AbiWord Weekly News #196,
      (For the week ending May 15th, the 20th week of 2004)

Welcome to this issue #196 of the AbiWord Weekly News.

Follow-ups:

      All of AbiDom accessible...except those pesky home directories.

This week in development

      In order of least important to most important: X/HTML work progresses to ensure compatability with Gnumeric, AbiWord 2.0.7 has just been released as a tarball, and “Angel” only has one more episode to air.

Request for User Assistance

      Attention Indic and Arabic users!   We need more of you to attempt to use and report bugs on CVS Head.   As we continue to improve the glyph-shaping engine, we will need to know what is working and what is not.   You, our users, are an essential part of our community development.   Please participate in helping us improve the application all of us are using.

      In case you haven't guessed, the fact that the plea below, languages, has remained unchanged is because no-one has even told us they're trying to help.   However, we were told that two were not that different (if at all) from a close linguistic relative.   That said, please-oh-please give us 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:

      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.

SillinessDeadly Seriousness of the Week

      My show!   My beautiful show!   Sweet glorious show!   Struck down, literally (and visually), in the prime of its life!   Bastards!   Bastards the lot of them!

      Now, if I could get every domestic fan to send in an average of $7.50 net, I could still have my show, my beautiful show!   That's right, make a check out to Mutant Enemy with the memo “Angel Blood Money,” we just might have something.   Where have all those fan efforts gone!?   I WANT MY SHOW, GORRAM IT!

      There was even talk that Drew was going to do a Tuvix thing and create...SPANGEL!   It was gonna be funny!   Bring me my show!   If not, bring me the first half of the next season at least...SPANGEL!   C'mon!   Nothing gets better than SPANGEL!   SPAAAAAAAAANGEEEEEEEEEL!

      Also, see the News Index for missed AWN's.   You'll notice some screenshots in there, somewhere.





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 50-100 postings per week.   This week, interesting topics on the developer list included:

  1. [ANN] server outage ,
    Mailing list are back :
    →   At the beginning of last week, Nyorp, the AbiServer #1, was cut off from the outside world due to excessive email relaying, most of which was due to Windows users who didn't take time to patch their systems.   To bring AbiSource back online, the bulk of the operations have since been moved to BlueAnt, which recieved its luscious bandwidth thanks to the generous Univerity of Twente.
    §   DNS, unfortunately, didn't percipitate all the way through on my end, but thanks to Mikey and Ryan, I was able to obtain a connection.   Unfortunately, since home directories have yet to be moved over, I do not have a graph.
  2. commit: Initial pasting of XHTML into AbiWord. ,
    commit: Paste Images too. commit: HTML import/export fixes. ,
    HTML export regressions. ,
    What route for the XHTML importer? :
    →   Martin Sevior begins work on bringing X/HTML managing up to date.   Originally using a nifty pseudo-clipboard technique that could apply to all formats, he was encouraged to bring the true form of the related functionality.   Martin is now considering whether to allow the XHTML importer to be more tolerant, or whether it should freak out and run away.   It's still early enough to let your opinion be heard.
    §   After years of hearing Dom say that if he were to change the native format of AbiWord, he'd choose RTF because it's just as feature rich and well documented, it was quite a surprise to hear from Hub that RTF can't make text boxes.   Of course, that could just be the Engrish talking.
  3. ATTN: Intent to release 2.0.7 ,
    ATTN: STABLE branch closed for 2.0.7 release! :
    →   Out of the magic hat comes Release 2.0.7!   Yes, from the people who don't know who from whom, it's the latest word processor: AbiWord 2.0.7.   Nolonger equipped with a “patch to nuke Iraq,” something we've been meaning to get rid of since we realised that U.S. is taking Open Source seriously.
    §   Debain Sid users already have had 2.0.7 available to them for some time, thanks to mhatta's magic time machine (a Pentium VI), so, upgrading for us will be completely unnecessary ;o)
  4. Commit(head): MSVC71 build work :
    →   Mikey, as his commits have been suggesting, has reached ever closer to getting AbiWord to compile within Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET 2003 IDE, MSVC 7.1.   Aiksaurus has been removed because it's issue laden.
    §   Where'd Francis go?



Development

CVS Stats

      Keep track of the latest developments, from bug fixes to requested enhancements.   You'll find it easy to watch the progress made by the developers or individual developers involved.   Perhaps you'll even be encouraged to try a development build of either branch.


Developments for 2.0 from May 9th through the 15th of 2004
Who Commits In summary
Hubert Figuière 14 Along with typical maintainence, some fixes were backported from Martin.
Platforms:
Cross Platform:   lots of fixes for toggling auto-spell on and off From Martin Sevior, remove unused code due to previous commit
Bugs:
6216:   (From Martin Sevior) — Problems resizing table columns
6807:   (From Martin Sevior) — Crash when performing change case function with table selected
6820:   Update Lithuanian translation

Marc Maurer  4 Backporting of fixes from Mikey, Tomas and Martin.
Platforms:
Cross Platform:   don't ignore pagesize if rtf doc has a header/footer From Martin Sevior
Bugs:
6275:   (From Mikey Cooper) — Turning status bar off makes Horizontal Ruler Disappear
6749:   (From Tomas Frydrych) — Unswitchable letter substitution
6776:   (From Mikey Cooper) — Extra toolbars created when enabled in fullscreen mode

Developments for 2.1 from May 9th through the 15th of 2004
Who Commits In summary
Martin Sevior 51 Lots of work, especially towards X/HTML import/export from/to Gnumeric.
Platform:
Cross Platform:   substational speed ups processing list changes, fix bugs pasting, fix a crash pasting a bookmark in a table and blocks getting pasted out of order
Unix:   Gnumeric→AbiWord XHTML pasting successful!
File Types:
Hyper-Text Markup Language:   lots of ground work to paste, lots of HTML import/export fixes
Extended Hyper-Text Markup Language:   improvements to allow AbiWord to import Gnumeric generated XHTML, more fixes to make our XHTML not suck as much, Gnumeric→AbiWord successful!, paste images with the ie_imp_PasteListener
Building:
GNU Make:   lots of ground work to paste HTML
Bugs:
6216:   Problems resizing table columns
6795:   Crash when choosing RTL paragraph option with table selected
6807:   Crash when performing change case function with table selected

Mikey Cooper 25 More work towards MSVC71.
Platforms:
Windows:   updated instructions in MSVC71/README.TXT
Building:
MSVC 7.1:   more work towards building under MSVC71

Tomas Frydrych 21 unspecified work toward Table of Contents and Bookmarks along with some MSWord fixes.
Feature:
Table of Contents:   fix copy/paste bug, work
Bookmarks:   work
Platforms:
Cross Platform:   bullet proofing SectionLayout, added UT_UTF8String::appendUCS2()
File Types:
Microsoft Word Document:   fix header/footer import, TOC and bookmark work

Hubert Figuière  3 A bug and some pre-release work.
Building:
Project Builder:   version 2.1.3
Bugs:
6820:   Update Lithuanian translation

Pierre Abbat  2 Malay update from Sharuzzaman
Translations:
Malay, ?:   update From Sharuzzaman Ahmat Raslan

Dom Lachowicz  1 Fix an Open Text Summarizer bug
Bugs:
6816:   minor cast-as-lvalue fix for ots

     




POWs

      It's happening Really Soon Now™!





Bug Update


Bug Market

[graph]

      This week's activity: ResoUnconf +12 (12 : 0), VeriNew +3 (16 : 13), ClosAssi unch (0 : 0),

      A harsh day for the markets with little activity.   Alan Bluespan noted that the return of server access should result in a correction quite soon.   Louis Bugkeyser believes that activity will remain consist but otherwise relatively low.

      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  misfeatures 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 May 15th, 2004
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
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
5252  30 2.2 Contrast between cursor (caret) and background is ruined ......
5782  30 --- Abiword hangs opening attached Word document
5794  30 --- Horizontal space and distortion at print page break in We......
6181  30 --- cursor position is not updated when changing paragraph style...
2868  26 2.0.x character widths are not calculated correctly for some fonts...
4896  25 2.0.x the very last character can't be selected
2421  24 2.0.x TM, Bullet, Euro, Smart Quotes and other symbols originat......
6011  21 --- Spelling check provides bad suggestions and improperly pl......
6354  20 --- --merge=FILE command line option does not work in abiword...
1679  17 --- List changes should keep selection
3216  15 2.2 Tabstops Cannot be Set in Second (or Third) Column
3801  15 Future [META] Seems to struggle with large files
Top 20 Requests For Enhancement as of May 15th, 2004
ID Votes Milestone Summary
2183 458 Future Fully Support OpenOffice's XML file format
3668 166 Future Support for window tabs instead of separate windows
2321 145 2.2 [RFE] Maths/Equation Editing, as a plugin maybe?
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
2365  51 --- AbiWord needs 'view codes'
1929  50 Future Hyphenation is missing in Abiword
 515  41 2.0.x columns change should only affect selected text
1851  36 Future [rfe] Ability to create an ALL CAPS style, and Small Caps......
2473  35 2.0.x [rfe] Support move & resize of images anchored to a page...
1235  30 Future [RFE] Not possible to change zoom and font size on toolba...
2463  30 --- support embedded objects
2219  27 Future AUTONUM wanted in [ Insert/Field/Number ] menu
2169  24 Future Line numbering
3233  23 2.0.x New Language preference menu
3419  20 Future [RFE] Add microspacing feature (tracking) for characters
2136  15 Future A Latex importer would be nice and useful
3083  15 Future [META] Redesign smart quote system
1270  13 Future Should support graphical columns ala wordperfect 8/9

      Some stuff broke, some stuff got fixed, and one bug jumped back onto the radar.





Release HackDown

      When I'm caught up again....





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 Summarizer

      Nadav...how you doin' out there, Buddy?   You, uh...you still alive out there, Man?

LibWPD

      Nothing since February.

WvWare

      I'm guessinnnn'...squat.

Enchant

      December...2004.

Applications

      AbiWord is crucial to the use of, coordinates development with, or to some extent relies upon a number of applications.   Only one two of these applications make it easy for me to steal information from them, so, we're talking about a lot of blog reading.

Windows World

      Here, we'll explore our Windows associates more.   Well...it's currently only the one, but it's a very important one.

Nullsoft Scriptable Install System

      Since 2.0 was released, there really has been much news to report.

GNOME Office Suite

      Since 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.

Gnumeric

      Jody announced the release of Gnumeric 1.2.12 this week.   This is a critical release which is necessary to repair excel (xls) output that has otherwise been causing Microsoft's Excel to crash when attempting to open them.   Also this week, Jody announced the release of libgsf 1.9.0.   Now...where's that sock puppet when you need it?

Gnome-DB

      Absoluetly nothin!

Criawips

      We're [expletive deleted]ed.

      Now, another possibility, and a possible future AbiShow, at that, Colin JN Breame proposed the possibility that he and a friend would like to make a PowerPoint clone.   Lots of discussion off and on list, and you'll probably find it very educational, even if you're a little curious about politics and project development and whatever else.   Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on 'er for ya for awhile ;o)

Conglomerate

      Nickolay V. Shmyrev has fixed a major Find and Replace bug.   Dave has approved the patch via proxy of Geert.   Geert also announces that version 0.8.0 of Conglomerate was secretly released in December of 2003.   For more information, see thread “Find and Replace.”

Other

      Look, a place to talk about the AWN

Abiword Weekly News

      I'm announcing that I will discontinue the AWN... when there is no more “Angel” in syndication.   Thanks to FX, that will almost certainly be a long time from now.   Maybe it was actually a really good show.

AbiWord

      Not as important as “Angel.”

Books

      Did you know that “Angel” got more ratings with even less money?   Who's doing the WB's books?

AbiUsers

      I only love the ones that love “Angel.”





Open Source, Open Books.

Last Updated: December 13th, 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.

      These are numbers from all of time!   Everything since the paypal AbiFund has been setup is in here, not just this month or just this week.   Just in case you didn't figure that out, I'm restating it since the PayPal incident first incited interest in this.

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.