ODBC in KDE. The big announcement
this week was from Lars Doelle concerning the ongoing integration
of ODBC support into KDE. In particular, iODBC, unixODBC (announcement clarifications
from Nick Gorham) , and libodbc++ are now part of
kdesupport. Since iODBC and unixODBC provide the same
functionality, one of these may have to be dropped prior to the
release of KDE 2.0.
Short term goals for ODBC in KDE include configuration tools, a
database browser/editor/query tool and possibly database support in
KOffice. Long term goals include integration between the ODBC API
and the world of distributed objects.
Peter Harvey has already added
graphical configuration support for unixODBC, including
a couple of generic driver config libs, to the KDE Control
Center.
developer.kde.org. Richard Moore has checked
in a new version of developer.kde.org. Now that the
developer site is in CVS, it is hoped that more people will get
involved and help maintain and improve the site. I’m pleased to
announce that the KDE Development News reports will soon be hosted
at this new site.
On a related note, Martin Konold announced
that the infrastructure for devel-home.kde.org is finally in
place. To recap, devel-home.kde.org provides free webhosting for
KDE projects that need it, minus all the annoying advertising.
KDE Standard Website? Boris Povazay is
interested in maintaining a well-designed website template for
KDE hackers who are webdesign-impaired (or don’t care enough).
He‘s wondering whether there are
any developers out there interested in using such a thing. See the
example site.
Krumple. Yannai A. Gonczarowski announced
version 0.1 of the KDE Installation SyStem Installer Generator.
Krumple
automatically generates a self-installing multi-platform executable
package complete with GUI from the gzipped tar of the source
package. It currently uses the KISS package format across all
systems but frontends for RPM/DEB/PKG/etc that emulate KISS syntax
may be added.
Empath. Rik Hemsley has been hard at work as
usual. His pet project is currently Empath, described by
a fan as a great, if not better, Outlook clone (screenshot).
In particular, Rik announced
that he has finished documenting libempath, a general mail kernel.
Libempath is basically a backend that handles all mail
transactions, allowing one to implement an arbitrary frontend/UI.
Rik also announced
that he has been working on a generic addressbook format.
Featured Application: KPriMa. Did you know that
there was a KDE GUI to the PS utilities? A utility that helps you
manage printing queues, change paper size and even save the rain
forest by printing several pages on one sheet? It’s called KPriMa and is
currently at version 0.1.
KDE Quickies. Jo Dillon (of Harmony fame)
has written a KControl applet that allows the user to set the
mouse cursor for the root window. Torben Weis announced
that KOM/OpenParts/KOffice development has switched to MiniSTL in
order to save memory and decrease compilation time.
Want to help KDE? Matthias Elter has updated the jobs page.
An archive for these KDE development reports is available.