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.
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.
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:
- Chinese (Singapore)[zh-SG]
- Flemish (Belgium)[nl-BE]
- Hausa (Niger)[ha-NE]
- Hausa (Nigeria)[ha-NG]
- Marshallese (Nauru)[mh-NR]
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.
- Bug Update
- Windows World:
-   - Nullsoft Scriptable Install System
- GNOME Office:
-   - Gnumeric
-   - Gnome Database
-   - Criawips/AbiShow
-   - Conglomerate
- Other Inter-Abi Things
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.
Traffic on the developer mailing list has settled at about 50-100 postings per week. This week, interesting topics on the developer list included:
[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. 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. 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) 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?
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|
Along with typical maintainence, some fixes were backported from Martin.
→ Cross Platform: lots of fixes for toggling auto-spell on and off From Martin Sevior, remove unused code due to previous commit
→ 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
Backporting of fixes from Mikey, Tomas and Martin.
→ Cross Platform: don't ignore pagesize if rtf doc has a header/footer From Martin Sevior
→ 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|
Lots of work, especially towards X/HTML import/export from/to Gnumeric.
→ 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!
→ 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
→ GNU Make: lots of ground work to paste HTML
→ 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
More work towards MSVC71.
→ Windows: updated instructions in MSVC71/README.TXT
→ MSVC 7.1: more work towards building under MSVC71
unspecified work toward Table of Contents and Bookmarks along with some MSWord fixes.
→ Table of Contents: fix copy/paste bug, work
→ Bookmarks: work
→ Cross Platform: bullet proofing SectionLayout, added UT_UTF8String::appendUCS2()
→ Microsoft Word Document: fix header/footer import, TOC and bookmark work
A bug and some pre-release work.
→ Project Builder: version 2.1.3
→ 6820: Update Lithuanian translation
Malay update from Sharuzzaman
→ Malay, ?: update From Sharuzzaman Ahmat Raslan
Fix an Open Text Summarizer bug
→ 6816: minor cast-as-lvalue fix for ots
It's happening Really Soon Now™!
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.
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|
|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|
|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|
|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.
When I'm caught up again....
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.
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.
Nadav...how you doin' out there, Buddy? You, uh...you still alive out there, Man?
Nothing since February.
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.
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.
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?
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)
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.”
Look, a place to talk about the AWN
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.
Not as important as “Angel.”
Did you know that “Angel” got more ratings with even less money? Who's doing the WB's books?
I only love the ones that love “Angel.”
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
$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*
check : 3
cash : 1
*61: plusse 3 repeat offenders whom we love dearly
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 (email@example.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 firstname.lastname@example.org 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.|