gnustep-dev
[Top][All Lists]
Advanced

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Release schedule


From: Alexander Malmberg
Subject: Re: Release schedule
Date: Sat, 29 Mar 2003 03:58:36 +0100

Adam Fedor wrote:
[snip]
> Also:
> 
> - "Automatic" Standard fonts or a standard font download for the art
> backend (e.g. for newbies).

There is such a package available at
http://developer.linuxstep.org/downloads/ , and another at
www.gnustep.de (based on the freefont project, and not immediately as it
uses the proper names of the fonts and not 'Helvetica', 'Courier'...).
It might be interesting to make a package based on the Vera fonts once
they are released, although they seem to be missing the two serif-italic
faces), or to provide one that can use ms's webfonts package.

Anyway, the packages exist, but the situation is somewhat messy. Once I
get around to implementing font aliasing it should be a lot easier to
deal with (nothing advanced, just a way for a font package to provide
additional (weak) names it can be used as). That way each basic package
could use the proper names but still be usable for the base fonts
(Helvetica, Courier, Times).

Providing a gnustep-fonts package (or something similar) has been
suggested in the past, and would probably make it easier for new users
to install.

> - A well-tested ProjectCenter release.
>
> - Automatic crash/bug reporter integrated into the gui

I think of this as part of a more general (and long term) goal: user
proofing. This includes a lot of tiny details, and some larger
systematic changes. An automatic crash reporter in -gui is one example.
Others are better diagnosing of common errors and more meaningful
messages (like the ffcall/ffi "requirement" in -base), and better
automatic handling of errors when possible (currently, -gui exits with
an exception if the -xlib font cache is corrupted when it could just
rebuild it).

- Going over all code, cleaning it up and updating it. There seem to be
a lot of old TODO:s and inaccurate comments and workarounds for bugs
that were fixed a long time ago.

- Window focus and window manager issues of all kinds (keyboard focus
ending up in the wrong, windows not being ordered in or out properly, or
flashing around, or menus appearing/disappearing when they shouldn't)
are very important. It's tolerable at the moment, but it's often
annoying. This is rather tricky, and not all our fault (some versions of
windowmaker will crash when dealing with GNUstep apps and bring X down
with it), but it's very important for it to behave nicely in actual use
(at least with windowmaker, which is supposed to be our "official"
window manager).

- Alexander Malmberg




reply via email to

[Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread]