Development
Eclipse brings WebTools back to life
With the great help of the Project Proposal Shepherds of Eclipse, the ObjectWeb Consortium has kicked off a new Web Tools Platform Project proposal. The goal of this proposal is to apply the Eclipse standards of technical excellence, functional innovation and overall extensibility to the Web/J2EE application-tooling domain. The full proposal is available online.Following the Eclipse development process, based on the principles of openness and frequent review, the community is invited to join the discussions on the Eclipse Web Tools Platform Project Proposal. During the 30 calendar day review period, the community is invited to comment on, critique, contribute to, and join the project. At the end of the review period (May 27th, 2004), the feedback will be gathered and presented to the Board of Directors. A positive vote by the Eclipse Board will officially launch the project.
Web Standard Tools
The Web Standard Tools subproject aims to provide a common infrastructure to any Eclipse-based development environment, targeting Web-enabled applications. Within its scope will be tools for the development of three-tier (presentation, business and data logic), and server publication of corresponding system artifacts. Outside of its scope will be server-side Java technology, which will be left to the J2EE Web Tools subproject.Tools provided will include editors, validators and document generators for artifacts developed in a wide range of standard languages (for example, HTML/xHMTL, Web services, XQueries, SQL, etc.) Supporting infrastructure will likely comprise a specialized workbench supporting actions such as publish, run, and start/stop of Web application code across target server environments.
By providing an integrated set of capabilities, the Web Standard Tools would support use cases such as:
- Developing and publishing a static HTML site.
- Deploying an applet on a given http server.
- Developing and publishing a WSDL schema on a UDDI registry.
J2EE Standard Tools
The initial goal of the J2EE Standard Tools subproject will be to provide a basic Eclipse plug-in for developing applications based on J2EE 1.4. The subproject will target J2EE-compliant application servers as well as a generic J2EE tooling infrastructure for other Eclipse-based development products.The J2EE Standard Tools will include an integrated workbench that will provide a framework for developing, deploying, testing and debugging J2EE applications on standards-compliant server environments. It will also provide an exemplary implementation for an open source J2EE Server.
Included will be a range of tools for simplifying development with J2EE APIs, including EJB, Servlet, JSP, JCA, JDBC, JTA, JMS, JMX, JNDI, and Web Services. This infrastructure will be architected for extensibility of higher-level development constructs, providing architectural separations of concern and technical abstraction above the level of the J2EE specifications
The integrated workbench would support use cases such as:
- Developing a JSP page.
- Enhancing the "PetStore" blueprint application.
- Exposing a Session Bean as a Web Service.
System Applications
Audio Projects
ALSA 1.04 released
Version 1.04 of the ALSA Sound Driver has been released with this description: "mostly bug-fixes and cleanups".
libfishsound 0.6.1 is out
Version 0.6.1 of libfishsound, a programming interface for the Vorbis and Speex audio codecs, is out. This release features new functions, new test features, and bug fixes.Planet CCRMA Changes
The latest changes from the Planet CCRMA audio utility packaging project include new versions of VCO Plugins, the Alsa Modular Synth, MCP Plugins, and Qjackctl.
Database Software
Filesystem Utilities
libgsf 1.9.0 released
Version 1.9.0 of libgsf is out. "It's goal is to provide a simple i/o library that can read and write common file types and to handle structured formats that provide file-system-in-a-file semantics (Eg OLE2 or zip)." This high priority release fixes a corruption problem that happens when using gzip and bzip2.
Interoperability
Samba 3.0.3 Available for Download
Stable version 3.0.3 of Samba has been released. "There have been several issues fixes since the 3.0.2a release and new features have been added as well."
Networking Tools
Firestarter 0.9.3 announced
Version 0.9.3 of Firestarter, a visual firewall tool for GNOME, is available with lots of changes and bug fixes.
Printing
gnome-u2ps 0.0.3 is available
Version 0.0.3 of gnome-u2ps, a text to postscript converter, is out. "It aims to handle modern codesets and mails that a2ps does not support, and more internationalized than ever."
Web Site Development
Rapid Web Application Deployment with Maypole
Simon Cozens has written part two of his O'Reilly series on Maypole. "When we last left our intrepid web developer, he had successfully set up an online sales catalogue in 11 lines of code. Now, however, he has to move on to turning this into a sales site with a shopping cart and all the usual trimmings. It's time to see some of that flexibility we talked about last week; unfortunately this means we're going to have to write some more code, but we can't have everything."
You may want to start with part one first.
MediaWiki 1.2.5 released (SourceForge)
Version 1.2.5 of MediaWiki is available, and features a number of bug fixes. "MediaWiki is the collaborative editing software that runs Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and other projects."
Desktop Applications
Accessibility
gnopernicus 0.9.1
Version 0.91 of gnopernicus, a GNOME desktop screen reader for the blind and visually impaired, is out with a variety of new features.
Audio Applications
Rhythmbox 0.8.2 is out
Version 0.8.2 of Rhythmbox, a music playing application, is available, here are the changes: "A number of bug fixes in this release. In particular if you're in a RTL locale you'll really want to upgrade. Also if you like the previous button to work in playlists :)"
Sweep 0.8.3 Released
Version 0.8.3 of Sweep, an audio editor and playback tool, is out. "This is a maintainance release, including a new Spanish translation, various bugfixes and no new functionality."
CAD
PythonCAD Release Number 13
Release number 13 of PythonCAD is available. "The thirteenth release of PythonCAD is the first release to offer undo/redo abilities. The undo/redo work is in its initial stage, and upcoming releases will enhance the robustness of the code. The long term goal with undo/redo work is to make both as unlimited as possible, but for the first release the functionality works best if only the last action is undone or redone."
Data Visualization
JGraph Paris (v3.4) released (SourceForge)
Version 3.4 of JGraph, a cross-platform graph component for Java, has been released. JGraph is used for plotting networks of objects. "This release can handle overlapping edges, and has static inner handles for better subclassing. Among other minor API changes some control methods were moved to the handles."
Desktop Environments
COnfigurator for Gnome 0.7.1
Version 0.7.1 of COnfigurator for Gnome is out with several minor improvements.KDE-CVS-Digest (KDE.News)
The April 30, 2004 edition of the KDE-CVS-Digest is available. Here's the content summary: "KDE Bluetooth improves Device Discovery Service. Kopete has a new history browser. Optimizations in K-menu drawing and Kmail POP fetching. Kdebindings adds a graphical tool with wizards for generating bindings. KMail adds support for Annoyance-Filter anti-spam tool."
Kexi 0.1 Beta 3 Announcement
Version 0.1 beta 3 of Kexi, an integrated data management environment for KDE, has been announced. "New features include improved table designer and data table view, more consistent GUI features, and more."
Games
GNOME Music Quiz 0.1 announced
Version 0.1 of GNOME Music Quiz is available. "GNOME Music Quiz is a game similar to the television show 'Name That Tune' where players hear part of a song from their Rhythmbox music library and have to identify it by title/artist or album. The faster they identify a song the more points they recieve."
GNOME War Pad 0.2.13 released
Version 0.2.13 of GNOME War Pad, a multi-player VGA Planets space strategy game client, is out.
Graphics
Dia 0.93 released (GnomeDesktop)
Version 0.93 of Dia, the diagram creation program, has been announced. "Of major importance in this release are improvements in text rendering speed by caching PangoContexts, and the use of font-config on the Win32 side, allowing unified font handling across platforms and antialiases rendering on Win32."
GUI Packages
gtkmm and glibmm 2.4.1 announced
Versions 2.4.1 of gtkmm and glibmm are available with support for gcc 3.4.0 and bug fixes.GTK+-2.4.1 released
Version 2.4.1 of GTK+, a toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces, is out. "This is a bug fix release and is source and binary compatible with 2.4.0. There are a considerable number of fixes in this release as compared to 2.4.0, especially in the areas of GtkFileChooser, GtkComboBox and GtkEntryCompletion."
GLib-2.4.1 released
GLib version 2.4.1 is available. This release features bug fixes, new documentation, and updated translations.Glade 2.5.0 released
Version 2.5.0 of Glade, a gtk-based GUI generator, is available with bug fixes, initial support for gtkmm 2.4, and more.Bakery 2.3.3 announced
Version 2.3.3 of Bakery, a C++ Framework for creating document-based GNOME applications, is out with code cleanups and bug fixes.
Imaging Applications
GIMP Animation Package version 2.0.1 Released
Version 2.0.1 of gimp-gap, the GIMP Animation Package, has been announced. "gimp-gap 2.0.1 is a bug-fix release of the GIMP Animation Package, a collection of plug-ins to extend GIMP with capabilities to edit and create animations."
Instant Messaging
xchat-gnome-0.1 ''Doctors are Standing By'' (GnomeDesktop)
Version 0.1 of xchat-gnome-0.1, an IRC Client, has been announced. This is the first preview release. "xchat-gnome is a new branch of the xchat IRC client, aiming toward a revised and GNOME HIG-compliant UI while still taking advantage of robust and powerful xchat core. The most obvious change awaiting users familiar with the venerable Gtk+ frontend will be the new tree-based navigation".
Mail Clients
Mozilla Thunderbird 0.6 RC2 Now Available (MozillaZine)
Release candidate 2 for Thunderbird 0.6 has been announced. "Our hopefully final set of Thunderbird 0.6 candidate builds are available for testing on all platforms. We could use help testing these bits to help find any last minute issues as we come down the final stretch for this release."
Mozilla Thunderbird 0.6 Released (MozillaZine)
Version 0.6 of the Mozilla Thunderbird email and newsgroup application is available. "Thunderbird 0.6 has taken flight! Some of the more promiment features include a new Windows installer, Pinstripe theme for Mac OS X, new artwork, improved junk mail controls, new mail notification in the system dock for Mac OS X, server-wide news filters and a slew of other new features."
Music Applications
MusE release 0.7pre2
Release 0.7pre2 of MusE, the Linux Music Editor, is out with lots of new features and some bug fixes.
Office Applications
eGroupWare 1.0 RC5 released (SourceForge)
Version 1.0 RC5 of eGroupWare, a multi-user, web-based groupware suite, is available. "Currently available modules include: email, addressbook, calendar, infolog (notes, to-do's, phone calls), content management, forum, bookmarks, wiki. eGroupWare RC5 is the next step to the final 1.0 release. Many people wait for the upcoming 1.0. The developers work hard to fix the last bugs."
Gnumeric 1.2.12 released
Gnumeric 1.2.12 has been released. The announcement describes 1.2.12 as a "high priority" release; it seems that earlier versions can create .xls files which crash Excel.
Office Suites
KOffice 1.3.1 Released (KDE.News)
Version 1.3.1 of KOffice has been announced. "The KOffice team is happy to bring you the first bugfix package that builds upon the successful 1.3 version, adding even more enhanced OpenOffice.org import and export filters, improved spellchecking with ispell, fixes in hyphenation and many more."
ooo-build 1.1.54 released
build 1.1.54 of OpenOffice.org is available. "This package contains the Gnome integration work for OpenOffice.org, and a much simplified build wrapper, making an OO.o build / install possible for the common man. It is a staging ground for up-streaming patches to OO.o. This release is mostly a snapshot of the (in-progress) merge of the SuSE patch-set, and adding a SuSE build target / distro etc."
Web Browsers
Epiphany 1.2.5 Released
Version 1.2.5 of Epiphany, a browser for GNOME, is out. This release has bug fixes, more translations, and improved documentation.Mozilla Links Newsletter
The May 3, 2004 edition of the Mozilla Links Newsletter is available with the latest news of the Mozilla browser and related software.
Miscellaneous
gnubiff 1.2.0 is out
Version 1.2.0 of the gnubiff mail notification program is out with bug fixes and support for multiple mail boxes.IMDbPY 1.2 released
Version 1.2 of IMDbPY, a Python package that can retrieve and manage information from the IMDb movie database, is out. "With this release it's possible to retrieve almost every available information about movies and persons. Many bugs where fixed. Introduced a test suite."
Languages and Tools
C#
The first Mono beta release
The first beta version of Novell/Ximian's Mono .NET implementation is available; see the release notes for the details. There's a lot of stuff there, including a C# compiler, the runtime virtual machine, support for several architectures, various database adaptors, a "complete cryptography stack," Apache integration, and more. Regardless of whether one agrees with Mono's goals, it looks like an impressive body of work.
Caml
Caml Weekly News
The April 27 - May 4, 2004 Caml Weekly News is available for the week's roundup of Caml language discussions.Camlmix
A Caml language project called Camlmix has been launched. "Camlmix is a command-line tool for preprocessing any kind of file using Objective Caml as an embedded language for inline expansion."
Java
Seven Low-Cost Ways to Improve Legacy Code (O'ReillyNet)
Robert Simmons, Jr. explains some techniques for dealing with legacy Java code on O'Reilly. "This article presents seven techniques I've developed and used in my consulting work that are designed to improve legacy code. You can apply some of these techniques using either freely available tools or with scripts. You'll apply the others manually, but they shouldn't represent a significant investment in time. Be forewarned, however, that all of these techniques may reveal other issues in the code base, such as hidden bugs, which could take a significant amount of time to fix."
gnome-gcj 0.18.0 released
version 0.17.0 of Gnome-GCJ, an alternative set of Java bindings for GNOME, is available. "Gnome-GCJ 0.18.0 introduces a small demo application (to become extended) and both wrappers for libglade and gsf."
Java authorization internals (IBM developerWorks)
Abhijit Belapurkar explains Java authorization on IBM's devloperWorks. "If you're the type who needs to know how a technology works from the inside out in order to use it effectively, you'll jump on this guided tour of the Java platform's authorization architectures. Follow along as Java architect Abhijit Belapurkar leads this detailed, behind-the-scenes introduction to two distinctly different (yet related) models of authorization: the code-centric model of the Java 2 platform security architecture and the user-centric model of the Java Authentication and Authorization Service."
Lisp
SLIME project status report
A status report is available from the SLIME (Superior Lisp Interaction Mode for Emacs) project.
Perl
This Week on perl5-porters (use Perl)
The April 26 - May 2, 2004 edition of This Week on perl5-porters is online. "This week, our p5p summary will describe a lot of little bugs, some of which were fixed, some of which weren't, in a lot of different areas of the perl interpreter."
This Week on Perl 6 (O'Reilly)
The April 29, 2004 edition of This Week on Perl 6 has been published. "And we're back on a weekly schedule again (unless the Mayday bank holiday knocks me for six next week). As I expected, the Apocalypse has brought out a rash of prophets and prognosticators in perl6-language, but perl6-internals is still ahead on number of messages per week."
Python
Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!
The May 3, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! is available with a new round of Python article links.Imagine Python (Dev Shed)
Mark Lee Smith explores image manipulation with Python in a Dev Shed article. "Quite a cryptic title, but if you havent guessed, were talking about Images. This being a Python article thats what we're using! If youve never thought about it, or -- even better -- if you didnt know it was possible then youre in for a nice surprise; not only can Python do this but its pretty good at it, too. Actually, Python works well with graphics in general, but for now were sticking to the 2D kind."
Tcl/Tk
Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL!
The May 3, 2004 edition of Dr. Dobb's Tcl-URL! is available with more Tcl/Tk information and news.
XML
Practical data binding: Get your feet wet in the real world (IBM developerWorks)
Brett McLaughlin discusses data binding on IBM's developerWorks. "Data binding, although commonplace in today's world of Java technology and XML programming, is still largely misunderstood. This column throws out all the theoretical claptrap and focuses on the concepts you need to get started with data binding. You will understand the differences between general data binding and data binding in the XML world, as well as round-tripping, semantic equivalence, and what to look for in a data binding package."
UBL: A Lingua Franca for Common Business Information (O'Reilly)
Dale Waldt introduces UBL on O'Reilly. "The Universal Business Language ( UBL) is a language for capturing business information for use in integrating business systems and sharing data with trading partners. UBL was designed from the beginning to leverage the many vocabularies and experiences available in existing systems using EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), ebXML (Electronic Business XML), and other XML and Web-based e-commerce systems."
Test Suites
STAF V2.6.2 is now available (SourceForge)
Version 2.6.2 of STAF, the Software Testing Automation Framework, is out with several bug fixes. Version 3.0.0 Beta 2 is also available. "The Software Testing Automation Framework (STAF) is a framework designed to improve the level of reuse and automation in test cases and test environments. The goal of STAF is to provide a complete end-to-end automation solution for testers."
Miscellaneous
Do As They Need, Not As They Say (O'Reilly)
Jeff Lowery writes about software transition issues on O'Reilly. "In this article, I would like to address some of the difficulties involved in replacing an existing client system with a completely new one. Having gone through this process several times in my career, there are some lessons I have learned that can make this transition easier for the end user. The key is not to take an initial set of requirements at face value, but to work with the future users of the new system (in conjunction with their management) to make sure what's delivered is what's needed."
Page editor: Forrest Cook
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