AbiWord Weekly News #119

AbiWord Weekly News #119, (2002, week 47, released 2002.12.09)

Welcome to this issue 119 of the AbiWord Weekly News.

Wow, what happened here!? Stuff. Okay, you deserve more, NYORP took too long to fix, so, I went and saw the family during the holidays (nearly a month off!) The AWN's, based on recent experience trying to get this one back out, will be coming about once every forty-eight hours until caught up, which, I'm hoping, will be around Monday-ish. Those of you who distribute community notices may just want to wait and then say, "Oh, and 119-121 are here, here and here."

Behold, my time traveling vrienden, it's the second to last week of November! To jog your memory, or tell you for the first time, the next Developers' Release is out! No, not 1.1.3, 1.1.2! Time traveling, remember.... Also, Marc's next secret project is out; Matthew's POW is doing great, but the more-the merrier, and Dom's begun the Mail Merge function.

Good news, for those that like accuracy, the bug links are deadly accurate, but only because your editor bungles more than just English, and the secret of NYORP will be available next week (that means, oh, Thursday-ish). Also, bad news, everybody, despite my reverent warning last week (or three weeks ago-ish), Dave and No one are still getting way too much credit. Also, I've been absent minded in the Weekly Patch Prizes, so, after this glopping of AWN's, I'm going to make a table of previous winners. Even worse, I've completely neglected the statics page, but if I'm lucky, I'll remember to comment out Jeremy's stuff (in three weeks, he's going to discontinue the pchasm.org tinderbox builds) before uploading the AWN.

And remember, I give you an email address so you can talk to me, in case you're not on ither mailing list.

In this issue:

Discussion
Development
Bug Update
Release HackDown

Editor(s) of this issue: E. A. Zen

If you're interested in using AbiWord for the first time, receiving a more uptodate 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.

Discussions

Traffic on the developer mailing list has settled at about 200-400 postings per week.

This week, interesting topics on the developer list included:

ATTN: Tree closing 1 hour , ATTN: TREE CLOSED , and Release: 1.1.2 : Dom prepares and releases 1.1.2. This is a developers' release and is available here I'll be sure to update the statics page with AWN #120, which will also include commenting out Jeremy's link. Sidenote: Dom promised in the tree-closing announcement that he'd inform everyone when it was re-opened...he didn't.
Bugzilla issues and Bugzilla getting out of hand : Almost duplicate missives from Dom about the lack of bug tackling (or is it the presence of new users?). Normally, bugs get reviewed, triaged and tackled at a rate sufficient enough to keep the number between 500-750, and before Bugzilla got funky about a year ago, quite a bit lower. However, at this time, it is now fiddling around 1000. That is to say, about 1/5 bugs remains unresolved. Users can help by querying bugzilla before registering to ensure it does not pre-exist. Additionally, users may use bugzilla to check recently reported bugs that they can confirm and report in there. Developers and future developers are welcome to see if what they're working on exists as a filed bug (even if it's an RFE; it'd be nice to get out of the way).
Commit: OOo export framework started Dom Lachowicz : Dom begins the earliest work on the ability to export to the openwriter format. Jody and Dom plan out how to build on the work and whether or not to incorporate the intended functionality with libgsf.
Commit (HEAD): Secret Project #2 : Though I'm sure this is Marc's third secret project, this is probably the second one in the mailing list. No screenshots yet (and I say that from a two-weeks-later point of view), but I'll tell ya what it is anyhow. Marc, all other places known as uwog, has begun work to make the images embedded into a document to be resizable. As gtk2 work expands towards total SVG (yummy), I hope this may prevent some of that nasty resizing that occurs in lesser word processors...
Commit (HEAD): Fix Aspect Ratio problem : On going development on Marc's picture resizing work includes keeping the aspect ratio of the resized image, specifically at the request of Michael Pritchett. Satisfy one person, watch two more ask for stuff..., and then Jim Hodapp and Martin have requests.... Coincidence? Nah....
Gypsython commit: abiword-plugins: new Gypsython plugin : Mauro Colorio creates a nice little python script, Gypsy, for GetRows as an interface. Frank makes it an official plugin (only for Windows at this time; porting help would be appreciated by Mauro).
DTD in gz file format win-AbiWord and Keyman - keyboard handling : Daniel's floating around some convention and sending back issues regarding AbiWord. The first seems, as best anyone can figure out, to be a request that AbiWord come included with it's DTD (N.B.: not an html file), possibly for those not able to be online at the moment. The second refers to a special application that allows a programme to create characters as if the keyboard had been remapped for another locale. If that made sense to you, you're drinking less than I am. Specialty requests such as these should be sent to Dave, I mean, an RFE in Bugzilla.
How to reach STABLE repository? : Andrzej Pruszynski, normally our polish strings maintainer, asks a question many of the less daring CVS may want to know. If you want to keep a copy of the STABLE branch of AbiWord, point towards ABI-1-0-0-STABLE and reduce your blood pressure.
Revision Tracking : David finds out that revision tracking is more like one of those things that exists superficially for show. Tomas suggests, assuming he has time post-holiday madness, that he may go back to work on this feature useful in so many other projects. Anti-Abi jokes can be sent to yomama@yohome.yotld.

This week, interesting topics on the user list included:

embed abiword into java app : David Cypers had this idea that I thought was cute, so, I put it up for all'y'all to see. It's probably never to late to help, especially if you know how to drop an application over the AWT canvas, wrap a binary into a dynamically linked library, or just know how to help develop across MSVC6 (MicroSoft's Visably Clueless, Costly, Corrupted, Crappy, Crooked Compiler).
problem with abiword-1.1.2 and recent gnome : Robert has issues getting the latest Developers' release to run properly. Frank steps in and asks for debug output. The rest of this discussion disappears abruptly. Dom notes that the --enable-gnome option is not meant for 2.x version of GNOME; the CVS head is centered toward the GTK2 libraries. This is not a shock for me, as Dom declared the GNOME platform dead half a year ago, and explained in nice clear Engrish (you think a guy from Philly talks real English?) that he has no intentions of ever developing for that dead GNOME platform, which is dead, especially since Dom says it's dead. Let me know if I dally on any points about Dom declaring GNOME dead...Dom's dead gnome died when it found out it was dead.

Development

CVS Stats

Track who put in how much and why. And, while you're at it, consider whether you'd like to keep your own cvs build as well. Tables...ooh....

CVS checkins 2002.11.15 - 2002.11.22
Who	Commits	In summary
dom	60	OpenWriter(import work: style properties, hyperlink, super/subscript, line spacing, page setup, grouping, tables LISP(really simple tables), images, a "bunch of Ooooo fields," field support through meta data plus a reduction of the code complexity thereof, printing fix, memory leak; exportation work: framework, meta, manifest, pictures) Fix Image Magick compile failure, Mail Merge (whiney punk kids, you know, back in my day, a word processor was this electronic thing that printed two lines behind what you were writing. The travel version that didn't need to be plugged in and lacked that buffer feature was called a "typewriter." Nowadays, if it doesn't print, scan, collate, send flowers to Mom and have sex with you, it's insta-junk...), Unix clipboard fix for selections lacking reference data (plus two other patches, one of which I can only determine makes the clipboard racist, but not in that KKK kinda-way), assist for plugins building with gypsymauro/gypsython,
msevior	54	Stopped the cursor from disappearing like houdini, status bar now notices the page number, something about rectangles on the screen and the scroll bar shrinking, and tackling another crash on load problem (and this is his FIRST commit of the week; Dom's renting Martin out to increase the AbiFund, so, now's your chance to see what a hacking particle physicist can do for you!), houdini cursor and undefined table work, "Fix evil crash on race bug." (I don't make this stuff up! Abiword is really racist! But not in a 'Eil 'Itler kind of way!), tables visible immediately after operations (like appendectomy) are performed on them, image resizing on zoom fixink?, de-houdini'd table lines when text gets selected.
mpritchett	47	Memory Leak plugged, MSVC6 updates for HEAD, build fixes, Win32 tinderbox made green, Makefile cleanup and general code cleanup Remember, don't pollute; help keep code clean & green! Dev U.
wlach	33	assert when resizing, refactored the frame code for Unix...TWICE!
fjf	21	HPUX build update by Martin Gansser, added ABI_EXPORT to unbork win32 plugins (c. KJD)?, freetype headers & detection, CONFESSION: I did break the build then... :-), RESPONSE: Aww, and I had all that faith that you wouldn't! ;o), Gypsython plugin from Mauro Colorio, build bits (as opposed to byte bits...nah), Poll: Should there be a prize for the most interesting way of breaking the build? Yes. No.
tamlin	16	Fixed MSVC6 project files, updated build instructions, initialize variables to stop crashes, free otherwise allocated resources
jordimas*	12	Fixed insert dlg box, keyboard fixes, fixed build warnings, and bugs ( 338 and 2481 )
uwog	11	Secret Project #2 (I still say #3), fixed lines with XOR (ala dom), fixed a cast bug that may or may not be silly, tinderbox fix, pleaded not to be made fun of, but let's be serious, who'd make fun of WonderBoy! Protector of Tulpen en Windmolen Around the World!
mgilbert	3	added a set of tinderbox client scripts
phma	3	Yiddish string update by Raphael Finkel, Malay strings update by Sharuzzaman Ahmat Raslan
dchart	2	Changelog to finalize 1.1.1 and begin tracking 1.1.2
rms	1	Prepared `.desktop` for future startup notification in GNOME2

*jordimas: system-related work is Windows unless stated otherwise.
*phearbear: Johan is missing in action

Weekly Prize Patch

And the award goes to...

TRUMP! Patch prize winner for this week is...
Hi everyone, I get to use my first trump this week. To the person who committed umpteen patches, got the XFT build to print perfectly, fixed lots of bugs with revision marks and hidden text and provided us with an Open Office importer. This weeks patch prize goes to... Dom! Great work work mate :-) Cheers Martin

POWs

The concept of a "Project Of the Week" is to single out tasks of major interest that outside developers might be interested in providing assistance to. Until a "best way" of listing POWs come to mind, they shall be listed in a short description. Any user interested is welcome to assist in tackling these POWs. If you know someone who's interested, you can link directly to a POW, in order, they're pow4 (at the top) through pow1 (at the bottom). Reminder to developers, I can't post them if you don't submit them. Additionally, feel free to announce if one of these is finished (in case you don't mention it on the list or in the cvs) Also, what a great way to get money from Dom!

Name: Regression tests for the front-end AbiWord components.
Description: Perform component-specific tests, document procedural changes and open bugs as necessary.
Advertisement: Play the game and get a hero credit; more recognition than QA!
Recommended Outline: Email abiwordtesting@matthewcraig.com and include available system types, AbiVersions and previous testing experience. Receive testing instructions which will take one to two hours to complete.
Comments: No experience required. A good way to be introduced to AbiWord contribution efforts.
System: Any and every OS.
AbiVersion: 1.0.3 only (for now atleast)
Challenge level: *.... 1 star out of 5
Current Heros: "Some of the most active were "Mikey", Tom Purl and Eric Blom."
As far as I know, more people are welcome to help them! And, as a user, it's practically your duty!

Name: Style and/or Diction Plugins (bug 3281) (do either/or or both!)
Description: build a plugin to allow Abiword to check style and diction
Advertisement: me got no grammar fixer, help mes can't you?
Recommended Outline: Create a plugin for AbiWord that allows the checking of style and diction. The source code for the gnu style and diction tools is available here: http://www.gnu.org/software/diction/diction.html
As a prototype you might be able to hack something using the AbiCmd plugin to wrap the style and diction tools. The AikSaurus (Thesaurus) plugin should also be a helpful guide.
When you get the basics working you could try to get Abiword to display green squiggle underlines to mark errors, or otherwise work on a good user interface.
Comments: A great way to start playing with the AbiSource
System: Any OS will be fine.
Challenge level: ***.. 3 stars out of 5
Current Hero: The mastery of Kung Fu has yet to appear.

Name: Fix Windows printing boogs (bug 3239)
Description: Tackle some or more of the various bugs that cause issues in attempting to print under Windows
Advertisement: ????????????????????????????? (no, that's really the ad!)
Recommended Outline: You must become magical to know how to fix this.
Comments: "The problem is that printing on Windows is broken with several brand of printer drivers (see dependent bugs). It appears that with standard PostScript driver it does not happen. It appears also that version 0.9.6 had less problems than 1.0.1 so we might find out where the regression is bu diffing.
"Please, be sure to read all the bug reports. Even partial fix are accepted.
"Fixes must be done against STABLE tree and possibly ported to HEAD (the later can be done as a second step)."
This comes from Hub
Notice: This may already have been fixed with the libiconv upgrade, stay tuned!
System: Windows
Challenge level: ****. 4 stars out of 5
Current Hero: Not one MoFo yet has had the Huevos for this POW

Name: More Windows Maintainers
Description: Jordi could always use help
Advertisement: Help free people from the oppression of MSWord today!
Recommended Outline: You must become magical to know how to fix this.
Comments: Wouldn't be a bad idea to start with the printing bug...
System: Windows
Challenge level: ****. 4 stars out of 5
Current Hero: Jordi Mas

Bug Update

Bug Votes

These are the week's Top 20 Bugs in the categories problems 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 Problems
ID	Votes	Milestone	Summary
3269	120	1.0.x	Crashing on printing
3525	90	---	font incorrectly printed and spaced
376	80	2.0	File assosciate problems for all file types with Win32Slu......
1406	61	1.0.x	xhtml documents fail to open: "Bogus html document" msg
428	44	2.0	Hitting return at the beginning of a paragraph changes fo......
1747	42	2.0	background colour of text selection is always grey
1194	39	2.0	alt+xxxx does not insert special symbols
3457	31	---	Crash under GNOME when printing
2362	30	1.0.x	AbiWord only prints across half of page
3970	30	---	changing layouts can lead to showing other location than ......
4049	30	---	Crash on open file from floppy or network drive.
4057	30	---	Thesaurus Shift+F7 keybindings shortcuts consistancey
3778	29	---	Hanging indent setting ignores units
4216	29	---	Wrong line length, wont justify either...
2868	25	2.0	character widths are not calculated correctly for some fonts...
2421	20	2.0	TM, Bullet, Euro, Smart Quotes and other symbols originat......
3579	20	---	Save corrupted when text pasted from web page and saved a......
1394	17	2.0	on-screen landscape actually prints portrait in Win95
2299	15	1.0.x	Prints incorrect margins with split page.

Top 20 Requests For Enhancement
ID	Votes	Milestone	Summary
1261	562	2.0	Need to support footnotes and endnotes
2321	291	Future	[RFE] Maths/Equation Editing, as a plugin maybe?
2183	232	Future	Fully Support OpenOffice's XML file format
2365	105	Future	AbiWord needs 'view codes'
1374	96	Future	[RFE] print odd and/or even pages only (for front & back ...
1950	87	Future	Wish for automatic Table of Contents
2463	79	Future	support embedded objects
1144	67	---	Improve KWord import/export filters
2565	41	Future	Add true MS Word .doc export capability
2490	40	2.0	Finish Cocoa Frontend
1929	36	Future	Hyphenation is missing in Abiword
515	35	Future	columns change should only affect selected text
2136	30	Future	A Latex importer would be nice and useful
2186	30	Future	The insert page break setting is lost for custom styles
3003	30	2.0	Just "Save File As," not "Save," is available with .doc f...
2263	28	Future	[RFE] Please consider adding mail merge capability
2219	27	Future	AUTONUM wanted in [ Insert/Field/Number ] menu
3668	26	---	Support for window tabs instead of separate windows
2296	25	Future	doc import: footnotes

Resolved Bugs

In the past week, the following Bugs have been verified as fixed. The listed Bugs have all been put in either CLOSED or RESOLVED mode as FIXED. and QA will return next week along with the Flushed bugs. I'm sticking with this until we can all do that voting thing since so few of you wrote in on your thoughts of this methode eitherway.

Bugs Resolved This Week
Resolution	Number
Resolved	47
Verified	29
Closed	50

This Week's Most Active QA Helpers:
Verified	Name
37	Dave Null
12	Sam TH
9	Mathew "Pays Attention" Craig
5	shaw
3	Hubert Figuiere
3	Jordi Mas
3	Martin Sevior
2	Dom Lachowicz
2	henrik
2	petera
1	Alan Horkan
1	David Chart
1	E. A. Zen
1	Frank Franklin
1	Gabriel Gerhardsson
1	heath
1	jeff
1	Jesper Skylov
1	justin
1	Marc "I'm stealing trade secrets" Maurer
1	PerditionC

Flushed Bugs

What you see here are either invalid bug reports or duplicates. So, basically, I'm showing everyone else how doofy you are sometimes. On average*, confirming duplication or non-validity takes four minutes and thirty-five seconds. That's the equivelant of 8LLOC of time for Dom. Any other questions why development isn't as fast as you want?

Non-Bugs Flushed this Week
Flushed	Number
Invalid	16
Duplicate	15
Won't Fix	6

This Week's Most Active Bug Flushers:
Verified	Name
20	Dave Null
15	No one
1	Alan Horkan
1	Matthew Craig

Caught Bugs

Bug spotters, beware, we're watching you!

Bugs Found this Week
Caught	Number
Unconfirmed	6
New	15
ReOpened	11

Release HackDown

This is an AbiWord Weekly News original concept: The Release Hackdown. In the table below, you can watch what bugs are being fixed in preparation for the very next release. Check the key at the bottom to understand formatting.

No pressure, guys, I'm sure only 2000 or so people will be watching to see what you do weekly. That breaks down to about 285 people daily and 12 people hourly, so, it's like being peeked at once every five minutes, literally. "Isn't that veird!?"

HackDown to 1.0.4
Bug ID	Description
~~2174~~	Can't import Cocoa RTF
2223	cannot open psiWord files (re-opened)
~~2715~~	crash on zoom
~~3008~~	Cursor not initially in hyperlink dialog
~~3109~~	Smart Insert Hyperlink, check to see if selected text is a hyperlink
~~3171~~	rtf sets top and bottom margins to 0 (re-opened)
3239	[META] Windows printing bugs
3453	Crashes repeatably while attempting to edit header
3488	Weird crash when editing
3489	Crash when deregistering plugins
3561	Crash on embedded AbiWord in Evolution
3625	Multi Substitution waste memory
3632	editing the numbering style of a roman numeral list hangs/crashes
3645	Page setup has a problem with margins in millimeters
3678	[STABLE]Crash when editing this Word document
~~3686~~	XAbiword version for bundle not properly set.
3697	[crash] blank abiword document viewed as text (View Source)
3755	AbiWord crashes during import of this MS Word document
3766	Dvorak Keyboard
~~3840~~	Loading World.abw crashes AbiWord"
3858	export wrong content when choosing export to "Simplified Chinese GB_2312-80" encoded text
~~4039~~	Too Many Curly Brackets in Exported LaTeX (duplicate)
~~4046~~	The spellchecker has gone gonzo since upgrading from 1.0.2 to 1.0.3
4068	Crash when mouse leaves selected header
4070	[META] crash on load bugs
4093	Program Terminates on Open
4097	Save dialog file extension weirdness
4125	.doc file does not import correctly (BiDi issues).
4183	Save/reload puts spurious characters in simple file in 1.0.3
~~4212~~	Phantom Text appears after loading file with custom tab settings
4283	// comments expose lots of bugs
4304	crash when changing font of certain text (e.g. page numbers)
4363	[STABLE] Abi crashes after document open/close if text selected

removed from list:	3324
Strike-out bug numbers and greyed text are resolved. Bold bug numbers and bold text are assigned. Italicized bug numbers and italicized text are unconfirmed. Removed bugs are a sign you're being screwed.

See what happens when I miss a week! Mark still owes twenty bucks, but for now, I'll make some quick notes, here. Squashed bugs have doubled and assigned bugs has pretty much as well. You'll notice the removed from list was updated as 4068 returns to the countdown. This gives us a nice idea of what to expect in the pre-release ^_^

Betchya you thought you knew what went here, eh?

Current Balance: $1497.00
Interest earned: $4.00

Expenditures: $860
$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

Unique contributors: 44
paypal: 42
check : 1
cash : 1

Contributions: $2477.00
Less paypal and other banking fees: $73.50

PLEASE! Help promote AbiWord development by donating money. The money go to a general AbiWord "fund", presently hosted by Dom Lachowicz (cinamod@hotmail.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 cinamod@hotmail.com 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.