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AbiWord Weekly News #140, (2003, week 16, released 2003.04.20)
Welcome to this issue 140 of the AbiWord Weekly News.
Follow-ups:
We're still without 1.0.6, but it's not necessarily too far way. In the mean time, you should be happy that bug squashing has since become a professional sport. Wondering why? Read on.
This week in development
In case you missed the major change to the development series...it's gone to 1.9.0! Martin's continued to work on the future Nautilus View for Abi while the Macintosh port, happy with its progress in Cocoa, has discontinued the Carbon porting. On that note, it would be nice if someone familiar with Cocoa might consider taking up some of its development with the AbiTeam. A usability point comes to light after last week's preview of the Win32 work for the format table dialogue with a counter-visual from GNOME 2. Sinitsyn Valentine continues work on mingw for Win32 users.
Request for user assistance
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.
Like those dedicated and good-hearted people on American Public Television, we would like to ask for a financial donation. We would like to pull out an extra $400 minimum for a "dedicated 19" 2U rack server, 2.4Ghz P4 (533 FSB) on a 100 Mbit full duplex connection. That should fix all the speed issues for us European guys (and maybe it's even faster for you en_US guys)." This was discussed in chat, and was never cleared for me to actually mention it in AWN, but, technically, it wasn't not cleared, either. Under any circumstance, the money would certainly go to a good cause, and if we raise $13 Million USD, we could buy Microsoft's Corel stock.
Silliness of the Week
It turns out that last week's announcement in this space may or may not have been complete load of Bad Schnitzle.
And now...for something different:
IT'S!
No it isn't. Yes it is! No it isn't! Yes it is!! No it isn't!! Yes it bloody well is, gorram it, and you know it!!! Since when? Since there were time zones! Oh...sod off.
For those of you who don't know, on Friday the eighteenth (18th) Dom "My Wrath is Nigh" Lachowicz celebrated his birthday, while yesterday, Saturday the nineteenth (19th), Hubert Figuiere celebrated his birthday. Now, as to why the HEAD and STABLE maintainers (respectively) would have their birthdays so close together, only an astrologer could guess. Most importantly, they're really young! Ok, maybe only I and Lionel Hardcastle feel that way, but wasn't that nifty!
Now, if you don't believe your editor, and you know you shouldn't, I have about as close to proof as one gets about these things: A letter from Alan!
And now, an anti-Apple moment:
Danger: If you think at all, you might realize that Apple is just another corporate entity
Finally, I'd like to note, in the next two weeks, the AWN will undergo YAChange. The concept will be to become more informative while removing some of the excess whitespace. Some of Jan Christiansen's suggestions will probably be picked up in the process.
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:
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.
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:
-
[...] User Interface stuff, Format Table Dialog : Don't you just hate buttons that mean absolutely nothing, like those with "..." for their names? Alan doesn't care much for them ither, specifically in reference to the Win32 Format Table dialogue of yesterweek. Marc, however, has already added magic to the GNOME 2 Format Table dialogue.
-
Will OASIS/XML format be supported? and [Fwd: Re: Re: Will OASIS/XML format be supported?] : Yes. Seriously, however, this is a far more extensive discussion than just that. And, I've learned that not only do we have the ability to read the OASIS format, but we also have the ability to write to it. My apology to Will for not know the full capabilities of the plugin before I opened my big...um, keyboard...up.
Anyhow, here's a few short cuts for you:
-
ATTN: intent to release 1.9.0 , Tree closed , Tree Open and Release on SF.net : So.....what's new with you? How's the family? That's nice. Absolutely. Hmm? Oh, yes, quite. Me? Well, just recently Dom released 1.9.0. This is the official alpha-to-beta step for 2.0. How cool is that? Really, how cool is that!? That is so cool! Go Get It!
-
commit: abi-nautilus-view-file.xml and commit: Select cell/table/row nautilus view work. : Just to update you on some of Martin's nautilus view project, Martin prepares to do a proper menu merging, which includes some adapting to what is currently being done, specifically, working with tables thus far. When everything's functional, I'm sure we'll gain some lovely screenshots ^_^
-
Commit (HEAD): Suppressing carbon files : Hub's announcing the end of the Carbon life cycle. All Macintosh development will continue in Cocoa now that there's decent work on the Cocoa port.
-
I'm stopping the MacOS X port (yes, that is a rant) : Loyalty works both ways, and Apple just lost its. Apple screwed over our stable maintainer/site root in some pretty unfair way. I don't think there's been a single person watching the OS X port that doubts Hub's capabilities. Since Apple can't be loyal to Hub, Hub won't be loyal to Apple.
Note to Users: Mac OS X work isn't dead, but without Hub, it is greatly hindered.
Note to Developers: Anyone interested in picking up the port may want to get in contact with Dom or Hub.
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:
-
Uninstalling abiword : As Maya leaves trying out the future version of Abiword for a more stable version, Frank gives us the command for uninstalling AbiWord (which isn't make uninstall):
rm -rf /usr/bin/AbiWord-2.0 /usr/lib/AbiWord-2.0 /usr/share/AbiSuite-2.0
Also, Frank's new title is Question Mark.
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. Tables...ooh....
| CVS checkins 2003.04.13 - 2003.04.19 | ||
| Who | Commits | In summary |
| Hubert Figuiere | 212 |
update build instructions for project builder, scrap Carbon/Classic port; Cocoa: handle the list of toolbar, localization now uses UTF8 as it should, minor clean up, stubs to get color background, localize using utf-8, remove unused headers |
| Johan Björk* | 12 | store widget data as its own pointer rather than as extra allocated data |
| Dom Lachowicz | 12 |
make embedding fonts in PS not the default action, version bump for plugins and wp, do some minor mail merge work,
fix memory leakage bug; Bugs: 3228, 4755 and 4891 |
| Martin Sevior | 9 |
select cell/row/table work and nautilus view Bug: 4798 |
| Kenneth "Jeremy" Davis* | 5 | Sinitsyn Valentine's mingw patches |
| Daniel Glassey | 4 | added CFLAGS for WITH_WIN32 then reverted it, then created more case sensitive headers for Win32/Win32 Insert Table |
| Jordi Mas* | 4 | Bug: 4885 |
| Rui Miguel Silva Seabra | 4 |
Marco Innocenti's patch to avoid inclouding commented string token, Italian strings update by Marco Innocenti; rpm: remove commented stuff that's no longer needed, removed %{_libdir}/* from %files since it's not needed and in RedHat 9 it included WAY too much (debuginfo stuff) |
| David Chart | 3 | 1.1.4 Changelog updated to 27 February 2003, 1.1.5 Changelog renamed to 1.9.0 Changelog--to match the planned release number, 1.9.0 Changelog updated to present |
| Tomas Frydrych | 2 | fixed _draw() with ShowPara on, removed an assert in context glyph |
| Marc Maurer | 2 | do not give the same asserting twice, remove debugging code for bug 4111--since it's fixed now |
| Frank J. Franklin | 1 | don't label "Heading *" & "Normal" document styles as classes explicitly (see Bug 4869 for details) |
| Michael D. Pritchett | 1 | Bug: 4832 |
| Will Lachance | 1 | revert Rui's changes which were causing the about dialog to be shown twice in GTK+ builds. |
*Johan Björk: system-related work is QNX unless stated otherwise.
*Kenneth "Jeremy" Davis: system-related work is DOS and Win32 unless stated otherwise. He has two first names, but never explained that part to me.
*Jordi Mas: system-related work is Win32 unless stated otherwise.
Weekly Prize Patch
Dom, with the help of all those of you who donated to help keep AbiWord great, re-established the Weekly Prize Patch. Established at $45 pre-charges (read: the financial companies cut), the prize is awarded by the decision of Martin and Dom, both of whom must agree on the winner. Though neither Dom nor Martin may vote for themselves, they posses to "trumps" that allow them to vote for the other, therefore nullifying that other's vote. Most importantly, winning is entirely dependent on how lagered-up Martin and Dom are at the time in question.
No One
No one received the Patch Prize between the thirteenth and nineteenth of April.
POWs
The concept of a "Project Of the Week" is to single out tasks of major interest that outside developers might be interested in providing assistance to. Until a "best way" of listing POWs come to mind, they shall be listed in a short description. Any user interested is welcome to assist in tackling these POWs. If you know someone who's interested, you can link directly to a POW, in order, they're pow5 (at the top) through pow1 (at the bottom). Reminder to developers, I can't post them if you don't submit them. Additionally, feel free to announce if one of these is finished (in case you don't mention it on the list or in the cvs). Oh, and in case you didn't notice, they're a great way to get money from Dom, really!
Name: 4465
Description: This bug contains a compilation of numerous spelling-related bugs. Interested parties can do simple work, like Q&A to see what's still there, to more complex work, like dialogue fixin' and locale conversion If you have a current Abi and some time, you, too, can help
Advertisement: My spelring dilog isn nt ther
Recommended Outline: Whatever's easiest for you
Comments: All in all, there's something for everyone in there.
System: Any and every OS.
AbiVersion: Current (1.0.4, I would guess, dev and cvs releases may occur as well)
Challenge level: Variable
Current Heroes: You must be magical to know how to fix this
Name: Project Blue Ant.
Description: Perform component-specific tests, document procedural changes and open bugs as necessary.
Advertisement: Play the game and get a hero credit; more recognition than QA!
Recommended Outline: Email abiwordtesting@matthewcraig.com and include available system types, AbiVersions and previous testing experience. Receive testing instructions which will take one to two hours to complete.
Comments: No experience required. A good way to be introduced to AbiWord contribution efforts.
System: Any and every OS.
AbiVersion: 1.0.4 only (for now at least)
Challenge level: *.... 1 star out of 5
Current Heroes: "Some of the most active were Mikey Cooper, Tom Purl and Eric Blom."
Name: Style and/or Diction Plugin(s) (bug 3281) (do either/or or both!)
Description: build a plugin to allow Abiword to check style and diction
Advertisement: me got no grammar fixer, help mes can't you?
Recommended Outline: Create a plugin for AbiWord that allows the checking of style and diction. The source code for the gnu style and diction tools is available here: http://www.gnu.org/software/diction/diction.html
As a prototype you might be able to hack something using the AbiCmd plugin to wrap the style and diction tools. The AikSaurus (Thesaurus) plugin should also be a helpful guide.
When you get the basics working you could try to get Abiword to display green squiggle underlines to mark errors, or otherwise work on a good user interface.
Comments: A great way to start playing with the AbiSource
System: Any OS will be fine.
Challenge level: ***.. 3 stars out of 5
Current Hero: The mastery of Kung Fu has yet to appear.
Name: Fix Windows printing boogs (bug 3239)
Description: Tackle some or more of the various bugs that cause issues in attempting to print under Windows
Advertisement: ????????????????????????????? (no, that's really the ad!)
Recommended Outline: You must become magical to know how to fix this.
Comments: "The problem is that printing on Windows is broken with several brand of printer drivers (see dependent bugs). It appears that with standard PostScript driver it does not happen. It appears also that version 0.9.6 had less problems than 1.0.1 so we might find out where the regression is bu diffing.
"Please, be sure to read all the bug reports. Even partial fix are accepted.
"Fixes must be done against STABLE tree and possibly ported to HEAD (the later can be done as a second step)."
This comes from Hub
Notice: This may already have been fixed with the libiconv upgrade, stay tuned!
System: Windows
Challenge level: ****. 4 stars out of 5
The MoFos who had the Huevos for this POW:
(crash on print)
Daniel Jensen
(text work around)
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 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 Problems | |||
| ID | Votes | Milestone | Summary |
| 376 | 80 | 2.0 | File associate problems for all file types with Win32Slu...... |
| 428 | 44 | 2.0 | Hitting return at the beginning of a paragraph changes fo...... |
| 2362 | 30 | 1.0.x | AbiWord only prints across half of page |
| 3778 | 30 | --- | Hanging indent setting ignores units |
| 3970 | 30 | --- | changing layouts can lead to showing other location than ...... |
| 4049 | 30 | --- | Crash on open file from floppy or network drive. |
| 4722 | 30 | --- | When using -p or --print the output isn't usable |
| 4745 | 30 | Future | Change colour of foreground text for screen only |
| 2868 | 25 | 2.0 | character widths are not calculated correctly for some fonts... |
| 4266 | 23 | --- | Punctuation misplaced in bi-directional text (Arabic and ...... |
| 2421 | 20 | 2.0 | TM, Bullet, Euro, Smart Quotes and other symbols originat...... |
| 1394 | 17 | 2.0 | on-screen landscape actually prints portrait in Win95 |
| 2924 | 15 | --- | printing abw documents defaults to black pages |
| 3216 | 15 | 1.0.x | [Tabstops Cannot be Set in Second (or Third) Column |
| 3801 | 15 | --- | Incremental loader seems to struggle with large files |
| 1865 | 13 | --- | Header/footer not loaded properly from .doc |
| 2962 | 13 | 2.0 | Printer problems with Lexmark printers on Windows |
| 1613 | 11 | 1.0.x | undo does not know about replacing |
| 2584 | 11 | 1.0.x | MS Word Rendering problem. |
| Top 20 Requests For Enhancement | |||
| ID | Votes | Milestone | Summary |
| 2183 | 330 | Future | Fully Support OpenOffice's XML file format |
| 3668 | 111 | --- | Support for window tabs instead of separate windows |
| 1374 | 96 | Future | [RFE] print odd and/or even pages only (for front & back ... |
| 1950 | 94 | Future | Wish for automatic Table of Contents |
| 2565 | 72 | Future | Add true MS Word .doc export capability |
| 2490 | 71 | 2.0 | Finish Cocoa Frontend |
| 2321 | 70 | --- | [RFE] Maths/Equation Editing, as a plugin maybe? |
| 1144 | 67 | Future | Improve KWord import/export filters |
| 4057 | 60 | --- | Thesaurus Shift+F7 keybindings shortcuts consistency |
| 515 | 41 | Future | columns change should only affect selected text |
| 2365 | 39 | --- | AbiWord needs 'view codes' |
| 2366 | 39 | Future | implement floating frame |
| 1929 | 37 | Future | Hyphenation is missing in Abiword |
| 2186 | 30 | Future | The insert page break setting is lost for custom styles |
| 2219 | 27 | Future | AUTONUM wanted in [ Insert/Field/Number ] menu |
| 2164 | 25 | Future | Ability to set default print command anywhere |
| 2296 | 25 | Future | doc import: footnotes |
| 2169 | 24 | Future | Line numbering |
| 1235 | 21 | Future | [RFE] Not possible to change zoom and font size on toolba...... |
Resolved Bugs
In the past week, the following Bugs have been verified as fixed. The listed Bugs have all been put in either CLOSED or RESOLVED mode as FIXED. Can you believe I said QA will return next week when it's been here (or not been here) for three weeks? Final reminder, owners are the squishers and qa are the flushers (in case there's some question).
| Bugs Resolved This Week | |
| Resolution | Number |
| Resolved | 32 |
| Verified | 31 |
| Closed | 4 |
| This Week's Bug Squishers: | |
| Verified | Name |
| 26 | Dave Null |
| 13 | Martin Sevior |
| 8 | Sam TH |
| 5 | Dom Lachowicz |
| 5 | Hubert Figuiere |
| 3 | Jordi Mas |
| 2 | Frank Franklin |
| 1 | David Chart |
| 1 | Mikey Cooper |
| 1 | Tomas Frydrych |
| 1 | Mark Gilbert |
| 1 | tomabi |
Flushed Bugs
What you see here are either invalid bug reports or duplicates. So, basically, I'm showing everyone else how doofy you are sometimes. On average*, confirming duplication or non-validity takes four minutes and thirty-five seconds. That's the equivalent of 8LLOC of time for Dom. Any other questions why development isn't as fast as you want?
| Non-Bugs Flushed this Week | |
| Flushed | Number |
| Invalid | 9 |
| Duplicate | 12 |
| Won't Fix | 3 |
| This Week's Most Active Bug Flushers: | |
| Verified | Name |
| 16 | Dave Null |
| 6 | Alan Horkan |
| 2 | No One |
Caught Bugs
Bug spotters, beware, we're watching you!
| Bugs Found this Week | |
| Caught | Number |
| Unconfirmed | 0 |
| New | 8 |
| ReOpened | 3 |
| This Week's New Bug Owners: | |
| Verified | Name |
| 4 | Jordi Mas |
| 2 | Dave Null |
| 2 | Martin Sevior |
| 2 | Sam TH |
| 1 | Andrew Dunbar |
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
Yo, with 1.0.6 on the way, the 1.0.7 hackdown is only a few AWNs away.
| HackDown to 1.0.5 | |
| Bug ID | Description |
| 2223 | cannot open psiWord files (re-opened) |
|
|
crash on zoom |
| 3239 | [META] Windows printing bugs |
|
|
Crashes repeatably while attempting to edit header |
| 3488 | Weird crash when editing |
| 3561 | Crash on embedded AbiWord in Evolution |
| 3625 | Multi Substitution waste memory |
| 3632 | editing the numbering style of a roman numeral list hangs/crashes |
|
|
Page setup has a problem with margins in millimeters |
| 3678 | [STABLE]Crash when editing this Word document |
| 3697 | [crash] blank AbiWord document viewed as text (View Source) |
|
|
AbiWord crashes during import of this MS Word document |
| 3766 | Dvorak Keyboard |
| 3858 | export wrong content when choosing export to "Simplified Chinese GB_2312-80" encoded text |
| 4068 | Crash when mouse leaves selected header |
| 4070 | [META] crash on load bugs |
| 4093 | Program Terminates on Open |
| 4097 | Save dialog file extension weirdness |
| 4125 | .doc file does not import correctly (BiDi issues). |
| 4183 | Save/reload puts spurious characters in simple file in 1.0.3 |
| 4283 | // comments expose lots of bugs |
| 4304 | crash when changing font of certain text (e.g. page numbers) |
| 4363 | [STABLE] Abi crashes after document open/close if text selected |
| 4449 | EV_EditBindingMap::removeBinding() leaks |
|
|
Format > Tabs dialog box completely broken |
| 4531 | Page breaks ignored in RTF |
| 4559 | section break handling is broken |
| 4647 | Abiword 1.0.4 crashes with zh_CN Chinese font locale |
|
|
Abiword.exe Entry Point Not Found |
|
|
AbiWord 1.0.4 does not compile with gcc-3.2.2 and perl-5.8.0 |
|
|
|
| 1 | Unconfirmed |
| 12 | Unapproached |
| 10 | Assigned |
| 7 | Resolved |
|
*Strike-out bug numbers and greyed text are resolved. *Bold bug numbers and bold text are assigned. *Italicized bug numbers and italicized text are unconfirmed. *Normal bug numbers and normal text have not yet been approached. |
|
Head
On our way to two-point-oh, affectionately referred to as, AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom.
| HackDown to AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom | ||
| Bug ID | Open of Total | Description |
| 2145 | 4 of 5 | FCC 508 accessibility regulation compliance |
| 2921 | 2 of 2 | abi can leak memory [tracker bug] |
| 3064 | 6 of 7 | [TRACKER] AbiWord Performance |
| 3239 | 20 of 38 | [META] Windows printing bugs |
| 4142 | 3 of 12 | make AbiWord comply with GNOME HIG |
| 4425 | 0 of 0 | squash all warnings |
| 4465 | 20 of 36 | [META] Spelling bugs |
| 4466 | 11 of 22 | [META] "Motion" Bugs |
| 4467 | 8 of 11 | [META] Find/Replace bugs and enhancements |
| 4488 | 1 of 13 | [META] Help System Bugs |
| 4627 | 11 of 16 | [META] Copy/Paste bugs |
Dom's popped off 2 in the long list of many bugs yet to go, but at least we've go .9 system for people to play
See Announce: 2.0 release plan for more details on the intended route towards Abiword II: The Wrath of Dom.
Open Source, Open Books.
Last Updated: April 10, 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: $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
| 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. | |