Re: Release of HEAD in a couple of montns?.

From: Martin Sevior (msevior@physics.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Sun Jul 28 2002 - 06:07:56 EDT

  • Next message: Rui Miguel Seabra: "Re: Release of HEAD in a couple of months?"

    On Sun, 2002-07-28 at 08:47, Dom Lachowicz wrote:
    > Hi folks,
    >
    > I think that October 1st is extremely ambitious (read stupid) for a *stable*
    release date. Things we need to get together (just from our current codebase):
    >
    Whoops!

    Sorry everybody. I meant an alpha/beta release for users to find bugs in
    and to keep our community interested in our progress. I fully agree that
    October is way too soon for a stable release.

    > A.
    > 1) Endnotes don't work properly
    > 2) Footnotes don't work at all
    > 3) Tables have many bugs and RFEs, not the least of which are:
    > 3.a) Import/Export RTF
    > 3.b) Import MSWord
    > 3.c) Import/Export XHTML
    > 3.d) Nested tables
    > 3.e) Lots of unimplemented menu commands
    > 3.f) Needs lots of UI polish
    > 4) GTK2 branch will have just been merged. It still needs *massive* amounts
     of work, but nothing insurmountable. Most importantly, needs massive amounts of regression
    testing.
    > 5) Revisions and hidden text don't work entirely properly. I'll file bugs on
    this as needed.
    > 6) Windows printing bug
    >
    > B.
    > Possibly planned things (in my order of importance):
    > 1) XHTML clipboard support
    > 2) Use libgsf for all input/output filters
    > 3) use gnome-print for *all* of our printing needs. Chema is almost (99%)
    finished removing any gnome dependencies from it and he is making it use
    FontConfig as its backend. We'll get superb printing support to PS, PrintPreview,
     faxes, emails, printers. I plan on coding SVG and Pixbuf backends for this too.
    > 4) Use libegg for GTK+ menus
    > 5) Bonobo
    > 6) SVG support, ideally XP but platform-specific plugins also possible
    >
    > C.
    > 1) Many/Most of the 820 or so bugs lying around in bugzilla
    (some of which cover "A" and "B" items,

     but many of which don't)
    >
    > IMO, my action items 1-4 are of paramount importance,
    and #5 should work at least as well as it did in 1.0.2
    >
    > Remember that the primary reason that 1.0.[12] were such successes was that
    we had the benefit of several long pre releases (0.7, 0.9). During this time,
    lots of people downloaded Abi and banged on it, filed lots of bugreports,
    wishlist items, ... We'd be *insanely stupid* not to go through a similar
    series or two of unstable, unsupported releases this time around.
    I'm not saying that we should wait 2 years to release. I'm very much in favor
    of a 1.1.1 build released around October with hopefully all of my "A" action
    items followed by several more 1.1.x releases.

    I was thinking along these lines too.

    We'd follow that up with a short
    1.3 series which handled most of my "B" items, and then get to 2.0. "C" items
    should be integrated all of the time. Note that my "A," "B," and "C" items
    don't
    have to get implemented on necessarily this strict a timetable or in this order.

    There is room for mingling and shuffling.
    I'd realistically hope for a 2.0 no earlier
    than February 1 and no later than April 15, and it would
    be unlikely that even this release would cover 100% of my above listed items.
    >
    > FWIW, the next release should be called 2.0. Also, FWIW, I've spent a good
    part of my last week working on libgsf, librsvg, and I'm about to start working
    on gnome-print, in case you've been wondering what I've been up to.
    My personal plans are to target the "B" set inside of AbiWord in a few weeks
    after the necessary amounts of work are completed in the parent libraries and
    restart my work on Abi's GTK2 port.
    >

    Cool! I plan to concentrate on Tables.First finish the features and UI
    then do import/export to RTF. I'll help out on MS Word import too. After
    that I'll work on whatever needs help and bug fixing.

    I agree that with this list of work we'd be lucky to finish by
    February/April next year. I also like the idea of a the next release
    being 2.0

    Cheers

    Martin
        



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