GNOME Summary, August 1-8

This is the GNOME Summary for August 1 – August 8. Remember to
stop by the GNOME booth if you’re at LinuxWorld!

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Table of Contents
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1. GNOME Window Manager
2. LinuxWorld contest
3. CVS checkins and CVS access
4. LinuxWorld
5. Hacking Activity
6. New and Updated Software

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1) GNOME Window Manager

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There was a big thread on wm-dev and gnome-hackers about a GNOME
default window manager. Initially someone proposed basing the GNOME
default on WindowMaker, but the discussion broadened a bit. You can
read it here:

http://www.windowmaker.org/lists/wm-dev/

This is the thread start:

http://www.windowmaker.org/lists/wm-dev/wm-dev00399.shtml

And Alfredo’s eventual statement to wm-user about using
WindowMaker:

http://www.windowmaker.org/lists/wm-user/wm-user02027.shtml

Jay Painter continues to hack on gnome-wm, which is in GNOME CVS
under that module name. I compiled it and tried it out, and it
looks promising.

It probably wouldn’t hurt to have several GNOME window manager
efforts; gives us choices, and it will encourage
specifications.

Flamers read this first:

*** You will still be able to choose your window manager if you
want. The GNOME window manager will be a _default_ only. ***

*** WindowMaker will still continue in its current form, even if
it’s also used as a GNOME wm. Read Alfredo’s posts. ***

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2) LinuxWorld contest

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Lots of GTK+, GNOME, and GNU applications are nominated in
LinuxWorld’s Editor’s Choice contest. In particular, GNOME itself
and the GNOME ICU instant messaging client. Here’s the URL:

http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-1999-07/lw-07-finalists.html

It looks like they’re going to pick GNOME or KDE as their
editor’s choice; I don’t envy them the resulting flame-fest. 🙂
But it will probably get them a lot of page views.

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3) CVS checkins and CVS access

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Tom Tromey mailed gnome-hackers last week because people
committed to his libunicode module without asking. Tom shouldn’t
have had to do that.

If you have CVS access, these are the rules:

• In any module with a HACKING file, read that file and do what
  it says. If it says don’t commit, don’t commit. If it says ask a
  particular person before committing, then ask them.
• If there is no HACKING file, then the default policy is that
  you send patches to the person in AUTHORS rather than simply
  committing to CVS. The default policy is also that you have to
  write a ChangeLog entry and you have to conform to the code
  indentation style of the module.

That is: CVS access does not give you permission to write to any
module. It gives you permission to write to your own modules, and
any module whose maintainer tells you you may write to it. You can
also write to any module if its HACKING file says you can.

3If we keep having problems, we’ll probably implement access
control lists on the modules. But it would be better if people just
followed the rules.

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4) LinuxWorld

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If you’re at LinuxWorld, check out the GNOME booth! Also, it
looks like there will be some kind of GNOME-KDE linkup; if you’re a
developer, ask at the GNOME or KDE booth and see if they’ve come up
with a time and place.

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5) Hacking Activity

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Module Score-O-Matic:

User Score-O-Matic:

The usual suspects are moving forward: Gtk–, Gnumeric, etc.
Good bit of gnome-mailer progress. A GnomeICU release is coming
soon, according to Jeremy. As usual there’s lots of work on the
various IDE/debugger modules, and Bonobo. gnome-core and control
center got some tweaks and enhancements as well (I think the UI
Properties capplet may now be usable, thanks to Jonathan.)

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6) New and Updated Software

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gnome-python – Python bindings
libglade – Runtime loading of Glade XML files (like OpenStep GUI
files)
Bulb – “warning service” applet; lights up when conditions are
met
Xwhois – Whois database frontend
HTTPD Version Checker – Info about remote web servers
gXiao – Organize “albums” of images or other documents
GNOME Transcript – SQL client
wxWindows – cross-platfrom toolkit, GTK+ is one platform
V/Gtk – another cross-platfrom toolkit, GTK+ is one platform
RPM explorer – browse files, annotated with info from RPM
database
gaddr – very simple address book
Pan – interesting new newsreader application
GIntMon – monitor interrupts on your system
gStratego – Stratego game
Animator Applet – show animated gifs, etc.
GNews – another newsreader
screem – web site editing/maintenance application
GSnes9x – Nintendo emulator
gBasic – Visual Basic compiler
GameStalker – Quake server browser
Gnomba – Samba browser
GProc – process list (similar to top)

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Until next week –

Havoc