Re: Roadmap for AbiWord 3.0

J.M. Maurer wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> After AbiWord 2.8 comes AbiWord 3.0 (let's skip 2.10, people will be
> confused), which means we need to decide what to put in it.
>
> Fridrich already committed some work towards a Windows 64 bit port, so
> that will be in 3.0 to start.
>
> Then we have some stuff lined up in branches that we need to decide upon
> when to merge:
>
> 1. gsoc2009gettext - port abiword to gettext, making plugins localizable
> 2. gsoc2009unicode - make the Win32 port a true unicode application
> 3. gsoc2009tablelayout - improve (table layout) performance, includes
> the new PieceTable.
>
> My current thinking is that I'd love to see a 'quick' 3.0 release with
> 1) and 2) in it. This because they are very user visible features making
> AbiWord useful to a big new group of people, and they are very unlikely
> to destabilize AbiWord. This means just a short time of stabilizing
> would be needed.
>
> I'm very aware that 3) will have great benefits as well, but the
> drawback is that it is very likely to introduce bugs that need to be
> ironed out. As soon as we release 3.0, we could merge this branch as
> well.
>
> Comments? Better ideas?

I like the idea of doing a 3.0, but might I humbly suggest that we get
the XP+ theming issue in AbiWord ironed out for it? AbiWord still uses
Windows 2000-style controls and on XP, Vista and 7 looks very dated. On
the Windows builds, using icons from the Oxygen icon set as well would
go a long way to making AbiWord look more like a modern app.

Thoughts?

Best,
John
Received on Mon Nov 16 23:34:10 2009