AbiWord Weekly News #173,
(2003, week 49, released December 8th, 2003)
Welcome to this issue 173 of the AbiWord Weekly News.
Follow-ups:
Missed a thread.
This week in development
Enchant, OTS and Gnumeric have made new releases, AbiWord to make its releases literally, “Any Day Now.” More information about tabiword, abiword-related TabletPC project. And, we have some funny Open Books update-age. Rarely, I plug SOTW here, but this is a good collection of crap.
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
I was talking to Jackson Harper the other day, actually, a week ago, now. Anyhow, I was reading the mono-community web log, or something like that, and came across this perfect picture. You see, it expresses the feelings of many developers who wonder why they get emails instead of bug reports. You know, the, “You screwed something up,” emails with little in means of specificity. Bugzilla can survive a really bad guess, we encourage you to guess. We encourage you to file bug reports at any cost because we're animal lovers. How does that pertain? We're glad you asked.
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton, a name I will never type out in full, has recently mentioned another possible violation of SCO against Samba. Actually, the intent is to force SCO to back off of the IBM (seen as anti-Linux) suit. Let me skip you to the best bits:
“I didn't say anything, but what those packets meant was that the SCO developers must have assumed that because they had passed on that 500 to 1000 lines of code to me, it was okay for them to copy the 5000 to 10,000 lines of code that I subsequently wrote.”
...“I hereby give notice to SCO that if you drop all lawsuits against Linux, I will not pursue a copyright infringment [sic.] case against SCO.”
Now that's something you won't find on Groklaw. Whoo-yeah, prove me wrong.
And, to close our, “collection,” I'd like to take the time to encourage Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin to re-unite in one more movie. Just one. That'd be really great, Man. This too, you will not find on Groklaw. I'd bet your life on it.
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:
2.0.2 release?
,
Re: 2.0.2 release?
:
→
To bring you uptodate from last week,
The various performance fixes that have gone into CVS HEAD will
most likely not go into the 2.0 series.
Hub points out, however, that if the fixes were placed into one corrective applicable patch
and if that patch could receive lots of testing and abuse,
he would reconsider placing those performance fixes into the 2.0 series.
Martin has pointed out, however, that the effort would prove unnecessary as
the 2.2 series will be released in about four months.
Though it seems too short when compared to the 1.0 to 2.0 series,
Martin reason that the faster release remains possible because 2.2 lacks
the kind of radical revisioning that occurred between 1.0 and 2.0.
§
TPTB
advised spectators of this thread not laugh too hard at Martin's optimism.
Martin has reasoned that the developers could implement any necessary new features in 2 months,
leaving another 2 months for solid bug fixing thereafter.
Text relations in ots;
,
Text relations in ots - benchmark
,
Summarizing articles in a new way
:
→
Open Text Summarizer advanced even further as Nadav began work on recognising relative concepts.
The ability to recognise similarities and related topics in a document possesses
a common interest for projects like
storage,
dashboard (big page),
slashcode and
whedonesque.
However, only the first two have actually looked into it as of yet.
Martin points out that AbiWord can perform a very crucial function to these and similar projects;
AbiWord can take documents out of their formatting, like .doc and .html,
and translate them into plain text for OTS to parse.
§
Finally, a way to prevent re-submitted stories, even when they're from different sites!
Yeah...that'll never be a part of slashcode...to revolutionary.
Linux Tinderboxes revived
:
→
Marc has returned the tinderboxen for both STABLE and HEAD branches.
Users interested in trying out AbiWord can now get up-to-the-minute builds,
and developers screwing up AbiWord can now get up-to-the-minute blame.
§
Donut listings shall be tallied weekly.
STABLE-2-0 is looking really nice...
,
2.0.2, 2.1.0 - Re: commit docs: BIDI
,
Commit: 2.0.2 ChangeLog updates
:
→
Martin and Marc continue their push towards 2.0.2.
Though no time was set down for 2.0.2,
Martin has suggested the window for a 2.1.0 release may arrive on the 11th.
§
Most users will come to really love 2.2,
and some of them my show that appreciation with something green.
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. Happily, the user list is becoming more active! This week, interesting topics on the user list included:
Printing with Abiword2.0
,
Re: Printing with Abiword2.0
:
→
Sometimes the answers really aren't obvious, which is why you should use the mailing lists.
Keith Powell seeks advice on printing every other page, something brought up in
“Commit (HEAD): Bugs: 5894, 5980 - Fix PS printing.”1.
Though not possible from within AbiWord specifically, it can be handled by an outside programme.
Alison Russell points out one such option, gtklp.
Another option, especially for those of you not on a unix, maybe to
output the format of AbiWord to postscript, and let a postscript viewing programme print out
every other page (making sure that's an option first, of course).
§
User-to-user assitance is my favourite kind of help.
Symbols
:
→
Donald Henson, like many of you, has had issues with insert symbol on unix-like systems.
The Insert Symbol dialogue is really the GNOME Character Map, which is the source of the problem.
The most current version, at least as new as that within Fedora core, no longer has this problem.
§
WingDings was created out of an alien language that was discovered on
a saucer that crashed in the Southwest in the mid-forties.
1Commit (HEAD): Bugs: 5894, 5980 - Fix PS printing: This should have been part of last week's AWN; and I regret that it was not included.
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....
CVS checkins for HEAD from November 30th to Decemember 6th, 2003 | ||
Who | Commits | In summary |
Nadav Rotem | 65 |
.
Peers: → Open Text Summarizer: Inner product examples, remove warning from gnome-summariser, released version 0.4.2, relativity examples via slashdot, dashboard reference in examples, English tweak, new API that brings the ability to check how two blocks of text relate to oneanother, gcc2.96 safe, check for NULL pointers in parser.c grader.c grader-tc.c, inn-prod more robust, another slashdot story, mem leaks and boundery checks thanks to valgrind, code that will take a group of N articles and join them to one summarized article, article joiner (currently still under much needed development) |
|
||
Tomas Frydrych | 56 |
.
Platforms: → Cross Platform: bidi menu items, fix handling of "" properties, changes needed for kbd language handling, fix setVisDirection() in fp_Run.cpp, fix document iterator related bug, changes to letPointPass(), revisions work, fixed findPointCoords() → Windows: changes needed for kbd language handling, revert my earlier change introducing serious rounding bug Building: → Iomega Active Disk: script fixes Documentation: → English, U.S.: bidi |
|
||
Martin Sevior | 43 |
.
Platforms: → Cross Platform: multi-selection support, insertion point stays in the split cell now, column selection work, cut/copy/paste of table columns → Unix: fix off-by-1 expose bug in unix, restart page number limit 100000 Features: → Visual Dragging: multi-selection support, column selection work, cut/copy/paste of table columns → Multi-Selection Support: column selection work, cut/copy/paste of table columns, Visual Dragging works Bugs: → 6099: crash when changing style of a paragraph or removing footnotes → 6128: Abiword crashes with a delete in footnotes |
|
||
Marc Maurer | 17 |
.
Platforms: → Windows: several bug fixes regaurding languages and barbarisms From Jordi Mas, fixes include in ut_string From Jordi Mas, fixes leaking resources From Jordi Mas Plugins: → AbiPaint: const_cast build fix in ut_UnixProcess Documentation: → English, U.S.: update string in bidi docs Translations: → Spanish, Spain: Update by Francisco J. Fernandez Bugs: → 3430: (From Jordi Mas) — Can't print more than one copy on Windows → 5527: (From Jordi Mas) — Broken spanish spell check |
|
||
Dom Lachowicz | 12 |
.
Platform: → Cross Platform: change string Peer: → Enchant: fix bug that was plaguing the spanish dictionaries in ispell, hspell provider Bugs: → 4720: Yiddish input method linkage to AbiWord not quite right → 6042: Problem compiling abiword-plugins 2.0.1-2 |
|
||
Hubert Figuiere | 8 |
.
Platform: → MacOS X: fix redraw — pass the correct pointer to the graphics update callback, fix memory leak, add hooks to fetch the icon name from its ID, implement icon loading from PNG file in Bundle Build: → Project Builder: added fv_Selection → Make: updated Translations: → Catalan, Spain: Update From Jordi Mas |
|
||
Frank J. Franklin | 3 |
.
Plugins: → Documentation: update README with Solaris bug info Bugs: → 6130: copyright string in About dialogue needs updating |
|
||
Raphael Finkel | 2 |
.
Translations: → Yiddish: update |
|
||
Jordi Mas | 2 |
.
Translations: → Catalan: updated |
|
||
Rui Miguel Silva Seabra | 1 |
.
Plugins: → Star/Open Office: missing UT_ prefix in iconv_open |
|
||
CVS checkins for STABLE from November 30th to December 6th, 2003 | ||
Who | Commits | In summary |
Marc Maurer | 29 |
.
Platforms: → Cross Platform: fix bugs introduced by EOP fix From Martin Sevior, fix handling of "" properties and add bidi menu items From Tomas Frydrych, change string From Dom Lachowicz → Unix: make the restart page number limit 100000 From Martin Sevior Features: → Footnotes: fixes From Martin Sevior → Tables: nesting fixes From Martin Sevior Documentation: → English, U.S.: bidi docs From Tomas Frydrych Translations: → Spanish, Spain: Update by Francisco J. Fernandez → Breton, France: Update by Korvigelloú An Drouizig Bugs: → 4720: (From Dom Lachowicz) — Yiddish input method linkage to AbiWord not quite right → 6128: (From Martin Sevior) — Abiword crashes with a delete in footnotes |
|
||
Jordi Mas | 15 |
.
Platform: → Cross Platform: fix an include, fixes uninit data access in stable → Windows: several bug fixes regaurding languages and barbarisms, fixes leaking resources Translations: → Catalan, Spain: update Bugs: → 3430: Can't print more than one copy on Windows → 5527: Broken spanish spell check |
|
||
Frank J. Franklin | 4 |
.
Plugins: → Documentation: update README with Solaris bug info → Building: update ImageMagick version requirement Bugs: → 6130: copyright string in About dialogue needs updating |
|
||
Hubert Figuiere | 2 |
.
Bugs: → 6099: crash when changing style of a paragraph or removing footnotes |
|
POWs
It's happening...right after the bug thing....
Bug Update
Bug Market
This week's activity: ResoUnconf +21 (21 : 0), VeriNew +4 (6 : 2), ClosAssi +2 (3 : 1),
All markets brilliantly resound in the positive with this most likely final week before another release. Alan Bluespan said to anticipate an extreme drop in the markets either next week, with the new release coming out, or in the week after, when users will have had sufficient time to test features. Louis Bugkeyser believes that markets will remain relatively high until the first Developers' Release comes out, which is expect to be due sometime this month and quite probably just before the religious holidays.
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 December 6th, 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 |
5059 | 41 | 2.2 | Recent Files breaks with international file names |
5815 | 35 | --- | Variable-width font issue |
4896 | 32 | 2.0.x | the very last character can't be selected |
4745 | 31 | Future | Change colour of foreground text for screen only |
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...... |
6011 | 27 | --- | Spelling check provides bad suggestions and improperly pl...... |
2868 | 25 | 2.0.x | character widths are not calculated correctly for some fonts... |
4020 | 25 | --- | UTF8 strings not shown in list of spelling alternatives |
6112 | 24 | --- | Win32 Windows Accumulate Dirt from Windows Objects |
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 |
Top 20 Requests For Enhancement as of December 6th, 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? |
3668 | 136 | Future | Support for window tabs instead of separate windows |
4038 | 136 | --- | Outline View Support |
2490 | 126 | 2.2 | Finish Cocoa Frontend |
1950 | 121 | Future | Wish for automatic Table of Contents |
1374 | 108 | Future | [RFE] print odd and/or even pages only (for front & back ... |
4057 | 70 | --- | Thesaurus Shift+F7 keybindings shortcuts consistency |
1144 | 68 | Future | Improve KWord import/export filters |
1929 | 50 | Future | Hyphenation is missing in Abiword |
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 |
2473 | 35 | 2.0.x | [rfe] Support move & resize of images anchored to a page... |
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 |
2219 | 27 | Future | AUTONUM wanted in [ Insert/Field/Number ] menu |
2169 | 24 | Future | Line numbering |
3233 | 23 | 2.0.x | New Language preference menu |
The list of MisFeatures gets some changes with the addition of two new bugs: 4896, the very last character can't be selected, and 6112, Win32 Windows Accumulate Dirt from Windows Objects. Meanwhile, a major change occurs in the world of Enhancements, as 2565, Add true MS Word .doc export capability, has been discontinued and has been resolved under the WONTFIX category. For more information about why this was done, please read the latest .DOC FAQ in the Abisource Twiki.
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.
Open Text Summariser 0.4.2 Released! Now, while you're looking at some of those new features or trying out the multi-article resummarisation in cvs now, just imagine all of that general niftiness going to work for you...under the hood of dashboard. For those of you who like the multi-article summarisation, Nadav recommends trying it with more articles; with the current tweaks, something around 10 have worked for Nadav. Now we see the growing coolness that is the Open Text Summarizer.
News requires something...new.
Hahaha, why is this here?
Enchant 1.1.2 released! This fixes a bug that was plaguing Spanish Ispell users and also has preliminary support for Hspell! That was already mentioned in the CVS summaries, but now you can download it stable and everything!
Applications
AbiWord is crucial to the use of or coordinates with a number of full blown applications. It's incredible! There really is still an application that uses AbiWord!
AbiFoundationThis very unique section is for applications...application that use...uses AbiWord as the foundation for their...his software.
This week, some of the GnomeDesktop users got to see AbiWord for Tablets. Well, your dedicated editor, full of kink and joy, has contacted Kevin Conroy about his project. The information here comes from the lone email exchange included, my part covered much of the very bits many of the FootNotes readers wanted to know. For more information, see the pdf about the Paper Augmented Digital Document. It should be noted, though tabiword is related to PADD in some concept, it is, in reality, a totally seperate system; however, it will be folded into the PADD prototype system.
A year ago, tabiword began as a proof of concept.
Similar to a core concept in PADDs, tabiword would blur the line between
the advantages of a digital document, like one edited in AbiWord,
and the advantages physical document, like on tree corpses.
To successfully create tabiword, the tools, both hardware and software, had to be limited to a very specific set.
These tools included:
the latest pen TabletPC re-introduced to the market around that time,
the AbiWord 1.0.4 codebase
and the Logitech IO pen.
The current state of the project focuses around research project, but which is to have a decently functional system in time to submit it to several conferences, thus negating several side-projects, like, restoring cross-platform functionality or porting the PADD functions to the 2.0 codebase. Areas where the functionality fail were carefully avoided in demonstrative now-MPEG4-available videos.
When Kevin finally writes a paper out of the whole thing, we might get to see some of this; however, Kevin will most likely just open the gates for further development by other people when that time comes. Lest it say simply, it's all up in the air until then.
I've learned quite a bit from this whole thing. I've learned that some Windows users are kind and decent people. I've learned you can get around the digital-only limits of libgsf. I've learned that François Guimbretière has spent too much time with the StarFleet Technical Manual. I've learned that Anoto gives away trade secrets to anyone at the University of Maryland. I've learned that the proof readers of the PADD document did not catch the subtle difference between the words “they” and “their.” I've also learned that the end of the document remains something only read by professors. Or, possibly, I've just learned that more people send S* to stro than they do me. Ah well, one time addition to the apps section.
Special thanks to Kevin for catching a bad editor. Bad, Editor...Bad. Apologies to one and all who read this before Midnight-ish of December 10th.
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.
Version 1.2.2 has been released!
You were expecting a release maybe?
This should die now.
Dave, in his brief presence introduced some test code for the soon-to-be GTK File Selection Dialogue. This remains disabled for the time being because of the dependency it creates on a very late version of GTK. You will also find on the experimental list the start of using GNOME Office's favourite library, libGSF; people interested in playing with it should report any code breakage to David. Document Type Definition, at least for HTML, will be included in future created files, thanks to Jeff. You wouldn't know this unless you wanted to know when Joakim was going to update the website. That nasty, barely sorted orange bo'chit is really pushing my sanity....
Other
Look, a place to talk about the AWN
The longest AWN ever! You don't know this, but it's true. I've honestly been writing this thing off and on for three days.
Definitely looking at two releases Real Soon Now™
Something funny with the books you should know about. Paypal vs. the csv from paypal disagree. The odd thing is, its exactly $700. I do not know why, and I'm open to someone's explanation as to WTF!?. That is the exact amount, as I'm sure you'll notice, of the money taken out for the server...which is accounted for in the csv.
Alison Russell was very helpful this week and deserves a nice prise. I've thought about it for a minute, and got squat, so, Alison, feel free to buy yourself something. Just say, “I would have spent this on an expensive word processor, and now, I deserve something special.” Yeah...that works.
Open Source, Open Books.
Last Updated: December 6th, 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.
Current Balance: $2144.20
Interest earned: $19.34
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: 61*
paypal: 66
check : 3
cash : 1
*61: plusse 3 repeat offenders whom we love dearly
Contributions: $2311.84
Less paypal and other banking fees: $167.64
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. |