diff --git a/vol_4/newsletter_4.html b/vol_4/newsletter_4.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e8a6860 --- /dev/null +++ b/vol_4/newsletter_4.html @@ -0,0 +1,626 @@ + + + + + + +Geany Newsletter #4 + + + +
+

Geany Newsletter #4

+ +
+

Contents

+ +
+
+

About Geany

+

Geany is a small and lightweight Integrated Development Environment. +It was developed to provide a small and fast IDE, which has only a +few dependencies from other packages. Another goal was to be as +independent as possible from a special Desktop Environment like KDE +or GNOME - Geany only requires the GTK2 runtime libraries.

+

More information about Geany can be found at +geany.org.

+
+
+

Geany 0.21 has been released

+

After about 6 months of development, on 2 October 2011 Geany 0.21 was been +released. There have been a lot of changes, so only the highlights +are listed below:

+ +

A more complete list can be found on +http://www.geany.org/Documentation/ReleaseNotes

+

Source tarballs as well as Windows binaries can be found as always on +http://download.geany.org.

+
+
+

Geany-Plugins 0.21 has been released

+

On 23 October 2011, about three weeks after Geany 0.21, Geany-Plugins in +its final version has been released. As seen in former newsletters +it has been a quite active time on plugin development, so we are +trying to give you an overview on one hand as well as digging +into some of the bigger changes that have happened.

+
+

New Plugins

+

Most of the new plugins have been already described in one of the +previous editions of this newsletter. However, so only a short overview is +provided here.

+
    +
  • Debugger: A plugin to integrate debuggers like GDB. This is replacing +GeanyGDB in many places.
    • +
  • Devhelp: Integration for GNOME's Devhelp and google code search.
    • +
  • GeanyPG: Encryption, decryption, signing etc. from within Geany via GnuPG.
    • +
  • GeanyMacro: A plugin to record and apply macros.
    • +
  • GeanyNumberedBookmarks: A plugin to store bookmarks to files and +access them easily via a number.
    • +
  • Tableconvert: A plugin to convert lists into tables.
    • +
  • XMLSnippets: Helps on inserting (common) XML-snippets.
    • +
+
+
+

Updates and Bugfixes

+
+

General

+

Significant rework has been done on the Autotools build system as well as some maintenance +work on the Waf-build system.

+
+
+

Addons

+
    +
  • DocList addon: Add preference to define the order of the documents +in the list (#3204573)
    • +
  • Tasks addon: Activate and update the task list when the Tasks +addon is enabled
    • +
+
+
+

GeanyLaTeX

+
    +
  • Moved LaTeX menu to a separate menu inside Geany main menu
    • +
  • Added a feature to autocapitalise letters on typing at the beginning of a +sentence
    • +
  • Added a way to put an icon for LaTeX wizard into Geany's main +toolbar
    • +
  • Added a dialog for inserting BibTeX references based on available *.bib-files
    • +
  • Upgrade plugin API to version 199
    • +
  • Ensure not to insert {} after ^ and _
    • +
  • Adding a keystroke to toggle inserting {} after ^ and _
    • +
  • Fixed an issue with wrong inserted formatting using a keybinding
    • +
  • Small update to enable i18n also on Geany >= 0.21
    • +
  • Various bugfixes and memory leak fixes.
    • +
+
+
+

GeanySendMail

+
    +
  • Some minor cleaning up of code
    • +
  • Fix for an issue with replacing of command string when %r was not used
    • +
  • Don't double free a variable which might end up in a segmentation fault +when using plugin function more than once.
    • +
  • Small update to enable i18n also on Geany >= 0.21
    • +
+
+
+

Spell Check Plugin

+
    +
  • Reduce artifacts on partially checked words
    • +
  • Improve `Check as you type' feature, making it more reliable
    • +
+
+
+

Updatechecker

+
    +
  • Fix an issue with init threads for older GTK/glib versions by +updating to Geany API version 203.
    • +
  • Small update to enable i18n also on Geany >= 0.21
    • +
  • Fix a typo inside Waf-build system
    • +
+
+
+

WebHelper

+
    +
  • Fix creation of configuration directory in some cases
    • +
  • Fix missing update of navigation buttons on anchor links
    • +
  • Fix thread initialization problem
    • +
  • Fix some issues with keybindings on secondary windows
    • +
  • Add a keybinding to show/hide web view's window (bug #3156262)
    • +
  • Allow for better configuration of secondary windows
    • +
+
+
+

Internationalisation

+
    +
  • Updated translations: de, pt, ru, tr
    • +
+
+
+
+
+

Geany-Plugins 0.21.1 has been released

+

Shortly after the major release of Geany-Plugins 0.21, an issue with +the build system was found which blocked installation of source +tarballs using the Waf-build system. This has been fixed inside a +minor source release. The Windows binary release isn't affected by +this issue.

+
+
+

Geany moved to Git

+

After a long discussion on the mailing list Geany finally moved to Git +as the main version control system. The goal is to be more flexible on +including patchsets from non-core-developers as well as making use +of a number of other features of Git. The new home of the Git +repository is http://github.com where you can access Geany's +sources at https://github.com/geany/geany

+

During this switch, sources of other Geany-related resources have been +moved to GitHub as well and can be found on the overview page at +https://github.com/geany

+
+
+

Change of project leadership

+

If you have been using Geany for a while and read the announcement of +Geany 0.21's release, you might have noticed something important. +The leadership of the Geany project has changed from Enrico Tröger to +Colomban Wendling, a current member of the development team. +Enrico's priorities changed so he decided it would be best if +someone else took on the leadership role. During Enrico's time as +leader, Geany has continued to gain in popularity and improve, +whilst staying true to its original design goals.

+

Thank you, Enrico, for all that you have done, and thanks for taking +over Colomban.

+
+
+

Geany local

+
+

Geany at OpenRheinRuhr 2011

+

Together with the guys of Xfce, Geany was presented with another +booth at the annual OpenRheinRuhr at November, 11th and 12th in +Oberhausen, Germany -- A convention about all topics around Linux, +BSD and free software in general. The booth was again well visited +and people came not only to ask for help, but also just for having a +little chat with Enrico and Frank and discuss about Geany releated +topics.

+
+
+
+

Let us introduce you...

+

This section is intended to introduce particular plugins or features +on a regular basis.

+
+

Plugin Focus

+
+

Split Window

+

The Split Window plugin provides a feature which is so useful you'll +never want to be without it. When enabled, choose Tools > Split +Window > Side by side | Top and bottom from the main menu and the +active window is split into two editing panes. Each pane can be +navigated independently of the other, complete with its own +scrollbar.

+

In each window you can edit separate parts of the same file, with +each pane updated instantly with the changes made in the other. When +you want to return to "normal" view, choose Tools > Split Window > +Unsplit from the main menu. It's not possible to again split the +active window, only unsplit.

+

The plugin was intended to allow you to work on the same file but +thanks to a "hidden" feature you can work on two different files +loaded in the split view. If you open a file while in split window +mode, it's loaded in the inactive pane. You can then switch between +the split view of the same file or the different files via the file +tabs (under the menu bar) as normal. Note that it's not possible to +change the file shown in the right-hand pane when Split Window is +active.

+../img/issue4_splitwindow.png +
+
+
+

Feature Focus

+
+

Colour Schemes

+
+

Introduction

+

Geany supports colour schemes which allow you to change the colours +applied to various code elements. Two colour schemes are provided with +Geany: Default and Alternate but many more are available (see below). To change +the colour scheme, select from the menu View > Editor > Colour Schemes +> PREFERRED_COLOUR_SCHEME. The colour scheme change is immediate but +the list of available schemes is only loaded when Geany starts.

+
+
+

Adding Colour Schemes

+

More colour schemes are listed on the Geany Add-ons web page. For +the individual schemes, follow the instructions given by their +authors. One of the biggest set of schemes was created by codebrainz. +The collection is listed on the add-ons page but is hosted at +https://github.com/codebrainz/geany-themes +Follow the installation instructions given on the page, then restart +Geany and all schemes will then be listed in the Colour Schemes menu.

+
+
+

How Colour Schemes Work

+

Geany's colour schemes' format has changed over time, so there's a +"legacy" format and the current, preferred format. Schemes in the +different formats can be mixed but the current format is easier to +maintain and modify. In this issue the focus is on the new format +but if readers want it, the legacy format could also be +featured in a future newsletter.

+
+
+

Current colour scheme format

+

The current colour scheme format works by first defining the colours +to be applied to a file type's elements. This is an extract from a +colour scheme named "Oblivion2":

+
+default=0xffffff;0x2e3436;false;false
+tag=0x729fcf;0x2e3436;true;false
+tag_unknown=0xffffff;0x8C0101;true;false
+
+

File types and their elements are defined in a file named +filetypes.<FILETYPE>: e.g. filetypes.xml, filetypes.html. All +filetype files are stored in the 'filedef' directory in Geany's +personal data directory. This is an extract from the file type file +for HTML:

+
+[styling]
+# Edit these in the colorscheme .conf file instead
+html_default=default
+html_tag=tag
+html_tagunknown=tag_unknown
+
+

When Geany applies syntax highlighting to a file which matches a filetype, +it matches the element (defined in the filetype's file) with the +matching colour (defined in the colour scheme's file). The advantage of +this scheme over the legacy version is that modifying a colour scheme +for all filetypes requires changes to just one file.

+
+
+
+
+
+

People behind Geany -- Interview

+

This is the second in a series of interviews with Geany's +contributors: core developers, plugin developers, translators, wiki +maintainers and any other job we can think of. The purpose of the +interviews is to get to know each of these people a little better: +their hopes, dreams, plans and favourite Geany plugin.

+
+

Enrico Tröger

+

As is mentioned above, Enrico Tröger recently stepped down as leader +of the Geany project. In this interview he talks about his history +with the project.

+

What motivates you to develop or contribute to FLOSS projects?

+
+There are different reasons. +Most often it is that I want to improve existing software by fixing +bugs, adding features I'd like to use and so on. So this is a rather +pragmatic reason. +Nevertheless, I believe in Free Software and this is another reason +why I contribute to Free Software. Free Software allows people to +read and modify the source code to their needs, so in theory everyone +can make the software or change it to his/her needs. Based on my +experience, most people push back their changes and so the developers +can include them if appropriate. +This is only one of the advantages of Free Software. I doubt this would +be possible with paid software projects, at least not as long as they +are not free.
+

How did you become Geany's project leader?

+
+This was much simpler than you might imagine: I created the project :).
+

What is involved in being Geany's project leader?

+
+

Many different things. It all starts with knowing the project, knowing +the people involved and ideally knowing the code base :). +I think the project leader should coordinate the development and +communicate with the community, making the project a project and not +just a bunch of lines of code. +Also, at least in the Geany case in the past, the project leader makes +the releases though this is not necessarily a project leader task.

+

Users, package maintainers and other external people often contact +the project leader directly via mail or on IRC to say 'thank you', +ask questions about Geany or to discuss project related topics. So +this is another task for the project leader.

+

And certainly there are many other aspects which I forgot to list.

+
+

What goals did you have when you started as project leader? Did you +achieve those goals?

+
+As I didn't explicitly start as project leader but instead just started +the project, I didn't have any specific goals to achieve as project +leader however I did have goals to achieve with Geany as project. +These goals mostly were to create an editor which fits my needs so +that I can use it to write code and other text documents without +thinking about the editor, how it behaves, why it is so slow or doesn't +do what I want. As you see, these were quite personal goals. In the +meantime, as those goals basically were achieved with Geany 0.1, +the goals changed to be more general: +a light and fast editor with basic features of an IDE, without +unnecessary dependencies to other libraries yet with useful features. +Oh, and we achieved these goals as well though that doesn't mean Geany +can't get better anymore. There is always room for improvements and +new useful features.
+

What were some of the highlights of your time as project leader?

+
+Hard to name particular highlights. +One great thing which kept from the beginning to now is to receive mails +from users who just say 'thank you, Geany is great program'. This is +always great to read and always increases motivation to continue working +on Geany (in whatever way). I didn't experience anything like this +before and would have never expected it. But it's really nice. +Maybe another highlight worth mentioning is the many things I learned +during time working on Geany. This includes learning how other people +use Geany or certain features of Geany, to work with the community +and to read other people's code and learn from it.
+

Are there particular improvements/change/features of which you're proud?

+
+The community. Ok, the community is not an improvement, change +or feature :). But this is what Geany makes Geany. Without the many +users and contributors, Geany would not be as cool and as stable +and as feature-rich as it is now. +Thank you all for using and improving Geany, keep up!
+

How does a FLOSS project balance welcoming contributions with keeping within the project's original goals and scope? In other words, avoid scope creep?

+
+In Geany's case, luckily there were not much conflicts in accepting +new features and the overall goal to keep fast and lightweight. However, +I think a few times we had to deny a feature request for such reasons or +because it the requested feature didn't fit into Geany. +This went much better since Nick introduced the plugin interface so that +features which don't fit into Geany's core, can be easily implemented as +a plugin. +Nevertheless, denying a feature request, especially when it was obvious +that it would actually help the user who requested it but still doesn't +fit into Geany, was hard for me. It's like +"I decide that you will not get this functionality". Not a nice job. +As said, luckily this didn't happen so often.
+

Do you have any hopes or dreams for Geany's future?

+
+Of course: +Geany should stay on its road it has been all the time. This is, keeping +fast and lightweight while offering many useful features to the user. +Moreover, I really hope and wish, the current fast and intense +development in the community keeps going so that Geany will evolve +further and get even better than it is already :).
+
+
+
+

About this newsletter

+

This newsletter has been created in cooperation by people from +Geany's international community. Contributors to this newsletter and +the infrastructure behind it, ordered by alphabet:

+ +
+
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