GNOME Summary, October 5-12

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

This is the GNOME Summary for  October 5-12.

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  Table of Contents
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 1)  "October GNOME" Released Today
 2)  IGS hiring 7 developers for GNOME groupware
 3)  Loki Installer uses libglade and libxml
 4)  Gnumeric trashes StarOffice and Applix in Excel Importing
 5)  GNOME Hackers at ALS
 6)  Developer Release of Gtk--
 7)  Homer Applet
 8)  Hacking Activity
 9)  New and Updated Software

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 1)  "October GNOME" Released Today

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We've been continuously releasing new versions of all the GNOME
components in the 1.0.x series, but haven't assembled a complete, 
tested-as-a-group set of packages since the original 1.0 release.

This version has some nice new features, and hundreds of bug fixes
since GNOME 1.0. An upgrade is strongly recommended.

Announce here:

 http://www.gnome.org/mailing-lists/archives/gnome-announce-list/1999-October/0020.shtml

==============================================================

 2)  IGS hiring 7 developers for GNOME groupware

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Nat Friedman wrote to gnome-list to describe Internation GNOME
Support's groupware plans. This involves integrating the Evolution
email client, GNOME Calendar, GNOME Card, etc. using our CORBA/Bonobo
framework.

  http://www.gnome.org/mailing-lists/archives/gnome-list/1999-October/0356.shtml

I am excited about this. :-) 

==============================================================

 3)  Loki Installer uses libglade and libxml

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Loki's new GPL Setup 1.0 installer uses libglade and libxml for its
user interface.  libglade loads an XML file generated by the Glade GUI
builder at runtime, giving you the ability to tweak your widget layout
in Glade without recompiling your application.

Setup 1.0 uses XML to describe the application to be installed, 
as well as for the GUI. Have a look:

  http://www.lokigames.com/development/setup.php3

libglade and libxml are some of the most exciting features of the
GNOME development environment, so it's sweet to see them in production
use.

==============================================================

 4)  Gnumeric trashes StarOffice and Applix in Excel Importing

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Joe Barr has a review of StarOffice here:

  http://linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-10/lw-10-vcontrol_1.html

Start reading Joe's article just under Figure 3, it's pretty fun. :-)

The Gnumeric team deserves kudos. Gnumeric has become a thriving free
software project with 4 or 5 really serious developers hacking on it
continuously; note its standing in the Module Score-O-Matic
below. They have a huge directory of sample Excel spreadsheets, and
Gnumeric can load them all. They've implemented zillions of
spreadsheet functions and have a fast, clean spreadsheet engine. The
only thing that's really missing is graphs/charts, and that problem is
definitely on the agenda.

==============================================================

 5)  GNOME Hackers at ALS

--------------------------------------------------------------


Lots of us will be at Atlanta Linux Showcase; look for Nat and Miguel,
they are the easiest to find because they are everywhere at once,
moving really quickly. :-) I'll be at the Red Hat booth Friday morning
and Saturday afternoon. Also, there's some kind of GTK+/Gnome
Application Development book event at the New Riders booth Friday from
5 to 6 (tentatively).

Nat and Miguel are giving talks early Friday afternoon. Nat's talk on
Bonobo will be of special interest to developers.

==============================================================

 6)  Developer Release of Gtk--

--------------------------------------------------------------


The first release of the current developer version of Gtk-- is
available; see the Gtk-- home page here:

  http://lazy.ton.tut.fi/terop/iki/gtk/gtk--.html

This is the first release to incorporate Karl Nelson's libsigc++:

  http://www.ece.ucdavis.edu/~kenelson/libsigc++/

Gtk-- has changed quite a bit since the stable version. It's worth
having a look.

==============================================================

 7)  Homer Applet

--------------------------------------------------------------


The Homer Applet has been written; we've arrived as a desktop. Homer
complements Wanda the GNOME Fish, resulting in new productivity
records (record lows, that is).

Homer is here:

  http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Cable/4608/homer

You'll probably have to download it separately for the forseeable
future since we can't put copyrighted images on CVS. :-( But 
it's worth it!

==============================================================

 8)  Hacking Activity

--------------------------------------------------------------


Module Score-O-Matic:
 (number of CVS commits per module, during this week)

  66 gnumeric
  56 gnome-core
  42 gnomeweb
  34 gnome-libs
  26 gimp
  24 gtk+
  19 gphoto
  19 dia
  19 desktop-docs
  17 gnome-chess
  16 gtk--
  15 gnome-games
  15 gnome-debug
  14 gnome-vfs
  14 gnome-applets
  12 gnome-db
  10 gnome-print
  10 gnome-pim

User Score-O-Matic:
 (number of CVS commits per user, during this week)

  37 mwimer
  33 unammx
  30 jesusb
  30 imain
  29 jody
  27 mmeeks
  24 jpr
  23 cgabriel
  22 jberkman
  21 martijn
  19 jirka
  19 ettore
  18 sopwith
  15 sipan
  15 campd
  15 cactus
  15 bpaauwe
  14 hp
  13 wlashell
  12 rodrigo
  12 kenelson
  12 atena
  10 eskil

==============================================================

 9)  New and Updated Software

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Electric Ears - like Electric Eyes, but for sound! ;-)
Gip - GNOME Install Project
Homer Applet - enough said
Gfax - Fax application
DDUP Applet - Dynamic DNS manager applet
Gseq - Sequencing application
sawmill - Nice, minimal GNOME-compliant window manager
PyORBit - ORBit bindings for Python
gsetit - work progress tracker
Eucalyptus - Email client
gBackGround - changes root window background (applet)
Gnomba - Samba browser
GnomeTREK - Star Trek Encyclopedia browser
Atomix - A mind game
gmchat - Chat application
gisdnload - ISDN load meter
XSitecopy - synchronizes ftp/web sites
gnome-pilot - Pilot synchronization daemon
Bluefish - HTML editor
gimon - ISDN monitor
RadioActive - interface to radio tuner cards
gtkdiff - diff frontend
GMail - mail client
GSEdit - text editor
Sound Monitor applet - monitors sound 

See the software map on www.gnome.org (or Freshmeat) for more
information about any of these packages.

Of course there are also all the components of the October GNOME release, 
the above list is just the stuff from the software map.

===========================================================================

Until next week - 

Havoc