GNOME Summary for 2003-03-30 - 2003-04-19



This is the GNOME Summary for 2003-03-30 - 2003-04-19
    
==============================================================
Table of Contents
--------------------------------------------------------------

1. Desktop docs in more languages
2. Alleyoop plugs those memleaks
3. GStreamer 0.6.1 and incomming developments
4. Bitstream Vera fonts released
5. Running GNOME on your Laptop
6. Wrap GObjects in Python
7. The future of Rhythmbox
8. Java and GNOME
9. GNOME in Hindi
10. Abiword and Evolution closing in on GNOME 2
11. Upcoming attractions Coaster and Criawips
12. First release of gpdf
13. ORBit2 gets a home
14. Chandler with a 0.1 release
15. No official GNOME 2 for HP-UX
16. GNOME Foundation offer tutorials
17. Translated GNOME summaries
18. Hacker Activity
19. Gnome Bug Hunting Activity
20. New and Updated Software

==============================================================
1. Desktop docs in more languages
--------------------------------------------------------------

GNOME has always featured a wide range of translations, but they have
tended to mostly cover the actual GUI, more seldom have there been
complete translations of help texts and similar. Well thanks to Sun
Microsystems larger and larger chunks of GNOME 2 now features full
online help translations into different languages. Sun is adding full
translations for Chinese Traditional, Chinese Simplified, Swedish,
Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese and Korean. So watch the
commits by mlei in GNOME CVS to see this work progressing!. 


==============================================================
2. Alleyoop plugs those memleaks
--------------------------------------------------------------

Valgrind has long been the rising star of the linux debugging scene. And
now thanks to Jeffrey Stedfast it even has a nice GNOME 2 frontend.
Jeffrey is hacking swiftly and it is really shaping up fast. And I guess
we can feel assured that the frontend has no Valgrind detectable bugs at
least :) 

        http://alleyoop.sourceforge.net/
        
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2003-April/msg00064.html

==============================================================
3. GStreamer 0.6.1 and incomming developments
--------------------------------------------------------------

The GStreamer team made the second release of the API stable 0.6.x
release this week. It contains a long string of bug fixes and is meant
to clean up most issues for net-rhythmbox and gst-player/totem. 

In the fun and cool department Gernot Ziegler is working to integrate
his thesis work into GStreamer. TexMPEG is an advanced mpeg decoder able
to utilize multiple CPU's and MPEG Z/Alpha is a MPEG2 video file
extenstion for storage of depth and transparency information. This
allows for some really nifty stuff like displaying video as textures
onto surfaces in real time. Check below for some screenshots from Gernot
showing the new plugins in action. The plugins are not yet put into CVS,
but hopefully Gernot will be able to get them to a releasable state
soon. 

        http://www.gstreamer.net/releases/0.6.1/
        http://www.geofront.se/snap_flag.png
        http://www.geofront.se/snap_flag2.png

==============================================================
4. Bitstream Vera fonts released
--------------------------------------------------------------

The long wait is over and the official release of the Bitstream Vera
font family for GNOME is here. Vera is a family of high quality True
Type fonts released under a free license. This means that distributions
can now finaly include a nice set of free fonts with their GNOME
desktops. A big thanks to Bitstream for their donation and Jim Getty's
for his effort to make this happen. 

        http://www.gnome.org/fonts/

==============================================================
5. Running GNOME on your Laptop
--------------------------------------------------------------

Linux Journal has a nice article about using GNOME 2 on your laptop.
Tips on getting everything from sound to power management working. A
good read if you want to be sure your laptop and GNOME plays well
together. 

       
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6809&mode=thread&order=0

==============================================================
6. Wrap GObjects in Python
--------------------------------------------------------------

Ross Burton has a nice article on IBM Developerworks about how to wrap
GObjects in Python. A good help if you are a Python developer and needs
to wrap a C library. As Ross says in the article; You don't have to be a
C guru to wrap modules for Python. 

        http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-wrap/

==============================================================
7. The future of Rhythmbox
--------------------------------------------------------------

Rhythmbox popped onto the GNOME scene approximately a year ago and was
an instant hit with users. Rhythmbox then went into a prolonged period
of GUI re-designs and eventually development dropped off. In the
meantime other projects such as net-rhythmbox and Lymric has popped up
to fill the void. In order to get Rhythmbox development back on track
Mark Finlay put together a proposal that seems to have gotten a rather
positive reception and might lead up to getting things going again and
maybe some merging again of the different branches. Read his full
proposal below. 

        http://xsu.sourceforge.net/future.html

==============================================================
8. Java and GNOME
--------------------------------------------------------------

We mentioned the planned GTK+ integration in Java in the previous GNOME 
summary. Well now the Java 1.4.2 beta is released containing some of
that integration. I also did a small interview with Scott Violet from
Sun's Java group to get some inside information. 

       
http://www.gnomedesktop.org/article.php?sid=1031&mode=&order=0&thold=1
       
http://www.gnomedesktop.org/article.php?sid=1034&mode=&order=0&thold=1
        http://www.gnome.org/~uraeus/bumblebee.png

==============================================================
9. GNOME in Hindi
--------------------------------------------------------------

Not long ago we mentioned the great work that had been done to translate
GNOME into Mongolian. Well another team that has been making good
progress is the indlinux.org team translating GNOME2 into Hindu. Check
out the nice screenshots to see why GNOME 2 is so important to the
non-latin alphabet world. 

        http://www.indlinux.org/hindi/gnome/gnome20.html
        http://www.indlinux.org/hindi/gnome/

==============================================================
10. Abiword and Evolution closing in on GNOME 2
--------------------------------------------------------------

Both the Abiword team and the Evolution team has put out new development
releases that puts them both a big step further towards stable releases
for GNOME 2. Personally I already use both and haven't had a crash yet.
Hats of to both teams, now we just need to find out who cross the finish
line first of the two projects :) 

        
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2003-April/msg00054.html
        http://www.abisource.com/release-notes/1.9.0.html

==============================================================
11. Upcoming attractions Coaster and Criawips
--------------------------------------------------------------

Two project aiming at filling out the GNOME 2 application range is
Coaster, the CD burning application and Criawips, the presentation
program. Coaster is being developed by Sean Harshbarger and he recently
sent out a nice status email on its progress. Criawips is being
developed by Sven Herzberg, who used to work on Agnubis. It picks up
where Agnubis left of and tries to avoid some of the design issues that
troubled Agnubis. Of course both projects would be happy to get your
help and support. 

       
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-multimedia/2003-April/msg00010.html
        https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/criawips/

==============================================================
12. First release of gpdf
--------------------------------------------------------------

Martin Kretzschmar has been hacking away in GNOME CVS for a long time
now on gpdf, a port of xpdf to GNOME 2. And all I can say is wow,
finally a PDF viewer that doesn't look like something the cat dragged
in. Gpdf comes both as a standalone application and as a Nautilus view.
The Nautilus view has some really nice toolbar merging with Nautilus. Be
sure to get this and send Martin a note of thanks for this really nice
application. Screenshot and release announcement below. 

        http://www.gnome.org/~uraeus/gpdf.jpg
        
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2003-April/msg00021.html

==============================================================
13. ORBit2 gets a home
--------------------------------------------------------------

Frank Rehberger has been doing some good work getting a homepage for
ORBit2 in place. So now you have a central location for information
about the best CORBA ORB on this side of the Nile, no matter which side
you live on. In related news, Michael Meeks is working hard on ORBit2
these days in an effort to make it thread safe, a feature many have been
wanting for a long time. 

        http://www.gnome.org/projects/ORBit2/

==============================================================
14. Chandler with a 0.1 release
--------------------------------------------------------------

The Open Source Application Foundation, where industry legends such as
Mitch Kapor and our own Andy Hertzfeldt work, announced the first
release of their personal information manager, Chandler, this week.
Chandler uses the wxWindows toolkit so its features a nice GTK2 GUI on
GNU/Linux and Unix. Hopefully they will follow the HIG guidelines too
:). Anyway Mitch is promising to innovate the PIM, so this could get
interesting. Release notes linked below. 

        http://www.osafoundation.org/Rel_0.1_Info.htm

==============================================================
15. No official GNOME 2 for HP-UX
--------------------------------------------------------------

Hewlett-Packard has retracted their plans to switch to GNOME 2 as the
official desktop for HP-UX, their proprietary version of Unix, and stick
with CDE instead. I tried getting more information from people within
HP, but I haven't gotten hold of anyone willing to make a public
statement yet. The explanation I got however was that this was more
about HP having lost faith in HP-UX having any kind of future as a
desktop/workstation system in competition with Linux based systems, to
make the investment worthwhile , more than a sign of lack of faith in
GNOME. GNOME 2 will continue to run on HP-UX of course for those willing
to compile it themselves or by getting binary packages from other
sources. 

        
http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/bus/bus_BusDetailPage_IDX/1,1252,4810,00.html

==============================================================
16. GNOME Foundation offer tutorials
--------------------------------------------------------------

In conjunction with GUADEC in Dublin this june, the GNOME Foundation is 
offering some professional tutorials, one with Tuomas Kuosmanen and
Jakub Steiner on using the Gimp and one with Owen Taylor on programming
with GTK+. If you work as a graphics artist or as a programmer you
should really try to get your company to sponsor your attendance to
these must have tutorials. Check out the GUADEC homepage for details. 

        http://www.guadec.org/tutorials/

==============================================================
17. Translated GNOME summaries
--------------------------------------------------------------

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/news
        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/

==============================================================
18. Hacker Activity
--------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for Paul Warren for these lists.

Most active modules:
 57 evolution
 54 epiphany
 51 gimp
 42 pango
 42 gnumeric
 38 totem
 37 net-rhythmbox
 37 gedit
 35 gperfmeter
 31 gimp-web
 26 anjuta
 26 gnome-terminal
 24 gtk+
 23 pan
 23 ggv
 21 sun-patches
 21 gnome-panel
 20 gnome-applets
 19 balsa
 19 galeon
[135 active modules omitted]

Most active hackers:
 103 mlei
 65 stojmir
 61 dnloreto
 59 owen
 53 menthos
 37 cwalters
 35 mpeseng
 30 mitr
 29 jpekka
 21 hadess
 21 jordim
 21 neo
 21 olau
 21 mitch
 20 fejj
 19 biswapesh
 19 timj
 17 trow
 16 nalin
 14 michael
[138 active hackers omitted]


==============================================================
19. Gnome Bug Hunting Activity
--------------------------------------------------------------

This information is from http://bugzilla.gnome.org, which hosts bug and
feature reports for most of the Gnome modules. If you would like to join
the bug hunt, subscribe to the gnome-bugsquad mailing list.

Currently open: 9085 (In the last week: New: 572, Resolved: 410,
Difference: 
+162)

Modules with the most open bugs (excluding enhancement requests): 

  nautilus: 809 (In the last week: New: 44, Resolved: 24, Difference:
+20)
  gtk+: 608 (In the last week: New: 18, Resolved: 22, Difference: -4)
  galeon: 512 (In the last week: New: 56, Resolved: 40, Difference: +16)
  gnome-panel: 255 (In the last week: New: 52, Resolved: 43, Difference:
+9)
  gnome-vfs: 236 (In the last week: New: 4, Resolved: 16, Difference:
-12)
  GIMP: 188 (In the last week: New: 13, Resolved: 22, Difference: -9)
  control-center: 183 (In the last week: New: 17, Resolved: 4,
Difference: +13)
  gnome-applets: 149 (In the last week: New: 14, Resolved: 8,
Difference: +6)
  GnuCash: 144 (In the last week: New: 16, Resolved: 6, Difference: +10)
  sawfish: 108 (In the last week: New: 0, Resolved: 0, Difference: 0)
  gnome-terminal: 107 (In the last week: New: 27, Resolved: 41,
Difference: -14)
  balsa: 103 (In the last week: New: 11, Resolved: 1, Difference: +10)
  dia: 98 (In the last week: New: 8, Resolved: 8, Difference: 0)
  metacity: 95 (In the last week: New: 6, Resolved: 2, Difference: +4)
  libzvt: 94 (In the last week: New: 2, Resolved: 0, Difference: +2)
  
Gnome Bugzilla users who resolved or closed the most bugs: 
  
  yaneti declera com: 37 bugs closed.
  hp redhat com: 36 bugs closed.
  newren math utah edu: 31 bugs closed.
  otaylor redhat com: 27 bugs closed.
  mpeseng tin it: 23 bugs closed.
  aldug astrolinux com: 21 bugs closed.
  mark skynet ie: 21 bugs closed.
  teuf users sourceforge net: 17 bugs closed.
  sven gimp org: 16 bugs closed.
  bordoley msu edu: 11 bugs closed.
  rbultje ronald bitfreak net: 11 bugs closed.
  charles rebelbase com: 11 bugs closed.
  jfleck inkstain net: 10 bugs closed.
  hadess hadess net: 10 bugs closed.
  maggi athena polito it: 9 bugs closed.
  
==============================================================
20. New and Updated Software
--------------------------------------------------------------

Alleyoop  - GNOME Valgrind front-end
netRhythmbox  - music player and organizer
gCAD3D  - 3D-CAD-CAM software
Coriander  - IEEE1394 IIDC camera GUI
GStreamer  - Multimedia framework
LinTalk  - A serverless instant messaging tool
DrWright  - Break reminder
XML Security Library  - Implementation of XML Security specs
Gnome Predict  - Real time satellite tracking program.
Hardware Monitor  - Multi-purpose monitoring applet
Gnome Crontab Editor  - A crontab administration tool
gDeskCal  - desktop calendar
Meld  - Meld: a diff and merge tool.
gnocl  - A GTK+ / Gnome extension for Tcl
Gringotts  - An electronic strongbox for data
GTetrinet  - Tetrinet client for GNOME
Sound Juicer  - CD Ripper
ggv  - PostScript previewer
GNet  - network library
BEAST/BSE  - Synthesis/Audio Framework
Greenwich  - Whois client for GNOME
gpostman  - Mail Notifier

For more information on these packages visit the GNOME Software map: 
http://www.gnome.org/softwaremap/latest.php

Another set of nice weeks, seems we have reached a point now where more
and more people are able to leave the GTK+ 1.2 world behind as their
applications become available in GTK+ 2.0 versions or new apps like gpdf
comes along to free us from Motif hell. 

Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller 
gnome-summary gnome org 
Join the Friends of GNOME! http://www.gnome.org/friends 

-- 
Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller <Uraeus linuxrising org>




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