Re: next GO release

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>]

On Sun, 2003-11-23 at 10:08, msevior physics unimelb edu au wrote:
> > On Sat, 2003-11-22 at 00:10, msevior physics unimelb edu au wrote:
> >>
> >> If we can keep to a 6-month time-based releases we can release updated
> >> versions of Gnome-Office in synch with the Gnome-desktop releases
> >> anyway.
> >>
> >> BTW I think there is still every chance AbiWord will have a decent 2.2
> >> release in about 4 months time. How are other apps tracking?
> >>
> > libgda and libgnomedb will have a 1.2 release at that time, with cool
> > features like updatable data models (ie, no more SQL needed). Mergeant
> > might be ready, but if it continues at the same pace it is now, I doubt
> > it'll be ready :-(
> >
> > We should, apart from preparing the apps' releases, prepare a plan for
> > the next GO release. So, some questions we should answer:
> >
> > * what happened to the plugin system we were talking about? Are app
> > maintainers willing to move to that shared plugin system?
> 
> *I* think it's a good idea. Unfortunately no one in the AbiWord community
> has volenteered to take it on.
> 
yeah, not only abiword, nobody has really sat down to start the work on
it. Could we start using the current plugin system in gnome-office and
thus have it as the base for extension?

> > * what other integration issues should we work on?
> 
> Depending on how my next major challenge works out, (an Equation Editor)
> I'd like to see some sort of embedding framework worked out. Either bonobo
> or something else - (SVG maybe?)
> 
> I'd also love to see proper native support for SVG (rendering on-screen
> and printing) in time for the next release. It's getting pretty tight at
> this point given the amount of work that's needed.
> 
> I'd love to see more integration with Evolution. I'd like us to have full
> access to the addresbook and calendar.
>
yeah. I am going to resume work now on the gda-evolution thing, now that
it is much easier to use Evolution stuff with the new evo 2.0 API.

>  I'd also like evo to display
> attachment's in-line with AbiWord and Gnumeric again. I haven't had a
> chance to follow up on why attachments no are longer viewable inline using
> the AbiWord and Gnumeric bonobo components.
> 
hmm, they should be viewable, I don't know of any change to make them
not display.

> We have got to get proper copy and paste between Gnumeric and AbiWord
> happenning. ie
> Select cells in gnumeric press copy, click paste in abiword and a nice
> table with the cells properly formatted appears (and vice versa). I think
> this is mostly AbiWord's issue but our (X)HTML importer only needs a
> little more work until it's capable of importing Gnumeric's XHTML.
> 
right, I talked with Jody about this, for copy/paste from GnomeDbGrid
widgets. If we agree on a format to use, then I guess this is an easy
task. But what format? is (X)HTML really what we want?

> > * Jody seems to be moving the graph engine to libgoffice, so that's
> > another shared thing that can somewhat be called integration, but, what
> > other things could be shared?
> >
> 
> AbiWord will move towards full exploitation of libgsf. At some stage we
> will take advantage of the Gnumeric shading code. We have the backend to
> now write text over images but there doesn't seem to be much interest in
> this functionality from our users so it prolly won't happen before 2.2.
> 
> > I think we should probably start having a detailed plan for each of the
> > 6-months time-based releases.
> >
> 
> Yes. Although just sticking to a plan in the AbiWord project is a bit
> difficult. Interesting ideas crop up and sometimes horrible bugs you don't
> expect require urgent attention plus of course I never know how much time
> our hackers will actually have. I am often surprised (pleasantly and
> otherwise :-) about who contributes how much.
> 
well, I mean a simple, step-by-step plan for GO integration. Something
that all GO apps can do in a decent time. That would not include, for
instance, moving to the shared plugin system for GNOME 2.6, since it
seems to be a task pretty big. But we can start planning and working on
it for GNOME 2.8.

Other things to do, which could be pretty easy, is the copy/paste stuff
you mentioned. Can we come to a "standard" to be used?

Then, the graph engine in libgoffice would be a pretty good thing. I'm
not sure how difficult is that, Jody?

I think this could be a good simple plan for the next release. But we
really should have a continous plan on things to work to make apps
integrate better, at any time.

cheers