Fwd: A Xfce Weekly News

Fri Mar 4 00:08:06 CET 2005

Because I somewho sent this only to Olivier . . .

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Erik Harrison <erikharrison at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 17:59:53 -0500
Subject: Re: A Xfce Weekly News
To: Olivier Fourdan <fourdan at xfce.org>

On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 21:54:52 +0100, Olivier Fourdan <fourdan at xfce.org> wrote:
> Hi Erik;
>
> Quite frankly...
>
> ...that would be just great!

And fast too . . . .

I went ahead and wrote this up. I'll be joining the commits mailing
list so that I can comment more directly on CVS/SVN development in the
future.

I've typed it up in html format, but not a full webpage, so that it
could be included in any CMS type system that Xfce.org has. If it
doesn't have one, just tell me how we'd prefer it to look, and I'll do
it.

>
> Cheers,
> Olivier.
>
> On Thu, 2005-03-03 at 15:31 -0500, Erik Harrison wrote:
> > I know that Joe Klemmer has tried some stuff like this in the past,
> > but I think that I've got the time to try it myself.
> >
> > What I'd like to do is offer a short newsletter that summarizes
> > developments in the Xfce world, and have it posted to the Xfce
> > website. I already spend way too much time following Xfce mailing
> > lists as it is, and wished that someone would just condense it for me.
> > And since no one will, I'll do it.
> >
> > I think the advantage is that we'd be able to push a greater awareness
> > of SVN developments, especially since Xfce has a relatively long
> > development cycle.
> >
> > Xfce is getting to be really popular. Litterally a day doesn't go by
> > that I don't hear somebody call it "Gnome done right", which is the
> > reason I switched to Xfce back when 4.0 development was begining. I
> > think with our number of users straining the number of developers, the
> > large interest, a slow development cycle, and a growing number of
> > third party programs, a Weekly News could be really nice.
> >
> > If this sounds good, I'll put one together, see if I can't find a
> > floppy or my long lost USB drive and bring it in today or tomorrow.
> > I'd like to see it on the Xfce website if at all possible.
> >
> > Whatcha think?
>
>

--
CAPS LOCK: ITS LIKE THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME
-Erik

-- 
CAPS LOCK: ITS LIKE THE CRUISE CONTROL FOR AWESOME
-Erik
-------------- next part --------------
<h3>
Xfce Weekly News ? February, 25, 2004 through March 3, 2005
</h3>

<p>Welcome to Xfce Weekly News, your source for up to the week information on Xfce developments, mailing lists goings on, and Xfce related news items.</p>

Xfce Foundation Classes ? First Release
In October of last year Jeff Franks made an interesting proposition on the Xfce-Dev list. Jeff had developed a relatively complete and lightweight GTK+ binding for C++ called GTK+ Foundation Classes. For a number of reasons, Jeff felt that GFC needed a new home, and Xfce seemed the best bet.

Now, after many months of hard work, Jeff announced the new Xfce Foundation Classes, with a first developer release and stack of well written documentation, all available from the new <a href=?http://xfc.xfce.org?XFC website</a>. The website makes clear that Jeff intends to not only bind GLib/GTK+, but bind the core Xfce libraries as well, making it easy to use various Xfce widgets and utilities in C++ apps.

If you are a C++ developer, please give the new bindings a try. And then thank Jeff for writing them!

<b>The Move to Subversion</b>

Comments on the move to Subversion continued this week. Previously, it had been decided to move various non core projects into the Xfce repository (such as <a href=http://spuriousinterrupt.org/projects/xfmedia/>Xfmedia</a> and <a href=http://www.os-cillation.com/article.php?sid=48>libexo</a>. It was also decided that this would be as good an excuse and a time as any to make the move to Subversion.

The only remaining questions have been ?When?? and ?How??. The answers seem to be ?This weekend? and ?Not sure?. Brian J. Tarricone provided a rundown of the various things that he felt were needed in a version control system, and a repository layout.

<p>A final answer is coming, but what it will look like is uncertain.</p>

<b>Xfce Removed From Fedora Core 4</b>

It seems that Xfce has been removed from Fedora Core 4. Some cordial discussion on the Xfce lists asked whether or not this was a prudent action by Fedora, and what users could do about it.

What to include or exclude is ultimately up to the Fedora developers, and it seems that the Fedora packages will still be available through Fedora Extras. As for what users can do about it, either use the extras packages or migrate to another distro/OS. Brian also pointed out that if enough users want Xfce, then a few polite emails might go a long way.

Thunar ? A New File Manager For Xfce

Xffm continues to be the file manager of mixed feelings. Some people swear by it, some people hate it, and most people find it to have a high learning curve.

A new project and mailing list have cropped up to develop Thunar, the new file manager for Xfce. The goal is to be simple, easy to use, and easy to learn. Benedikt Muerer is manning the project, and Edscott Wilson Garcia (the Xffm maintainer) seems to view the friendly competition as being good for both projects. Certainly development on Xffm will continue, and the modular nature of Xfce will allow users to run either file manager, or both, or none, as they like.

Thunar (whose name may or may not change in the future) is taking an interesting but well thought out design path. Specifically, since Thunar was born out of the need to feel a specific niche in terms of UI, the UI is being prototyped in Python, with strong mailing list feedback and an active <a href=http://thunar.xfce.org/wiki/>wiki</a> There has been some concern that since Benedikt is himself not the target user of his own project, the UI may be compromised. However, there are plenty of target users on the mailing list, and Benedikt is known for hard work, well planned.

<p>With two file managers with clearly different target user bases, the future looks bright for all of us.</p>

<h4>Tidbits</h4>

While they may not be earth shattering, the various mailing lists and geek news sites will have little nuggets of interest from time to time. Here is this week?s.

Xfce in the News
PC World has an <a href=?http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,119699,00.asp?>article</a> on Xfce. As time wears on, Xfce gets more and more coverage.

Panel Plugins in the Home Directory
Jason Keltz asked why per user plugin installs did not work. Jasper responded that it had in the past and it might again in the future. Jason provided some reasons for getting the feature working again.

Mousepad Development Stalled?
Dennis J. Tuchler asked if Mousepad was still under development, and whether it would be included in the Xfce core. He was assured that development continued, but that the core would likely be getting slimmer, not fatter.

The Prodigal Son Returns
After a few months of being busy with other things Eduard Roccatello returned to the mailing list, and assured us that patched would be coming. Welcome back Eduard!

Daichi Kawahata ? I18N Ninja
Daichi continued his work in I18N, submitting a patch to intltoolize Xffm, and a Japanese contents.xml for the panel. Go Daichi!

Xfprint License
Jean-Fran?ois Wauthy asked Benedikt if he could change the license for Xfprint from BSD to GPL. Benedikt approved.

CVS ? A Roll of the Dice
After Daichi asked about the large number of warnings generated by libxfcegui4, Jasper reminded him that CVS (at least right now) was made to be broken.