Re: State of the 'Step

[Fred Kiefer]

Great to hear how much GNUstep software you are using. But being a
developer I am most interested in what didn't work :-(
Why did you have to abandon your attempt to compile GNUstep from SVN?
(We switched over from CVS years ago, if you really tried CVS then this
was a very old version of GNUstep)

And are there any interesting patches on the debian patch system for
GNUstep that didn't make it upstream?

Fred


Am 12.02.2010 13:27, schrieb J. Jordan:
> After a couple of weeks of tinkering around, downloading every GNUstep
> application, bundle, framework and dependency I could find I believe I
> have a pretty functional system that demonstrates the current state of
> GNUstep.
> 
> First some notes:
> 
> 1.) I am intentionally cross posting this in the hope that it ill get
> some action on the underused Applications mailing list, so if you are
> reading this on the General list please pop over to the Applications
> list to leave your pithy comments, corrections, impeachments and flames.
> 
> 2.) After an aborted attempt to use the latest cvs version of
> base/back/gui I decided to stick with the "current release" as installed
> by startup 0.23.0  I did build the arts backend as I could not tell
> which backend Startup had built.
> 
>  3.) I would consider myself a power user but am by no means a developer
> (I am currently working my way through Dan Gookin's _C for Dummies_)
> 
> I am running GNUstep on top of WindowMaker with DND and UserMenus
> compiled in from cvs.  I have compiled most of the below listed
> applications several times.  The best resource I have found for patches
> is the Debian Patch tracking system,
> 
> http://patch-tracker.debian.org/
> 
> I am writting this on LuserNET-0.4.2 which compiled and ran perfectly on
> the first try.  I have downloaded and partially read all of the GNUstep
> mailing lists as well as the one active WindowMaker mailing list and
> posted one message, this will be my second.  Not a single crash so far, 
> wish I could spell check.
> 
> SimpleAgenda cvs-714 is perhaps the very best individual scheduling
> application in existence, for the first time in history I can actually
> syncronize my schedule on my computer, the Internet and my pda/phone
> (currently an Android) I'm using GCalDameon (an evil Java program) to
> actually perform the sync with Gcal but SimpleAgenda's handling of the
> .ics file makes it possible.  Philippe Roussel has created an awsome
> program and was extremely helpful getting it to do exactly what I
> wanted. It is light, great looking and I have not been able to crash
> this version.
> 
> GNUmail is my daily email client, Tim Kack helped me get that running
> and I am using it in conjunction with offlineimap (which is a python
> program ( I hate python))  to provide offline and online access to
> gmail.  Occasional crash but works rather well.
> 
> GWorkspace is my file manager, still learning to use some of the
> capabilities, occasional crashes and I wish it did a few things a little
> differently, will file some bug reports and requests.
> 
> TextEdit-4, the only text editor I have found that can open an
> arbitrarily extensioned text file, works well.  Placing it on the
> GWorkspace shelf allows you to drag and drop any text file to open it
> including all of the README's, NEWS's and things like that.
> 
> The non -Etoile version of Vindaloo-0.2 is my PDF viewer of choice, it
> has by-far the best UI of any of the PDF viewers, cannot understand why
> the Etoile folks moved the controls to the top of the window it in their
> version but to each their own.  YAP works pretty well also but the ever
> growing string of radio buttons at the top is off-putting.
> 
> MPDCon-1.1.99 is currently my primary music player, I hacked in a
> different icon, buttons more to my taste and reorganized the UI a bit
> (Have I mentioned that I love Gorm).  It works great and I don't
> remember it crashing.
> 
> MplayerGS-0.6 had to hack (that is hack as in hatchet-job not hack as in
> I know what I'm doing) the source code a little to get it to stop making
> videos double height, pasted on some different button icons using Gorm
> and rearranged the UI a bit.  It has been rock solid through several
> movies and music files.  ( I like the idea of using established, mature
> projects to provide underlying function.)
> 
> Terminal0.9.6, Have had one open as root and one as me for days without
> a crash, played with some of the service from TextEdit, changing
> background color is still a little flaky.
> 
> PRICE, Photoclip, Toyviewer and LaternaMagica all work reasonably well
> but none of them do everything I want.  I want a reasonably sized
> default display of a picture, ability to move easily through pictures in
> a directory, crop using a lasso style selection and the ability to use
> as a Service to insert pictures in other apps;  I know that is a lot to ask
> 
> Just a couple more:
> 
> TalkSoup is working well for me, could not get it to work on newer
> versions of base/back/gui.
> Zipper, wish it did not depend on Renissance, put an * in for the
> filename to gunzip to a directory.
> DictionaryReader works but can't seem to automatically access the server.
> Charmap required a patch but you got to have it.
> AClock, Batmon, Timemon all work pretty well.
> FTP works but needs to store addresses.
> 
> There are more that I am using but this is too long a post already.
> 
> The one program I really would like to get working reliably is
> CodeEditor (Still trying to finish Dan Gookin's book) If anyone has 
> patches for it please let me know.  Tried to email Yen-Ju Chen but the
> email got bounced.
> 
> 
> Please point me toward other useful GNUstep programs, Vespucci looks
> very promising and I wish Bean And Flexisheet were in a state that I
> could at least play with them.