GNOME Summary for May 20 - May 25, 2001

[Christian Schaller <Uraeus linuxrising org>]

This is the GNOME Summary for  May 20 - May 25, 2001.

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  Table of Contents
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1)  Sun releases first Official version of GNOME for Solaris.  
2)  New version of OpenOffice Bonobo bridge 
3)  Ximian launches first release of Soup 
4)  Gnumeric and Dia with new releases 
5)  Havoc posts GNOME brainstorming document
6)  GStreamer releases 0.2.0 Roadmap 
7)  Diskless Linux Kiosk using GNOME 
8)  Nice new 3D modeler 
9)  Project of the Week: Making gtkhtml into a bonobo component 
10)  Hacking Activity
11)  New and updated software

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1)  Sun releases first Official version of GNOME for Solaris.  

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Scott Mannina sent out a announcement this week that the first official
release of GNOME for Solaris is now available. This release is dubbed a
preview release by Sun since the plan is to make GNOME the official
desktop of Solaris starting with GNOME 2.0. The full announcement is
available here:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2001-May/msg00046.html

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

2)  New version of OpenOffice Bonobo bridge 

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Torsten Schulz announced the 0.2.0 release of the OpenOffice.org Bonobo
Integration project. New features includes support for latest release of
Nautilus and OpenOffice. Release announcement:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-components-list/2001-May/msg00145.html

Project homepage: 

http://whiteboard.openoffice.org/bonobo/index.html

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3)  Ximian launches first release of Soup 

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Alex Graveley announced that the first release of Soup (0.2) is now
available. Soup is a implementation of SOAP in C. An intersting example
of what Soup can enable for GNOME is found in this short email exchange
between Miguel de Icaza and  Jonathan LaCour:
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-hackers/2001-May/msg00335.html
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-hackers/2001-May/msg00344.html

The full Soup announcement and some more explanations on uses for SOAP 
for can be found at Gnotices: 

http://news.gnome.org/990590897/index_html

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4)  Gnumeric and Dia with new releases 

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Two of the major applications in GNOME Office had new releases this
week. Gnumeric had it's 0.65 release and Dia its 0.88.1 release. Lots of
great new functionality in these releases, like improved bonobo support.
Full Gnumeric announcement:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2001-May/msg00043.html

Full Dia announcement: 

http://news.gnome.org/990371177/index_html

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5)  Havoc posts GNOME brainstorming document

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Havoc Pennington posted a mail with a lot of good ideas for tasks to do
for future releases of GNOME. The mail sparked a lot of debate so if you
are interested in seeing what type of features are being pondered or
tasks you can help out with, make sure to follow the thread.  Havocs
mail is available here:
http://lists.eazel.com/pipermail/nautilus-list/2001-May/003210.html

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6)  GStreamer releases 0.2.0 Roadmap 

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The GStreamer project has put togheter a development roadmap for their
imminent 0.2.0 Release. If you are interested in finding out what
plugins are planned for GStreamer 0.2.0 and what the status of the
current plugins are please check it out at: 

http://www.linuxrising.com/files/gstreroadmap2.html

The GStreamer homepage is as always on: 

http://www.gstreamer.net/

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7)  Diskless Linux Kiosk using GNOME 

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Jamie Zawinski, maintainer of XScreensaver and renown ex-mozilla hacker,
has published a document detailing how he set up diskless kiosks at his
nightclub DNA Lounge using GNOME. A very informational piece with lots
of good insights if you ever need to setup a kiosk yourself.
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/kiosk/

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

8)  Nice new 3D modeler 

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


Wolfpack recently did their first release of the Vertex 3D model
assembler. It is designed to help you generate high-performance and
efficient 3D models for applications using OpenGL style graphics
rendering.  It looks really nice.
http://wolfpack.twu.net/Vertex/index.html

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

9)  Project of the Week: Making gtkhtml into a bonobo component 

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The Encompass browser project needs a developer to help out with
wrapping the gtkhtml widget in bonobo. Some code is already available,
but it needs someone to finish the job. The plan is to enable people to
use Encompass as a GNOME help browser.  Details on the POW can be found
here:
http://sourceforge.net/people/viewjob.php?group_id=27705&job_id=3449

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

10)  Hacking Activity

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Thanks the Paul Warren for these lists.

Most active modules  
89 ximian-setup-tools 
81 evolution 
74 galeon 
68 gnumeric
44 gimp 
41 mc 
30 dedit   
27 gtkhtml 
27 libgnomeui 
25 setup-tools-backends 
24 gdm2 
23 gal 
23 gnome-guile 
23 CVSROOT 
21 gnome-i18n 
20 file-sel  
20 balsa 
19 temp 
19 libgnome 
19 gtk+ 

[114 active modules omitted]

Most active developers
95 kmaraas
80 pablo
76 martin
37 chema
35 jirka
35 proskin
30 unammx
30 kitame
30 fejj
29 maubury
27 kabalak
27 mitch
26 jody
26 rodo
25 arios
25 jberkman
24 chyla
18 hansp
17 menthos
17 carlos

105 active developers omitted]

NB These statistics are largely meaningless - they count CVS commits, 
which are only a very rough indicator of actual progress of a project.

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

11)  New and updated software

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ximian-setup-tools is a system configuration toolset for UNIX. 
B-Chat [is yet another 3rd party client for use with Yahoo! Chat. 
GNet A simple network library built onto of GLib. 
gdm Rewrite of xdm with Gnome UI. 
Pan is a multithreaded Usenet newsreader for GTK and GNOME.
Oroborus Small, themeable, GNOME comliant window manager. 
wxWindows is a free cross-platform toolkit in C++ that comes with Python
and Perl bindings. 
SQmaiL is a vfolder-based mailer that stores its messages in an SQL
database. 
Firestarter is a complete firewall tool for Linux machines. 
gefax is a gnome front end for Efax. 
gtktalog is made to easily browse a CDROM database.
Balsa  is an email client for GNOME. 
GtkMathView  is a GTK widget for rendering MathML documents. 
Overflow is a 'data flow oriented' development environment. 
Gaby is a small personal databases manager using GTK+ and Gnome 
gidic is a simple dictionary program which is a GTK-based front-end to
The Internet Dictionary project 
gboard-edit is an application that allows you to create boards for
RoboRally. 
CDrecorder is a gui for cdrecord and mkisofs built using gtk  
GnoWavCut is a lightweight wave file splitter. 

======================================================================================================
Thanks,

Christian