GNOME Summary for 2002-04-23 – 2002-04-28

==============================================================
Table of Contents
--------------------------------------------------------------

1. What to maintain a core part of GNOME2?
2. Worlds coolest archiver hits 1.0
3. New release of Overflow
4. Bynari Announces InsightConnector for Evolution
5. Info Anarchy article on Evolution
6. Multi-head support merged into GTK+ main tree
7. Been missing the Nautilus mailing list lately?
8. Hunter awaken
9. GNOME 2 release schedule updated
10. Translated GNOME summaries
11. Hacker Activity
12. Gnome Bug Hunting Activity
13. New and Updated Software

==============================================================
1. What to maintain a core part of GNOME2?
--------------------------------------------------------------

There are some modules that are part of GNOME but which currently is not
getting as much attention as they should. So if you have ambitions of
being one of the cool people, who can claim to be a maintainer of a core
part of GNOME, this is your chance to step up and join the ranks. I will
here tell you which modules are available and how you go about adopting
one of these modules First of all raising your hand and saying 'I
volunteer' will not get you a maintainership, remember that these are
modules that are part of the core and GNOME and as such are important to
the overall success of the project. So to become the maintainer you will
have to prove yourself first by submitting some patches to it for
reviewal by some of the existing core GNOME hackers. I will 
outline who on a per module basis. 

The first module that needs a new maintainer is libgtop. Libgtop is the
library that allows applications such as the GNOME System Monitor to get
the needed information from the system. Important tasks for someone
wishing to take on this module is getting pending patches merged and to
make it support a wider range of operating systems. People interested in
taking on this module should contact Kevin Vandersloot at
kfv101(at)psu.edu. Kevin can provide you with some starts to get you
started. 

The second module that needs a new maintainer is the gconf-editor
module. The Gconf-editor is a GUI tool which will be the main tool for
most users wishing to tweak their system settings in GNOME2 beyond what
the GNOME setup tools let them. Gconf-edit is currently being maintained
by Anders Carlsson, but Anders is also hacking away at Nautilus and
other important parts of GNOME and could need someone to take over the
burden. Take a look at the gconf-editor bugzilla or mail Anders to get
some tasks to get you started. Anders mail address is 
andersca(at)gnu.org 

The third module that needs a new maintainer is gnome-vfs. GNOME-vfs is
the module among those listed here that sees the most development at the
moment, but it is more like people from other parts of the GNOME project
adding things to it as they need it, not like a maintainer devoting him
or herself fully to making this module all that it can be. People
interesting in taking on this module should check out gnome bugzilla for
some tasks and mail patches for them to the gnome-vfs mailing list which
you find at 

        http://lists.ximian.com/mailman/listinfo/gnome-vfs

The last major module I will mention is gtkhtml2, which is one of the
html rendering libraries we are using in GNOME 2. As you might know we
have 3 html widgets in GNOME 2, gtkhtml1 which is the module used in
Evolution and which has html editing capabilities. 
Then we have the gtkmozembed widget which is the widget that lets you
embed mozilla in your apps like Galeon does. Lastly we have gtkhtml2
which is currently used by yelp and nautilus. The point of gtkhtml2 is
to fill the gap between the simple and fast gtkhtml1 widget and the full
featured but also bigger gtkmozembed widget. Gtkhtml2 was developed
originally by some of the coders at Code Factory like Anders Carlsson,
but they don't have time at the moment to continue its development. What
we need is for a someone to step up and complete its current featureset
and optimize it. Since it will be used by the help browser it needs to
be lightning fast so that when people press the help button help appears
'instantly'. For information on getting started on gtkhtml2, check out
gtkhtml2 bugzilla and/or mail Anders Carlsson at andersca(at)gnu.org 


==============================================================
2. Worlds coolest archiver hits 1.0
--------------------------------------------------------------

File Roller, everyones favourite archiving tool, has reached 1.0. Paolo 
Bacchilega announced the release this week, so if you haven't downloaded
it already remember to do so now. The 1.0 release is for GNOME 1.x but
there is also a very nice GNOME 2 version available from the File Roller
website. 
        
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-announce-list/2002-May/msg00021.html
http://fileroller.sourceforge.net

==============================================================
3. New release of Overflow
--------------------------------------------------------------

Jean-Marc Valin released version 0.6.1 of Overflow upon the world this
week. Overflow is a really nice and interesting data flow oriented
develop environment which lets you build applications visually by
connecting simple building blocks. This tool is used for a lot of cool
things like for instance voice recognition software. 

        http://freespeech.sourceforge.net/overflow.html
http://freespeech.sourceforge.net/images/overflow3.jpg

==============================================================
4. Bynari Announces InsightConnector for Evolution
--------------------------------------------------------------

Bynari announced this week their InsightConnector for Evolution which
lets Evolution communicate with their Messaging and Collaboration
server. So if you want to replace Outlook with Evolution and Exchange
with InsightServer 3.5 all running on GNU/Linux now is your chance.
Press release linked below. 

        http://linuxpr.com/releases/4742.html

==============================================================
5. Info Anarchy article on Evolution
--------------------------------------------------------------

There is a nice article on Evolution on Info Anarchy. The author is a
little misguided in his desktop choice in general  [:)] , but he has
understood what the best mail client around is. Check out the link and
maybe you learn something new about your favourite mail client. 

        http://www.infoanarchy.org/story/2002/5/1/64850/34022

==============================================================
6. Multi-head support merged into GTK+ main tree
--------------------------------------------------------------

The GTK+ hackers is not resting on their laurels now that GTK+ 2.0 is
out. Owen Taylor of Red Hat, merged the multi-head tree that Erwann
Chenede of Sun have been working on for some time. This means that we
will have first class multi-head support built into GTK+ with the
upcomming GTK+ 2.1 release. 


==============================================================
7. Been missing the Nautilus mailing list lately?
--------------------------------------------------------------

If you are still reading the archives on nautilus.eazel.com you will
probably have noticed that there has been no new messages on the
mailing-list for a while. That is because the mailing list has now moved
to gnome.org. So for your archive reading and keep track of the great
progress being done by people such as Dave Bordoley, David Emory Watson
and of course Darin and Alex, check out the link below. 

        http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/nautilus-list

==============================================================
8. Hunter awaken
--------------------------------------------------------------

The GNOME bug-squashing team have good results and have managed to get
GNOME bugzilla under control. Since the effort began we have for
instance managed to get the number of Nautilus bugs down from just above
1200 to just above 1000 now. There is still many more bugs that can be
resolved and we still need more volunteers to help us with this.
Everyone using GNOME can help with this and helping out triaging bugs is
actually a very important part of making sure GNOME 2 runs well. So
please come onto IRC and drop into #bugs on irc.gnome.org 
or join our mailing-list to join the effort to make GNOME 2 bug free.
Also remember that we still do bug days in #bugs each thursday. 

        http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-bugsquad

==============================================================
9. GNOME 2 release schedule updated
--------------------------------------------------------------

Gregory Leblanc one of the members of our prominent release team sent
out a mail this week giving us a updated GNOME 2 release schedule.
According to this updated schedule the beauty that is GNOME 2 will now
premiere late June. So that means that this truly will be the summer of
love  [:)] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-hackers/2002-May/msg00012.html

==============================================================
10. Translated GNOME summaries
--------------------------------------------------------------

In the quest to make the world happy we now have French, Spanish,
Hungarian and Korean - all the links below. 

        http://www.gynov.org/news/index.php4
http://es.gnome.org/actualidad/
http://cactus.rulez.org/projects/gnome/summary/
http://developer.gnome.or.kr/news/

==============================================================
11. Hacker Activity
--------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for Paul Warren for these lists.

Most active modules:
 59 evolution
 50 gnumeric
 49 gtk+
 42 gnome-utils
 35 gimp
 33 galeon
 31 pan
 29 gtkmm-root
 27 libgda
 26 gnome-pim
 26 gnome-panel
 25 gnome-control-center
 25 monkey-sound
 24 profterm
 24 printman
 23 garnome
 23 libegg
 22 gnome-games
 22 anjuta
 22 gok
[129 active modules omitted]

Most active hackers:
 63 kmaraas
 48 pablo
 43 gman
 36 minmax
 35 hp
 35 dnloreto
 31 jberkman
 29 rodrigo
 29 andersca
 28 srittau
 26 hadess
 26 murrayc
 25 jamesh
 24 jody
 24 jdub
 23 orph
 23 baddog
 23 dtb
 22 jbaayen
 21 fejj
[135 active hackers omitted]


==============================================================
12. 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: 6917 (In the last week: New: 770, Resolved: 817,
Difference: 
-47)

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

  nautilus: 1013 (In the last week: New: 39, Resolved: 49, Difference:
-10)
  gtk+: 498 (In the last week: New: 42, Resolved: 37, Difference: +5)
  gnome-core: 273 (In the last week: New: 67, Resolved: 61, Difference:
+6)
  gnome-vfs: 258 (In the last week: New: 6, Resolved: 5, Difference: +1)
  galeon: 229 (In the last week: New: 112, Resolved: 81, Difference:
+31)
  control-center: 221 (In the last week: New: 38, Resolved: 25,
Difference: +13)
  GIMP: 188 (In the last week: New: 9, Resolved: 13, Difference: -4)
  gnome-applets: 184 (In the last week: New: 23, Resolved: 103,
Difference: -80)
  sawfish: 160 (In the last week: New: 10, Resolved: 4, Difference: +6)
  gnome-panel: 142 (In the last week: New: 88, Resolved: 61, Difference:
+27)
  medusa: 126 (In the last week: New: 0, Resolved: 0, Difference: 0)
  balsa: 122 (In the last week: New: 22, Resolved: 11, Difference: +11)
  gnome-pilot: 108 (In the last week: New: 6, Resolved: 1, Difference:
+5)
  gnome-utils: 96 (In the last week: New: 12, Resolved: 25, Difference:
-13)
  glib: 81 (In the last week: New: 9, Resolved: 3, Difference: +6)
  
Gnome Bugzilla users who resolved or closed the most bugs: 
  
  kmaraas@gnome.org: 128 bugs closed.
  heath@pointedstick.net: 95 bugs closed.
  yaneti@declera.com: 80 bugs closed.
  Uraeus@linuxrising.org: 64 bugs closed.
  lrclause@uiuc.edu: 37 bugs closed.
  shane.oconnor@ireland.sun.com: 35 bugs closed.
  louie@ximian.com: 27 bugs closed.
  hp@redhat.com: 26 bugs closed.
  glynn.foster@sun.com: 25 bugs closed.
  kfv101@psu.edu: 18 bugs closed.
  otaylor@redhat.com: 15 bugs closed.
  bordoley@msu.edu: 15 bugs closed.
  jody@gnome.org: 14 bugs closed.
  jfleck@inkstain.net: 14 bugs closed.
  charles@rebelbase.com: 14 bugs closed.
  
==============================================================
13. New and Updated Software
--------------------------------------------------------------

power-applet  - APM/ACPI battery applet
Enlightened Sound Daemon  - sound server
Yelp  - Help browser for GNOME 2.0
bond  - rapid application development tool.
oggdoctor  - ogg tag editor
Gneuro  - An euro converter applet
GtkDigital  - A GTK calculator display
gtktalog  - Disk catalog tool
Glade-Perl  - Glade Perl source code generator
File Roller  - Archive manager.
Web Administrators  - Web Hackers
GCronTime2  - planner
gtkmm2  - GTK+ C++ binding
gnomemm  - C++ bindings for GNOME
Metacity  - Integrated window manager
GNOME Terminal  - terminal console app
Overflow  - Graphical design tool.
gael  - Electronic Design Automation
Armada Backlight Controller  - Compaq Armada backlight controller
XdeFactor  - Manage your company
gIcon, the Nikon F90x Camera Manager  - Management Software for the
Nikon F90X
libelysium  - Set of utility functions
GMime  - Editing, and parsing MIME
gedit  - Lightweight text editor
Greenwich  - Whois client for GNOME
devhelp  - API docs browser
GChemPaint  - 2D chemical structures editor

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

Another week of frantic GNOME 2 hacking, lots of polish getting adding
and bugs getting fixed. Seems like our accessibility support puts extra
pressure on the developers to make sure the interfaces are perfect. If
for instance the keyboard focus don't get moved around correctly in an
application we risk that blind users will not be able to use GNOME 2 for
instance. Of course having properly working focusing in all parts of the
GNOME desktop is an advantage for all users, since it maked keyboard
navigation work flawlessly for instance. See you again in a week for
more news and rave reviews from the world of GNOME.
 
Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller 
gnome-summary@gnome.org