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DevelopmentInkscape, a Scalable Vector Graphics EditorVersion 0.43 of Inkscape, a Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) drawing tool, has been announced. Inkscape started out as a fork of the Sodipodi project. The Inkscape project definition states:![[Inkscape]](/images/ns/inkscape.png)
Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. Supported SVG features include shapes, paths, text, markers, clones, alpha blending, transforms, gradients, patterns, and grouping. Inkscape also supports Creative Commons meta-data, node editing, layers, complex path operations, bitmap tracing, text-on-path, flowed text, direct XML editing, and more. It imports formats such as JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and others and exports PNG as well as multiple vector-based formats.
Inkscape's main goal is to create a powerful and convenient drawing tool fully compliant with XML, SVG, and CSS standards.
A number of new features have been added to version 0.43, including:
Inkscape is easy to learn, fun to use, and well documented. Some user-contributed screenshots show a variety of the images that have been created. If that's not enough, a list of online galleries is available. A sampling of the project's documentation includes the Inkscape FAQ, online user documentation with manuals and tutorials and the book A Guide to Inkscape by Tavmjong Bah. The future of Inkscape is outlined in the project roadmap. The future point releases leading up to the 1.0 release have been well defined. If you have not tried Inkscape yet, it is definitely worth the effort. The tutorials are well written, they provide a nice jump start on the learning curve. Source code and packaged versions of Inkscape 0.43 are available here.
System Applications Clusters and Grids New version of Simple Grid ProtocolSimple Grid Protocol version 1.02 has been released, it includes new features and bug fixes. "The Simple Grid Protocol is designed to allow users on a TCP/IP network or the Internet to run programs on their computer which utilize the unused CPU resources of other computers on a network or the Internet."
Database Software Firebird 2.0 Beta ReleasedVersion 2.0 Beta of the Firebird relational database is available with many new features. "This version of Firebird 2 is an beta version, meant for field testing only and not for use in production."
MySQL 5.0.16 has been releasedVersion 5.0.16 of the MySQL database has been released. "This is a bugfix release for the current production version."
PostgreSQL Weekly NewsThe November 20, 2005 edition of the PostgreSQL Weekly News is online, take a look for new PostgreSQL database resources and articles.
Interoperability John Terpstra on Managing SambaSamba.org mentions a new series on managing Samba. "SearchOpenSource.com is running a series of articles on Managing Samba by the Samba Team's John H. Terpstra. For part one, see Windows network identity basics. Part two is on User rights and privileges. John's goal in writing this series is to: provide a better understanding of the relationship between Windows networking accounts and their equivalent on the Unix or Linux server that is running Samba."
Web Site Development Midgard 1.7.3 releasedVersion 1.7.3 of the Midgard web content management system is out. "Midgard's 1.7 branch is a major overhaul of the whole Content Management System. Besides the stable and mature Content Management features of first generation Midgard, it also ships a preview version of second generation Midgard capabilities, allowing developers to have a glimpse at the new day of Midgard2."
Building E-Commerce Sites with Handel (O'Reilly)Christopher H. Laco works with Handel on O'Reilly. "While the CPAN community has solved most of the problems quite nicely with modules like Data::FormValidator, HTML::FillInForm, DateTime, and the various FromForm/QuickForm/FormBuilder modules, I still yearned for a lightweight, straightforward shopping cart module that didn't involve installed an entire CMS or B2B solution. Thus, Handel. Later I will show you how to get a functional shopping cart up and running using no lines of code. You heard that correctly: no lines of code. Zero. None. Nada."
Desktop Applications Audio Applications amaroK Project Introduces SVN Service (KDE.News)A new Subversion server for amaroK music player sub-projects has been announced. "Are you an amaroK script developer or are you developing a KDE application that should not be in KDE's Subversion for various reasons? We have the solution. The amaroK project is proud to announce the amaroK Subversion server, a service for amaroK script developers, launched as a thank you gesture to all the supporters who donated to the project during its fundraiser. We hope this will encourage the awesome amaroK community in their extremely valuable amaroK script writing."
QjackCtl 0.2.19 releasedVersion 0.2.19 of QjackCtl, a GUI control panel for the JACK Audio Connection Kit, has been released. Changes include build improvements, bug fixes, and other enhancements.
Rivendell v0.9.60 announcedVersion 0.9.60 of the Rivendell radio automation system is out with new capabilities and bug fixes.
Desktop Environments Dropline GNOME 2.12.1 '64 drops' (x86_64) has been released (GnomeDesktop)Dropline GNOME 2.12.1 has been announced. "We are pleased to announce the release of Dropline GNOME 2.12.1 ported to Slamd64 10.2 Linux (compiled for x86_64 architecture). An ISO image is available to download through bittorrent, a direct ISO download is also available from a mirror. This is our first port to x86-64 architecture and as such there may be bugs, please report them to our bug tracking page."Also, Freerock GNOME 2.12.1 (for Slackware) is also available.
GNOME Software AnnouncementsThe following new GNOME software has been announced this week:
de Icaza: Mono directionsMiguel de Icaza notes the Mono 1.1.10 release with a lengthy document on where the Mono project (at least, the part of it housed at Novell) plans to go from here.
KDE Software AnnouncementsThe following new KDE software has been announced this week:
Xfce 4.2.3.2 releasedVersion 4.2.3.2 of the Xfce lightweight desktop environment is out: "A "micro" release to fix a regression in the window manager settings".
Electronics gSpiceUI 0.7.93 announcedVersion 0.7.93 of gSpiceUI, a Spice electronic simulation engine, has been announced. "Again this version has some major changes to it. The most obvious are that the main application frame is now resizable and the addition of a configuration file. Be warned, this version hasn't had much testing."
Financial Applications SQL-Ledger 2.6.3 releasedVersion 2.6.3 of SQL-Ledger, a web-based double entry accounting package, is available. See the What's New document for change information.
Games Cyphesis 0.5.3 Released (WorldForge)The WorldForge game project has announced the release of Cyphesis 0.5.3. "Cyphesis is a small to medium scale server for WorldForge games, with builtin AI. This version includes the demo game Mason which is currently in development. This release is intended for server administrators wishing to run a Mason server and World developers developing new worlds or game systems."
GUIs with pygameMarcus von Appen explains GUI selection in PyGame with this tutorial. "From time to time questions about GUI elements for pygame come up. The following sections give some links to GUI modules and libraries written for pygame and try - where possible - to give an advice to which library you should refer for your pygame project."
GUI Packages SPTK 3.0.9 releasedVersion 3.0.9 of SPTK, the Simply Powerful Toolkit, is out with new database functionality and bug fixes.
Medical Applications FreeMED 0.8.1.1 Released (LinuxMedNews)Version 0.8.1.1 of FreeMED, an open-source medical record system has been announced. "This release is a bugfix and security release before the 0.8.2 release cycle."
Music Applications GTick 0.3.7 releasedVersion 0.3.7 of GTick, a metronome application, is out with the following changes: "Fixed FreeBSD sound interface, fixed integer size for sound file playback".
PDA Software wxEmbedded - wxWidgets support for GPEA port of the wxWidgets cross-platform GUI toolkit to the GPE Palmtop Environment has been announced. "wxGPE is the port of wxWidgets to the GPE Palmtop Environment. GPE is based on X11 and the GTK+ toolkit and runs on some PDAs otherwise running Microsoft PocketPC, such as many HP iPaq devices, Sharp Zarus devices, the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet device, as well as a number of specialized handheld devices and embedded devices. wxGPE is mostly based on wxGTK, the GTK+ port of the wxWidgets C++ GUI library plus a number of adaptions to smaller screen size and other pecularities of GPE."
Web Browsers Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 3 Available (MozillaZine)Version 1.5 Release Candidate 3 of Mozilla Firefox is available for testing. "Like the earlier release candidates, Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 3 is intended to allow testers to ensure that there are no last-minute problems with the Firefox 1.5 code."
Miscellaneous Benjamin Meyer on Type Managers (KDE.News)KDE.News mentions a new article by Benjamin Meyer on Type Managers, interfaces for specific file types. "KDE developer Benjamin Meyer explains the concept of a Type Manager as a new form of specialist file manager application. "In the past few years many of us have been introduced to a new type of application, the Type Manager. There are many Type Managers out there such as digiKam and amaroK that are gaining market share and a rabid fan base of users . Type Managers seem to have that magic combinations of features that makes users love them. I have been taking a closer look at the Type Manager, what makes them so useful, what they really provide for the user and came to some surprising results." He concludes that Type Managers are part of the future of the desktop."
Languages and Tools Caml Caml Weekly NewsThe November 15-22, 2005 edition of the Caml Weekly News is out with new Caml language discussions.
Haskell Haskell Communities and Activities Report (9th ed., November 2005)]The November 9, 2005 edition of the Haskell Communities & Activities Report is online with the latest news from the Haskell community.
Java This week on harmony-devThe November 13-20, 2005 edition of This week on harmony-dev covers the latest progress on Harmony, an open-source Java implementation. "Much of this weeks discussion was a controversy about a keyword scanning tool and some legal issues. There where two code contributions this week: Mikhail Loenko contributed "security, crypto, and x-net libraries" on behalf of Intel and Zoë Slattery contributed a "perl keyword scanner and sample files"."
Python Four python-dev SummariesA group of python-dev Summaries came out this week, take a look for the Python discussions for: September 1-15, September 16-30, October 1-15 and October 16-31.
Ruby ruby/audio 0.1.0 announcedVersion 0.1.0 of ruby/audio has been announced. "ruby/audio is a library that makes dealing with audio data a little easier than it has been historically in ruby. It also wraps libsndfile, which makes reading and writing audio data a LOT easier than it has been historically in ruby."
Ruby Weekly NewsThe November 20th, 2005 edition of the Ruby Weekly News looks at the latest discussions from the ruby-talk mailing list.
Tcl/Tk Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!The November 21, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is online with the latest Tcl/Tk development news.
XML Introducing SPARQL: Querying the Semantic Web (O'Reilly)Leigh Dodds introduces SPARQL in an O'Reilly tutorial article. "This tutorial, the first of a three-part series, introduces SPARQL -- a query language and data access protocol for the Semantic Web. SPARQL is defined in terms of the W3C's RDF data model and will work for any data source that can be mapped into RDF. The specification is under development by the RDF Data Access Working Group (DAWG) and has recently reached Last Call Working Draft."
Debuggers First release candidate for GDB 6.4 availableThe first release candidate of the GDB 6.4 debugger is available for testing. "There should be no surprise there as I have been doing nightly builds off the branch since it was created and didn't receive any build breakage incident."
Page editor: Forrest Cook |
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