AbiWord Weekly News #154, (2003, week 30, released 2003.07.27)

Welcome to this issue 154 of the AbiWord Weekly News.

Follow-ups:

      Enchant went 0.1.0, OTS received some major make overs and Release Hackdown gets another set of corrections.

This week in development

      A possible standard for spell checking management, Enchant, is finally released after last week's announcement.   The Open Text Summarizer reaches a level of complexity that will blow other summarisers out of the water.   More GNOME HIGrrrification™, help with OSX X11 and more we enter the week that will bring us 1.99.3.

Request for user assistance

      If you want an equally rich and powerful Windows release, we really, really could use some Windows developers.   A whole mess of people with even just an hour a week could help.   Of course, the "three with only two hours a week" model hasn't been helping!   We're desperate!   We'll take a line a day if there's enough of you!   Please help...please!   Doesn't a platform like yours deserve a chance?

      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

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

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:

1. recent OTS changes and
   Tutorial: writing stemming rules in Open Text Summarizer :   Nadav got a little daring in his latest feature.   The feature is designed to recognise words that are extension of an original word, e.g. running to run, in process called "stemming."   Committed with a basic concept of rules, the new xml-based format is, obviously, not able to use the list of words dictionary of its predecessor.   Luckily, he's also created a nice script to update the older dictionaries to the new format, dic2xml.sh.   He encourages dictionary makers to attempt to create/update the dictionaries to use the new function, and, he includes a sample format in the thread.   I hope the translators have patience...or scripting practice.   The second one, obviously, is a tutorial, but to understand it, you'll need to know this:   When you see â[][], replace them with a double quote(").   I believe this comes from copying and pasting from Abi with SmartQuotes™* turned on.

2. Enchant 0.1.0 released :   After a hard week's worth of work (and then some, really), Enchant is ready for its initial release.   For those of you that missed last week's announcement about Enchant's creation, see here.   Those interested in checking out, extending or applying Enchant should visit its official AbiPage here.   To see Dom's go at making Enchant an official standard at FreeDesktop, head over to this thread.

3. Commit: pre-refactoring code removal :   Long ago, Will starred in the movie Frame Refactoring, episode II: Attack of the Strings.   In it, the Old Frame Implementation was weakening the WYSIWYG of the Source on all platforms.   Will's character, wlach, bravely battles the crumbling Old Frame Implementation to create the New Frame Implementation.   Unfortunately, not all platforms were on board for the the New Frame Implementation.   Because of that, today, Hub's final devastation of the Old Frame Implementation has destroyed AbiFunctionality on BeOS.   BeOS users that actually try to keep up on the latest and greatest of these things, both of you, are probably experiencing some build breakage.   Use the Source, Jun; use the Source.

4. Load plugin libraries on demand. :   Anyone using AbiWord with an extensive number of libraries and plugins (like Debian SID users) probably have noticed that the light footprint disappeared.   Martin requests loading many of the extending libraries on demand, in the same way that one can opt to do with plugins.   Though this desirable functionality exists within the libgnomeoffice thanks to Rodrigo, Dom considers this a little late in the release cycle to implement this for 2.0

5. A few weeks off :   Jordi's going on holiday...well until after the intended 2.0 release!   This puts the amount of dev time a week from Jeremy, Jordi and Michael for Windows down to an unbelievable minimum.   If there EVER was a time for budding Win32 developers to consider contributing, this is IT!

6. commit: Fix nesting of tables past 2 levels, cut on GUADEC document no longer hangs. :   Just in case you've been dying for some table updates, Martin's gotten nesting down to an art.   Other issues still exist in reference to the Guadec 4 Document.   Soon, Martin...soon....

7. 1.99.3 soon? :   What's on Martin's mind?   The next beta, of course.   You can't go for two weeks in an Open Source project and pretend to be following Release Early, Release Often™ standard guidelines.   Dom would like to shoot for Today-ish after two-ish, EST.   As is standard around here,   WE PROMISE NOTHING!   HA HA HA!
     Anything on SourceForge and Savannah on Monday evening will get into the Latest Releases page.   That's the one I link to at the top of every AWN since around the beginning of the year (if not, in fact, earlier!).   That's just in case you didn't know such a thing existed....   Not that I'm referring to anyone in particular, this is more of a hypothetical example of a person who might exists; right, Alan? ;o)

8. Commit: Change Abisource's copyright in about dialog and
   Commit: More AbiSource copyright corrections :   AbiSource last copyright protected in 2000...!?   Will catches some of the less thought of bits of AbiDom, the about dialogue's copyright notice.   Outside of the sheer entertainment factor this provided, there's no real reason to even mention this.   What's more entertaining than fixing one copyright misappropriation?   Sedding up a fix for 2003 more, of course!

9. Commit: HIGified Unix List Revisions dialog and
   commit: HIGified UNIX Plugin Manager dialog :   Minor updates have gone into the Gnome Revisions Dialogue and the Gnome Plugin Manager.   Needless to say, the HIG was involved somewhere or another....

10. GNU libiconv 1.9.1 :   In case you missed it, or you just need a reminder, Dom would really love a somewhat less antiquated version of GNU libiconv.

11. Commit: Myspell enchant provider :   With the inclusion of MySpell (hence the topic), which comes from Joan Moratinos (thank you, by the way), Enchant now handles: Aspell, Ispell, Myspell, and Uspell.   Once Hspell is included, Enchant will officially rock!

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:

1. Dead alphanumeric keys :   It appears that "Steven" has troubles with his 1.0.2 Abi on Slackware.   Apparently, no one was made aware that this problem, an actual bug, was fixed with the, then, next version of AbiWord.   So, make note, the current stable version of AbiWord is 1.0.6, where, this problem (among others) is not known to exist.

2. Mac OS X AbiWord not showing file :   If you've installed XAbiWord on your OS X box and are unable to get it to function quite right, this might be the thread for you.   The reason currently remains unknown, but the more people looking at a bug, the sooner it can go away.

3. fonts in Abiword 2 (osx gtk) :   While on the subject of OS X, if you're unable to use your favourite fonts with Abi, this is officially Apple's fault.   Their delay in releasing their X11 server (which verges on intentional) is preventing the integrated FontConfig functionality from being used.   Patience is something you'll need in abundance.

Development

      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....

      Current pows are here. This will probably be replaced next week if not this very week.

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 +16 (16 : 0), VeriNew +1 (9 : 8), ClosAssi +1 (2 : 1),

      For the first time in four weeks, all the indices closed at a positive, with ResoUnconf leading with a stunning 16 above.   Louis Bugkeiser has noted that this trend will probably evaporate next week when 1.99.3 is released.   Alan Bluespan, however, disagrees, and notes that, for the most part, these will stay in the positive due to the aggressive effort to balance the bug-get.   Either way, it is certainly an Ant market.

      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.

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

      There is not stable tracker bug, so, I'm chopping it out until told otherwise.

Head

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

      Removed this week was 5119--setting meta-data does not dirty the document and 5346--Removing headers overly ambitious.   Added this week was 5308--Zooming changes # of pages and page layout gets buggier!!, which already includes some hard work put into it from Oliver "shurro" Schurr.

      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.

      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