GNOME 2.2 is just about 2 weeks away. In preparation for this the first release candidate was released last week. Lots of updated packages this week due to the developers being in bugfix mode, fighting of those hard to find bugs that eats development time like a black hole eats light.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2003-January/msg00031.html
Dominic Lachowicz posted a release plan for Abiword 2.0 to the Abiword development list. It includes both a timeline and expected feature set for the upcoming Abiword release. Included updates are of course use of Gtk+ 2.0 and GNOME 2.0, tables and XFT fonts, but also interesting things like an OpenOffice importer/exporter and even obscure things like barbarisms :).
http://www.abisource.com/mailinglists/abiword-dev/2003/Jan/0249.html
GNOME has some really nice graphics applications, but as with everything powerfull it can be hard to learn to use it. Luckily there are people out there willing to help us out by writing nice tutorials. For instance Nathan Hurst written a nice tutorial showing how to create a skyline in Sodipodi. Another article is interest is from Linux Journal who recently published an article showing how to remove red-eye with the Gimp. In the article, LJ presents a Gimp script by Martin Guldahl that implements the technique in the article
http://hawthorn.csse.monash.edu.au/~njh/programming/drawing-packages/sodipodi/
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6567&mode=thread&order=0
Michael Dell, chairman of Dell, is interviewed about Linux on the desktop by pcAdvisor. In the interview the following is said: 'He says that rumours hinting the company is still willing to back the now defunct Eazel are true, and this is reflected in the company's support for Linux on the server side and also in education and scientific markets.'
Is this hinting that a deal to bring Eazel back to life is in the making? If so the question is how the GNOME community would deal with that. Nautilus is currently being maintained by Alex Larsson of Red Hat and Dave Camp of Ximian, and they are doing a pretty good good of it too if you ask me.
Another question would be who would be part of a new Eazel. Andy Hertzfeldt is currently involved with Mitch Kapor and his Open Source Applications Foundation. Bart Decreem is working for Hancom. Darin Adler is currently contracted by Apple to work on Safari a project which also some of the other former Eazel employees are involved with.
If anyone out there know if Eazel might actually be returning or if pcAdvisor simply mis-quoted Michel Dell, please mail me so we can bring more on this in the next GNOME summary
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/index.cfm?go=news.view&news=3024
I might have mentioned this before, but I it is good enough to bear mentioning again. Handhelds.org is hosting the development of a palmtop environment called GPE which aims of creating a handhelds system based on Gtk+ and GNOME libraries. Lots of nice applications including a small media player based on GStreamer.
Carlos Perelló Marín has made a new webpage which displays statistics over GNOME translations. It looks really nice and will let you get a quick overview over the status of the translations. A quick look at it tells me the Scots Gaelic translators need to get working :)
http://www.gnome-db.org/~gnome-i18n/
Localization of Unix software can be a bit confusing for new developers. Christian Rose has writen the L10N Guidelines for Developers. This very nice document will introduce you to the world of Unix localization and the tools the GNOME community has created to make this even easier. The document is not yet finished, but already contains some nice information.
http://www.menthos.com/l10n/developer/
Bill Haneman, Sun's well known accessibility hacker, mailed the java-gnome list this week with some information on Java 1.5 and its Gtk+ integration. Since the sourceforge archives are late at updating I thought I bring you his full statement here.
What 1.5. will do is _emulate_ the gtk+ default engine, including the engine's themability. So in 1.5 Swing will match the current gtk+ theme and system font size, etc. provided the theme uses either the default engine or something similar.
For instance the themes currently in gnome-themes (which will be part of the GNOME 2.2 release) should all work well with 1.5's Swing (and reports are that they do). But if you install a totally different gtk+ engine, your results may vary. As long as the gtk+ theme in question continues to use the standard gtk+ RC file format, results should be pretty good, except for possibly things like bevels versus radius if widget borders, etc.
So the 1.5 solution is not all-inclusive but it will work for a wide variety of GNOME/GTK+ themes including the 'standard' GNOME-2.2 ones.
http://java-gnome.sourceforge.net/
Our friends at spanish GNOME site Noticias Gnome Hispano has put up some screnshots of the in development GNOME 2 version of Evolution. Hopefully it will not be to long before Ximian feels it is ready for a first beta/test release. Also included is a nice Evolution for GNOME 2 screenshot from Dave Camp.
http://perso.wanadoo.es/jorge.criado/shots/evolution_prefs_16012003.png
http://perso.wanadoo.es/jorge.criado/shots/evolution_contactos_16012003.png
http://perso.wanadoo.es/jorge.criado/shots/evolution_mailer_16012003.png
http://perso.wanadoo.es/jorge.criado/shots/evolution_resumen_16012003.png
http://primates.ximian.com/~dave/screenshots/Screenshot-Evolution.png
http://www.gnome.org/learnIrene Ryan has published the latest version of the GNOME for Solaris Accessibility Guide. This guide is mostly generic with only a small percentage of Solaris-specific information. The guide is aimed at users, system administrators, and anyone who is interested in how the GNOME 2.0 desktop satisfies Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act. The manual contains the sections; Introduction to accessibility in the GNOME desktop, How to configure the mouse and keyboard to make these devices accessible to more users, How to navigate the desktop from the keyboard only and How to change the appearance of the desktop to enhance the accessibility of the desktop for users with visual impairments. You find this wonderful document from Irene at the link below.
One of the things the GNOME board is focusing on this year is fundraising so that they can pay for more in-person events, and subsidize more hacker travel and hardware for needy hackers. In the past we've been lucky to have wealthy and generous corporate sponsors, but this year corporations are very tight-fisted, so we have to rely more and more on individual contributions.
We have the Friends of GNOME mechanism (www.gnome.org/friends) to allow individuals to make contributions to the foundation. So far it's been pretty succesful - we raised about USD 5000 (20% of the cost of GUADEC) from the last slashdotting. But every contrinbution is important; even $5 makes a difference in being able to send another hacker to GUADEC for instance.
I really encourage everyone to take a serious look at the friends of GNOME program and contribute (you even get some nice GNOME items). GUADEC is an essential part of the GNOME community in regards to team building, co-ordination and motivation and being able to sponsor our volunteer hackers, many students, to enable them to come is central to the future success of GNOME. In light of this I hope no-one would mind that I am putting a small link to the friends of GNOME program at the bottom of the summaries from here on, to help remind people to give a little when they can.
Red Hat has updated their default Bluecurve theme. The new version includes a new stock item theme. If you look at the screenshot linked you will see that the icons in the toolbars are different.
http://www.gnome.org/~kenneth/ny-redhat-stil.png
http://www.gnome.org/~kenneth/NewBluecurveStyle.png
Miguel de Icaza sent out a screenshot showing a new doc browser made using Mono called Monodoc. So now even C Sharp hackers can view their docs :). Martin Baulig also released a new version of his Mono debugger, so no there is no excuse for bugs in Mono applications. Screenshots below.
http://www.gnome.org/~kenneth/monodoc.png
http://lists.ximian.com/archives/public/mono-docs-list/2003-January/000301.html
http://www.gnome.org/~kenneth/Mono-Debugger.png
We have waited a long time for a working Metatheme system and it seems the time for one has come. Seth Nickell has put together a set of themes and Jonathan Blandford has made a nice metatheme chooser. While metathemes will be the primary themeing method it will still be possible to select windowmanager and GTK+ themes individually to easily create your own combinations. Screenshot of new theme chooser below.
http://www.gnome.org/~seth/themes.png
I mentioned the Nautilus CD burner in an earlier summary, but didn't include any screenshots. Well the wait is over. Thanks to Johannes we have a nice pair of shots for you this week.
http://www.sport-huettn.de/gnome/burn1.png
http://www.sport-huettn.de/gnome/burn2.png
I mentioned in a earlier summary Eclipse, the IDE from IBM which use Gtk+ 2.0. Well it can now be a 100% free application as it now can be compiled using the GNU Java compiler, gcj. For instructions and some nice screenshots visit the link below.
http://www.klomp.org/mark/gij_eclipse/
We now have French, German, Hungarian, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish - all the links below.
http://www.gynov.org/gnome-summary/gnome_summary.php4
http://www.gnome-de.org/projekte/listen/#news@gnome-de.org
http://cactus.rulez.org/projects/gnome/summary/
http://developer.gnome.or.kr/news/
http://debian-br.cipsga.org.br/resumo-gnome/
http://es.gnome.org/actualidad/
Thanks for Paul Warren for these lists.
| Most active modules: | Most active hackers:
|
Currently open: 7779 (In the last week: New: 757, Resolved: 598, Difference: +159)
Modules with the most open bugs (excluding enhancement requests):
| Module | Open Bugs | New/Opened in last week | Resolved in last week | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| nautilus: | 728 | 86 | 71 | +15 |
| gtk+: | 518 | 25 | 22 | +3 |
| galeon: | 423 | 76 | 51 | +25 |
| gnome-vfs: | 258 | 10 | 6 | +4 |
| GIMP: | 232 | 11 | 17 | -6 |
| gnome-applets: | 207 | 36 | 11 | +25 |
| gnome-panel: | 152 | 64 | 56 | +8 |
| control-center: | 116 | 17 | 22 | -5 |
| gnome-core: | 107 | 9 | 9 | 0 |
| sawfish: | 104 | 14 | 2 | +12 |
| metacity: | 98 | 17 | 9 | +8 |
| libzvt: | 93 | 1 | 0 | +1 |
| medusa: | 92 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| balsa: | 82 | 7 | 14 | -7 |
| gnome-terminal: | 75 | 21 | 16 | +5 |
Gnome Bugzilla users who resolved or closed the most bugs:
| Bug Hunter | Bugs Resolved/Closed |
|---|---|
| aldug@astrolinux.com: | 102 |
| yaneti@declera.com: | 50 |
| newren@math.utah.edu: | 27 |
| mark@skynet.ie: | 21 |
| daniel@veillard.com: | 20 |
| hp@redhat.com: | 20 |
| vincent@vuntz.net: | 19 |
| Uraeus@linuxrising.org: | 19 |
| rodrigo@gnome-db.org: | 18 |
| jirka@5z.com: | 16 |
| warlord@MIT.EDU: | 14 |
| otaylor@redhat.com: | 13 |
| jfleck@inkstain.net: | 12 |
| chema@celorio.com: | 12 |
| sven@gimp.org: | 11 |
A special thanks to Kenneth Christiansen for helping out with this weeks Summary.This is yet another bi-weekly summary so I guess if this continues I have to ask for the statistics to be changed into bi-weekly stastistics instead :)
Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller
gnome-summary@gnome.org
Join the Friends of GNOME! http://www.gnome.org/friends