to HTML if they have footnotes/endnotes, cursor motion fixes and artifacts, HIGified FormatFootnotes Dialogue* Bugs: 5117
Frank "Tricky Bastard" Franklin	10	more XML memory-tree work, more hash refinements (Frank's a bud man), move UT_XML_ID_Generator from main tree to plugins, some XAbiWord wrapper updates
Daniel "Michael Shanks" Glassey	10	win32 unicode input patch, unicode input still works when the XAP_Win32FrameImpl frame is an ansi one, revert unnecessary change to _scanCodeToChars
Rui Miguel Silva "Stallman" Seabra	7	fix core spec, fix spec, added needed .cvsignore files, did something to aiksaurus/gtk/AiksaurusGTK.spec.in
Johan "BeWhat?" Björk*	4	comboboxes for the find/replace strings, fixes for the find/replace dialog
Michael "Dangerfield" Pritchett*	4	fix some of the new XP font issues, clean up warnings and tinderbox issues
Mark "Matt Groening" Gilbert	2	fix build, vital plcf read function now get into the standard build
Marc "Who doesn't love pr0n? Everything is good in moderation." Maurer	2	remove the flickering from the font preview Bugs: 5015

*FormatFootnotes Dialogue, Martin Sevior: screenshot next week!
*Johan Björk: system-related work is QNX unless stated otherwise.
*Michael Pritchett: 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.

And the award goes to:

No One
No one received the Patch Prize between the eighteenth and twenty-fourth of May.

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."

^_^ 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 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:
Johnny Lee
(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 Market

This week's activity: ResoUnconf +9 (9 : 0), VeriNew +12 (13 : 1), ClosAssi unch (1 : 1),

Great work on the relative squishing this week. Remember, if you get a notice that your bug is resolved, it would be quite helpful if you could checkout the abicvs to verify it. See what I did there with the unchanged; I like me ^_^

For information about how to view the chart, please read 142's Special Interest.

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......
3550	60	---	Mouse wheel still bugged in documents >59 pages
428	49	2.0	Hitting return at the beginning of a paragraph changes fo......
3778	40	---	Hanging indent setting ignores units
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.
4722	30	---	When using -p or --print the output isn't usable
4745	30	Future	Change colour of foreground text for screen only
2868	25	2.0	character widths are not calculated correctly for some fonts...
4947	25	2.0	Cannot change paper size
2421	20	2.0	TM, Bullet, Euro, Smart Quotes and other symbols originat......
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
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

Top 20 Requests For Enhancement
ID	Votes	Milestone	Summary
2183	355	Future	Fully Support OpenOffice's XML file format
3668	111	---	Support for window tabs instead of separate windows
1950	109	Future	Wish for automatic Table of Contents
1374	106	Future	[RFE] print odd and/or even pages only (for front & back ...
2490	96	2.0	Finish Cocoa Frontend
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
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
2663	23	2.0	Normal View mode

OpenOffice format gained several more votes this week, along with alternating printing for using both sides of the paper. OpenOffice has a long way to go, but the alternating printing might happen this century. Stay tuned! Same AbiTime; same AbiNewsletter!

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

So...no 1.0.6...YET! I'd like to point out, I had nothing to do with this. I, too, suffer the lack of --enable-gnome.

HackDown to 1.0.5 still
Bug ID	Description
2223	cannot open psiWord files (re-opened)
~~2715~~	crash on zoom
3239	[META] Windows printing bugs
~~3453~~	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
~~3645~~	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)
~~3755~~	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
~~4481~~	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
~~4650~~	Abiword.exe Entry Point Not Found
~~4656~~	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	4 of 5	FCC 508 accessibility regulation compliance
2921	2 of 2	abi can leak memory [tracker bug]
3064	6 of 7	[TRACKER] AbiWord Performance
3239	20 of 38	[META] Windows printing bugs
4142	3 of 12	make AbiWord comply with GNOME HIG
4425	0 of 0	squash all warnings
4465	18 of 37	[META] Spelling bugs
4466	10 of 22	[META] "Motion" Bugs
4467	8 of 11	[META] Find/Replace bugs and enhancements
4488	1 of 13	[META] Help System Bugs
4627	11 of 16	[META] Copy/Paste bugs
5007	0 of 0	bidi in tables
5023	0 of 0	format footnote dialogue needs 'do not restart' option
5080	0 of 0	Abiword doesn't print arabic texts with vovels properly.
5119	0 of 0	setting meta-data does not dirty the document

I'm happy to report the squishing of a spelling bug, and the apparent removal of a motion bug*.

See Announce: 2.0 release plan for more details on the intended route towards Abiword II: The Wrath of Dom.

*motion bug: bug's existence or de-existence possibly hallucinated.

Open Source, Open Books.

Last Updated: April 10, 2003

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.

Word of caution, numbers lightly fudged due to (hopefully) temporarily incomplete data. Like a consultant's suggested price, you'll find hidden meaning in the data if you stare long and hard. Surgeon's General's Warning: Staring long and hard may have psychotropic affects; keep out of reach of people who like that sort of thing.

I cannot promise the time of de-fudging, nor can I promise there will be de-fudging any time soon. However, I feel confident that there will be some de-fudging going on.

Current Balance: $1604.34
Interest earned: $8.64

Expenditures: $950
$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
$225 Patch Prize (those already successfully awarded)
- $ 45 Will Lachance
- $ 45 Marc Maurer
- $ 45 Ruud Vring
- $ 45 Patrick Lam
- $ 45 Dom Lachowicz

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.