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AbiWord Weekly News #168, (2003, week 44, released 2003.11.02)
Welcome to this issue 168 of the AbiWord Weekly News.
Follow-ups:
TextBoxes change to a new feature and 2.0.1 is out.
This week in development
2.0.1 is now out, or atleast, by the time most of you read this. A new and exciting feature just hits head. And, a possible preemptive strike against SCO!
Request for User Assistance
Hi there. We're looking for people who can help keep AbiWord accurate and uptodate in a number of languages. Please look over them and see if ither you or someone you know might be able to assist us. Remember, your contribution is not only welcomed or encouraged but is also documented, for an easier-to-brag experience. The languages we are looking for are listed below:
- Afrikaans[af-ZA]
- Armenian[hy-AM]
- Assamese[as-IN]
- Chinese (Singapore)[zh-SG]
- Cornish[kw-GB]
- Corsican[co-FR]
- Croatian[hr]
- Esperanto[eo]
- Estonian[et]
- Farsi[fa-IR]
- Flemish (Belgium)[nl-BE]
- Frisian[fy-NL]
- Georgian[ka-GE]
- Hausa (Niger)[ha-NE]
- Hausa (Nigeria)[ha-NG]
- Hindi[hi-IN]
- Icelandic[is-IS]
- Korean[ko-KR]
- Macedonian[mk]
- Marshallese (Nauru)[mh-NR]
- Occitan[oc-FR]
- Thai[th-TH]
- Urdu[ur-PK]
Due to the traffick of people who are trying to help with picked up languages, those who are interested in helping us are encouraged to join ither mailing list. Please read the instructions for the list you are most interested in joining to get the correct address. Joining, as you'll find out, is a simple three step process. First, send a letter to one email address; second confirm you sent the letter by sending a reply, and third...oops, there is no step three. Ok, so, excluding all the minor steps of what to click and/or type, it's really a simple two-step process.
There are just two important reminders in using the mailing lists which all users are expected to do. If you want your message to even make it to the list, you message will need to be in plain text only. Due to an insurgence of a certain virus a while back, all HTML email is rejected for reasons of sanity. Webmail users will have to figure out how to turn on plain-text only before sending email. Second, you are required to send the language in Engrish or English. For those of you who don't speak English well enough to send Engrish, it is recommended that you send the letter in both your native language (identify your language please) and after that, in the same message, send it in a machine-translated version of your message, like BabelFish, in case no-one who speaks your language is available to translate your message for the list. Failure to follow these proceedures in the past have led to frustration and resentment. We apologise in advance for any inconvenience these two requests may cause you.
Silliness of the Week
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. 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:
Re: Having trouble with the layout engine
:
→
Dennis Heuer writes to inform us of the source of and fix for rendering problems.
People that find Abi behaving poorly on Unix-y™1
systems, like sentences going over the margin, for example,
may really be having issues with XFT2.
Specifically, he explains,
“It seems that I installed Xft2 without the new
Xrender
extension from freedesktop.org so that it compiled with the original XFree86 version.”
Installing XFT2 with all the dependencies has shown to fix this problem.
§
It's great when users come back later to inform us of fixes like these.
It's even more great when they add this knowledge base to the Twiki ;o)
CHM documentation
:
→
Windows users, in case you don't know, CHM is the current format of your help documentation.
Jeremy informs us, after some discussion, that AbiWord's documentation for Windows
will probably be converted into CHM.
He even believes it can be automated someday.
§
A current form of this is already available;
however, your stoner editor forgot to get permission to link to it.
I'm amazed you keep him around.
Dear Sexy Knickers,
:
→
If you didn't receive notice of the AWN's release last week,
the title of the announcement, shown here, is probably the very reason why.
Picture a spam filter's mind at work:
“What is Dear doing in the title?
That's a Nigerian trick!
Wait a moment, there's a Sexy in there.
That's a porno trick!
Nigerian Porno!?
Those devious bastards!!!”
United Kingdom spam filters, however, only censored the word “Knickers.”
Doesn't anyone still watch Are You Being Served? anymore?
§
The thing that amazed me in all of this was to find out
that nowhere near as many people had me on a black list than what I originally thought!
Personally, I question any filter that knocked off an email based on 1 to 3 words.
Oh, additionally, if you take the time to read this thread, the correct phrase,
something to call
Nederfreaks2 and
Wisconsinites3 equally, is
“kaas kop.”
advanced warning: planed removal of stale Pango code
:
→
Eons ago, there was the an attempt to use pango to manage much of the layout for AbiWord.
This attempt, despite dedicated effort from Tomas, failed almost entirely.
Now that 2.0.1 has been tagged,
Tomas intends to rip out the otherwise unused bits of code that still refer to Pango.
Some minor discussion came up about re-attempting such things from scratch in the future,
but in reality, there would not likely be any gain, at least, as to where Pango stands today.
§
Personally, I consider this as further proof of how much more Abi rocks.
ATTN: STABLE tree closed
,
Commit (HEAD): smoothscroll support in qnx
,
Commit (STABLE): bump version numbers
,
commit: head: win32: win32native plugin MinGW build fix
,
ATTN: AbiWord 2.0.1 Tagged / Tree reopened
,
ATTN: tarballs @ SF
,
2.0.1/SuSE 9.0
,
Win32native build problem
,
Req: RH9 rpms
and
Win32 2.0.1 build with plugins
:
→
You know who never got the nickname “Party's Over?”
That would be Marc, the interim STABLE maintainer.
During the Tag&Release period,
he folded in SmoothScrollNEATO for QNX and
included a patch so Mingw32 could build plugins.
Then, re-released to ensure that the Minw32 fix would work
That's the kind of experience that can really harden you.
Meantime, James pretty much finalises the idea that future Abi builds will be for SuSE 9.0 only.
By finalise, of course, I mean, “made packages for,” but I'm sure you knew that.
Meantime, Red Hat users will be waiting until Monday,
but it is good to know that Rui is still willing to make packages
this far into that whole Red Hat / Fedora mess that put him off it in the first place.
Red Hat users who can't wait for our official release can get them from Rawhide now.
And finally, not only do we have the Win32 release, but, unlike some release candidates,
this does, indeed, come with plugins and all the bells and whistles.
I'm sure you already know
where
to download the releases as they come out (funny date over these).
§
For those interest in getting them from the Latest Releases page, well, tough.
Marc got “inspired” and wants to play with it for right now.
Give a nederlander his own mirror and look what happens....
Meantime, you so don't want to know what Dom said about it!
I wonder if he has a car I can egg...
commit: Turn screen rectangles to images, fully fix dragging resizing text boxes.
,
commit: Visual cut/copy/ paste works!
,
Visual Text
,
Commit: more visual dragging text fixes
,
Patch: win32 text dragging
,
[Fwd: Re: Commit: more visual dragging text fixes]
,
Re: Visual Text
,
commit: Fix Visual Text and undo insert Text Box.
, and
Re: Patch: win32 text dragging
:
→
New Feature!
Visual Text Editing4
hits the HEAD branch with a commit from Martin.
Ultimately, this is where you can grab text and move it around the document.
Right now, it's just drawing and just within AbiWord;
however, Martin points out that now's the time to start planning beyond that.
→
Additionally, I would recommend reading the first message,
“commit: Turn screen rectangles...,” for this special piece of information,
“Finally I think we can get a presentation program going from
the AbiWord code base pretty easily now.”
→
Finally, you may be witnessing the dawn of another desktop standard coming from the
AbiGroupNEATO 5.
In “Re: Patch: win32 text dragging,”
which is attached to “Re: Patch: win32 text dragging,”
which, needless to say, begins with “Patch: win32 text dragging,”
from the end of October (hence the split),
Martin fields a question about the currently non-existent inter-application
Visual Text Editing,
he comes across the idea of making it a functional standard that many applications could use.
§
I love announcing new features; it's so rewarding.
commit: head,win32, installer fixes
:
→
Along with synchronising plugins with the main binary,
Jeremy announces a change that will affect some Win32 users,
specifically those of you using NSIS to build your applications.
Anyone that builds their own should probably already be switched to NSIS version 2.
Jeremy has already moved this to the default;
however, those of you using NSIS version 1 have already noticed that
plugins will not build for you, as they already require version 2.
§
Did I get that right?
I think I did.
I might have to outsource Win32-related reporting to reduce my weekly average of screw-ups.
SCO diddly
:
→
Your editor, that's me, wanted to send a Cease & Desist order to SCO.
Unfortunately, that requires you to find something out for us in advanced.
We know OpenLinux used to offer AbiWord,
but now, we need to know whether or not SCO Linux also offers AbiWord.
Due to their overall license, simply including AbiWord and a number of related files
that Dom lists
here,
would be enough of an excuse to send a bark letter to SCO,
especially if they don't they don't require you to agree to the sublicense of the GPL
for those specific applications (and LGPL for Enchant, ironically).
So, I am ... (let's be honest, only Rui and I enjoy GPL enforcement), that is, um
we are looking for people who can confirm that AbiWord is in SCO Linux.
As Dom put it,
“If you can confirm for me, under penalty of perjury, that they're doing this,
then someone will look into writing a C&D letter.”
I would encourage other projects to look into this.
§
Oddly, this started off as a heart-warming li'l buzzy thought,
but now that I know the door's there, I really want do this!
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, e.g. solutions to problems in a preceeding thread.. This week, interesting topics on the user list included:
Page size vs Section page margins
:
→
First off, whenever a fairly modern version of AbiWord can't load its own documents,
this is 99.99999% of the time...a bug.
Second, if you find a work around to the bug, which,
being a good user, you've already filed at Bugzilla,
be it hand editing or changing a single option, please add that information to your bug report.
Remember, when filing bug reports, to include the version of Abiword, your operating system
and the minimum steps necessary to reproduce it.
§
I've grown attached to Stephen Viles over the past couple of months.
We should have an army of him ;o)
-1BeOS: Last week, I marked out a footnote for BeOS and never wrote it, so, I'm going to include it here. By “if ever” what I meant was, “despite all those offers after threatening to rip it out of head, Hub still hasn't received one patch, one line of code or even an update.” If all those volunteers could send in something, that'd really rock right now.
1Unix-y™: Yup, just applied for it. No one tell Utah.
2Nederfreaks: And you know who you are....
3Wisconsinites: And we know who we are....
4Visual Text Editing: There will be no Non-Existent Associated Trademark Obligation until Martin has picked a name for it that he can stick with ;o)
5AbiGroup: Under no circumstances to be even slightly confused for the Redmond-based The Evil Group, nor it's Utah-based subsidiary, The Santanic Creeps Organisation Group
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. Textboxes...ooh....
| CVS1 checkins from October 26th through November 1st, 2003 | ||
| Who | Commits | In summary |
| Martin Sevior | 45 |
Visual Text Editing
POSIX: fixes for scrolling to reduce the number of doubles |
| Kenneth “Jeremy” Davis | 40 |
.
Win32: correct plugin filenames, update what to build (plugins), build plugin installer if make distribution is used, copy over Aiksaurus data files for installer, update plugins included within installers (add a bunch, remove glib based ones), add Glib/GSF based installer script, copy glib dlls over to plugin directory for glib/gsf based plugin installer, update list of libraries to link with for MinGW build, update plugin installers to install to same dir as NSISv2 based installer, add retry option when download fails for downloadable components, reorder uninstall section some so removal of start menu entry works, build fix, adjust makefile so uses peer ImageMagick and minor readme update Bugs: 5314 and 5962 |
| Hubert Figuiere | 27 |
.
Cocoa: Dialogues (Field, Insert Bookmark, Insert Hyperlink, Format Table), fix build (API changes), removal of dead code, implement genImageFromRectangle Project Builder: new dialogs, new source, new version |
| Dom Lachowicz | 26 |
fix context menu over 'visual text', bunch of visual dragging fixes
Plugins: fix wp plugin build Enchant: support querying which provider a particular language uses, if no language is specified to enchant-lsmod -- use en_US.UTF-8 Win32: some robustness fixes Bug: 5974 |
| Tomas Frydrych | 11 |
cosmetic changes to make RTL caret behave analogously to the LTR caret,
fix a segfault when deleting in revisions mode, revisions work
Bugs: 5325, 5423 and |
| Johan Björk | 7 |
.
QNX: add ::polygon and keep the color after a call to fillRect(UT_RGBColor..), rewrite the scroll functions in qnx graphics class to add SmoothScrollNEATO, implement genImgaeFromRectangle() on QNX/Photon, genImageFromRectangle() -- now with header!, fix genImageFromRectangle - - now VisualText dragging ”Works Neat™“ on qnx |
| Marc Maurer | 4 |
.
Plugins: fix typo in the support files list for Win32, unbreak build also for Win32, fix build of WordPerfect Bug: 5984 (forward ported from original fix by Jordi) |
| Jordi Mas | 1 | fixes build problem |
1CVS: I have just realised this is a head only report! To be fixed in future editions! Yay, an excuse for Yet Another Table!
POWs
It's happening...right after the bug thing....
Bug Update
Bug Market
![[graph]](../graphs/abi_bugs-2003.11.02.png)
This week's activity: ResoUnconf +14 (15 : 1), VeriNew +83 (86 : 3), ClosAssi +1 (1 : 0),
Both Bluespan and Bugkeyser were proven correct in this pre-release period. While ResoUnconf was, indeed, weaken, there was a total whacking of bugs in VeriNew. All markets managed to stay in the positive. Alan Bluespan has pointed out that, as the release of 2.0.1 is made official, bug reports will increase tremendously. Louis Bugkeyser reminds us, however, that many of these will fall into two categories: a) known bugs that will be widdled down, or, b) unknown bugs that are important for the developers to know about.
Windows users happy to use AbiWord 2 when it comes out should send thank you's via paypal, which is visible at the bottom of every AWN. Windows users that want to apologise for filing duplicate bugs, not assisting in Q&A of the bugs, not helping in developing the port or for not promoting AbiWord enough to their friends, can do so via paypal, which is visible at the bottom of every AWN ;o)
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 MisFeatures™ as of November 1st, 2003 | |||
| ID | Votes | Milestone | Summary |
| 376 | 82 | 2.0.x | File associate problems for all file types with Win32Slu...... |
| 3778 | 46 | --- | Hanging indent setting ignores units |
| 4745 | 31 | Future | Change colour of foreground text for screen only |
| 5059 | 31 | 2.2 | Recent Files breaks with international file names |
| 2362 | 30 | 2.2 | AbiWord only prints across half of page |
| 4031 | 30 | Future | Hebrew status line message is not displayed correctly |
| 4722 | 30 | --- | When using -p or --print the output isn't usable |
| 5252 | 30 | 2.2 | Contrast between cursor (caret) and background is ruined ...... |
| 5794 | 30 | --- | Horizontal space and distortion at print page break in We...... |
| 5815 | 30 | --- | Variable-width font issue |
| 2868 | 25 | 2.0.x | character widths are not calculated correctly for some fonts... |
| 4020 | 24 | --- | UTF8 strings not shown in list of spelling alternatives |
| 2421 | 23 | 2.0.x | TM, Bullet, Euro, Smart Quotes and other symbols originat...... |
| 4733 | 20 | --- | File paths with ampersands kill preferences |
| 1679 | 17 | --- | List changes should keep selection |
| 3216 | 15 | 2.2 | [Tabstops Cannot be Set in Second (or Third) Column |
| 3801 | 15 | Future | Incremental loader seems to struggle with large files |
| 1865 | 13 | --- | Header/footer not loaded properly from .doc |
| 3635 | 12 | --- | Format/Document/Margin/Units doesn't respect locale |
| Top 20 Requests For Enhancement as of November 1st, 2003 | |||
| ID | Votes | Milestone | Summary |
| 2183 | 455 | Future | Fully Support OpenOffice's XML file format |
| 2321 | 145 | 2.2 | [RFE] Maths/Equation Editing, as a plugin maybe? |
| 4038 | 136 | --- | Outline View Support |
| 2490 | 126 | 2.2 | Finish Cocoa Frontend |
| 3668 | 126 | Future | Support for window tabs instead of separate windows |
| 1950 | 121 | Future | Wish for automatic Table of Contents |
| 1374 | 108 | Future | [RFE] print odd and/or even pages only (for front & back ... |
| 2565 | 82 | Future | Add true MS Word .doc export capability |
| 4057 | 70 | --- | Thesaurus Shift+F7 keybindings shortcuts consistency |
| 1144 | 68 | Future | Improve KWord import/export filters |
| 1929 | 50 | Future | Hyphenation is missing in Abiword |
| 2366 | 44 | 2.2 | implement floating frame |
| 2365 | 43 | --- | AbiWord needs 'view codes' |
| 515 | 41 | 2.0.x | columns change should only affect selected text |
| 2164 | 36 | 2.2 | Ability to set default print command anywhere |
| 1851 | 31 | Future | [rfe] Ability to create an ALL CAPS style, and Small Caps...... |
| 2186 | 30 | Future | The insert page break setting is lost for custom styles |
| 5852 | 30 | Future | Help making Labels/bussiness cards |
| 2219 | 27 | Future | AUTONUM wanted in [ Insert/Field/Number ] menu |
A little bit of shuffling went on, a few votes added here, a few votes taken from there, but no actual change in the newly added / newly removed world of bugs. If you want to help expand AbiWord's OASIS plugin, I know two developers dying to meet your acquaintance.
Release HackDown
To return the moment there's a meta bug for (I'm assuming) 2.0.2 or otherwise 2.2.0. In the meantime, Dom has a thingy for 2.2.
Abi's Relatives
Several projects are used by, use or synchronise with AbiWord. Some of the most noteworthy libraries and applications will be summarised here. Some may be added under guise of the GNOME Office Suite.; others may be added because it's really just a plug by request. Want your project plugged? Send money to Dom. I'm offering rates of $10 per plug, $25 for a month-long plug, $50 for a quartly plug and $200 to go all year. P*ing us off or the discontinuation of this section does not result in a refund.
Libraries
AbiWord uses several libraries, and other sub-applications, to give it that extra bit of polish. Here, you will learn whatever news I scrape together or has been sent to me in relation to them. I wanted to do more this week, but not so much.
Literally, nothing that's been committed. Unless Nadav's been committed, which would explain so many things.
On Friday, version 0.6.5 was released. This release fixes a bug in the parsing mechanism that caused libwpd to 'hang' on various files. All users are advised to upgrade to this release.
No news on wvware, but I do know that every time Dom is fooded, he acts less annoyed at the stuff I do.
Just the not-wigging-out-when-uncertain-about-languages -related commits you can see in the CVS summaries.
Applications
AbiWord is crucial to the use of or coordinates with a number of full blown applications. Ok, I only know of, like, two. Well, there was that screen play thing, but that went straight out the window. And there was AbiMoz, but some other application has taken its place. I'm sure, once AbiWord 2.0 is seen to all, there will be more to see. Screw the Ant, it's AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom!!!
GNOME Office SuiteSince I don't know of applications outside of AbiWord that use AbiWord, I'll be doing this Gnome Office business. These people should have newsletters, so, I can steal crap from them.
I think Jody moved all his blogging to a site I don't know about. What? You think I'm going to read their mailing list? I already read all of our messages! Do you know what that's like? “Commit: XXX: A now does y, fixed C.” That could drive a guy nuts.
Not much, technically, but I did learn something this week. Never go shroom-picking with Rodrigo; he doesn't know which ones have recreational purposes.
Version 0.7.6, aka “It Looks Like You're Writing A
Other
Look, a place to talk about the AWN
Do inform me if you can't read this because your browser crashed. I had no problems with anything I have with the self-links in the list, but I'm certain there's an “appropriated“ technique for doing this, and that this would not be it. Well, how's that go? PANIC: Can't find graphics card! // No one's going to see this.
The buck no-longer stops here. I'm sure the new changes will be very nifty.
2.0.1 at last!
I'm sure you're sending in your thank you donation now.
Open Source, Open Books.
Last Updated: October 26th, 2003Approximately 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.
Despite the last updated marker, these numbers are only accurate to something around the 19th.
Current Balance: $1051.38
Interest earned: $15.56
Expenditures: $2185
$210 to feed 12 people at GUADEC
$100 to pay for Marc's work on the new server
$700 to pay for the new server
$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
- - note: Pat and Dom went to an Italian restaurant named Dom's on Boston's North End.
Neither Pat or Dom seem to recommend visiting Dom's anytime soon.
Actually, I didn't ask Pat, but I'm pretty sure he'd agree.
Personally, I recommend avoiding Dom altogether.
Hmm, typo, what?
Unique contributors: 58*
paypal: 63
check : 3
cash : 1
*58: plusse 3 repeat offenders whom we love dearly
Contributions: $2893.00
Less paypal and other banking fees: $797.00
| 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. | |