See also: last week's Development page.

Development projects

News and Editorials

LibAfterImage was originally written to give imaging capabilities to the AfterStep Window Manager, but now stands on its own as a versatile imaging toolkit. It supports the import and export of a wide range of common image formats, and can do text rendering with TrueType and X Window System fonts.

Emphasis has been placed on memory efficiency and image quality. The software is described as "Intense code with no bloat". Here is the full list of libAfterImage's features.

As with most graphics software, much can be learned by looking at the screenshots.

The author describes LibAfterImage's XML scripting capabilities:

"One feature that makes it worth mentioning is that it includes functionality for processing of XML scripts describing image manipulation process. So for example you can write a script that describes howto generate your entire website's graphics from few simple components, complete with transparency effects, antialiased text, scaling, and many other effects. Then you just run this script through included ascompose tool and it generates all the graphics in few seconds."

For installation and usage instructions, see the libAfterImage documentation pages.

The software can be downloaded here. LibAfterImage has been released under the LGPL license.

Databases

PostgreSQL version 7.2.1 released. PostgreSQL Version 7.2.1 has been released. This version fixes a critical bug: "sequence counters will go backwards after a crash". A number of additional fixes and features are also included.

Education

Seul/EDU report #67. Issue #67 of the Seul/EDU report is out. Topics include a Visual Classroom Scheduler that works with Linux, using PPC Macs as LTSP clients, and a new Free Curricula License (FCL). The usual list of new and updated educational software packages is also included.

Electronics

GnuCap 0.30 released. Version 0.30 of GnuCap, the Gnu Circuit Analysis Package has been released. New features include an enhanced model compiler and compatibility with GCC 3.01.

Embedded Systems

Embedded Linux Newsletter. The LinuxDevices.com Embedded Linux Newsletter for March 28 is available, with the latest from the embedded Linux community.

Network Management

PowerDNS first public release. The first public release of PowerDNS, a name server package, has been announced. "Besides plain Bind configuration files, PDNS reads information from MySQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL and many other databases. Backends can easily be written in any language, a sample perl backend is provided."

Printing Software

LPRng 3.8.10 released. Version 3.8.10 of the LPRng printing system has been released. The CHANGES include a number of minor bug fixes.

Web-site Development

Zope Members' News. The latest items on the Zope Members' News site include a new Structured Document release, and the Formulon 0.1.1beta release.

asp2php Version 0.76.4 released. Version 0.76.4 of asp2php has been released. The changes are documented here.

Log File Tool Vulnerabilities (O'Reilly). Noel Davis examines security vulnerabilities in several common web server log file analysis tools. "In this column, we look at problems in analog, LogWatch, Java Web Start, libsafe, phpBB2, Posadis, Web+, libnewt, OpenLinux's Name Service Cache Daemon, SiteNews, phprojekt, and IRIX's FTP Server."

Documentation

LDP Weekly News for April 2nd. LDP Weekly News is ready for your consumption. There are 3 new documents, 6 updated documents, and a long list of unmaintained documents.

Miscellaneous

Sharing computers on a Linux (or heterogeneous) network, Part 2 (IBM developerWorks). David Mertz discusses remote applications on IBM's developerWorks. "David takes a look at some VNC configuration issues, glances at IBM's Desktop On-Call, introduces remote X, and talks a bit about security."

Application Links
GIMP
Mozilla
Galeon
High Availability
ht://Dig
mnoGoSearch
MagicPoint
Wine
Worldforge
Zope

Open Source Code Collections
Berlios
Freshmeat
OpenSourceDirectory
Savannah
Le Serveur Libre
SourceForge
Sweetcode

Desktop Development

Audio Applications

AlsaPlayer updates. The AlsaPlayer PCM file player now has a scope output capability, FFTscope is the first downloadable scope.

WaveSurfer 1.3.1 released. Version 1.3.1 of the WaveSurfer audio file editor has been released. This version features bug fixes and a built-in documentation browser.

Desktop Environments

GNOME 2.0 Desktop Beta 3: 'La lluvia en Sevilla es una maravilla'. The Beta 3 version of the GNOME 2.0 Desktop has been announced. See the release notes and list of changes for all of the details.

GARNOME Preview Five: 'The Rottnest Conspiracy Begins'. Version 0.8.5 of GARNOME, the bleeding edge GNOME distribution, has been announced, it is ready for testing.

People of KDE: Kristof Borrey. This week's People of KDE features Kristof Borrey, author of the iKons icon theme.

Graphics

Unstable Gimp 1.3.5 available. For those of you who like to live on the edge, the Gimp User Group mentions that a new unstable release of the Gimp is available.

GUI Packages

Fl_Preferences 1.0 for FLTK. FL_Preferences 1.0 was recently released, it allows FLTK applications to store user settings between invocations.

Interoperability

Kernel Cousin Wine #119. Kernel Cousin Wine issue #119 is available. Topics include Crossover Office, which allows Windows applications to run under Linux, Font issues, implementing a DIB engine, Unicode and I18N support, and better regression testing.

Multimedia

Gnome Media 1.287.113 is released (Gnotices). A new version of Gnome Media has been announced. Changed packages include Gnome-CD, CDDBSlave2, Gnome-Volume-Control, Gnome-Sound-Recorder, and VUMeter.

Office Applications

AbiWord 0.99.3 Released. (Gnotices). AbiWord version 0.99.3 has been released. "The AbiWord team continues to make great progress towards 1.0. In the 4 weeks since 0.99.2 was released we've closed tons of bugs, completed RTF import/export, added great new image handling facilities and have made AbiWord significantly faster."

AbiWord Weekly News #85. The April 1, 2002 issue of the AbiWord Weekly News is out with the latest development news concerning the the AbiWord word processor.

OpenOffice 641d Build available. OpenOffice release 641d has been announced. It is the final release prior to version 1.0, testers are being solicited. A vote is being run to get feedback on what feature set is most desired by the community.

Kernel Cousin GNUe #22. Issue #22 of Kernel Cousin GNUe looks at the GNUe Reports proposal, project management, the reports output, a testing strategy, and more.

Miscellaneous

Mozbot 3.0 released. A new version of Mozbot, the Mozilla project's IRC bot, has been released. Features include XML output, a conversion module, and more.

Programming Languages

Caml

Caml Weekly News. The Caml Weekly News for March 19 through 26, 2002 looks at an online OCaml book, iox-1.00, Objective Caml examples, a Hump for Lablgtk, and more.

Developing Applications With Objective Caml. A preliminary translation of the book "Developing Applications With Objective Caml" is available online.

Java

Making P2P interoperable: Creating Jxta systems (IBM developerWorks). Sing Li wraps up his tutorial on Jxta, and writes about extending beyond the capabilities of TCP/IP. "With the rise in popularity of mobile computing and the pervasive application of embedded networkable microprocessors, the TCP/IP protocol is finally showing its age. Jxta has been designed from its inception to extend the reach of the Internet beyond the limitations of today's TCP/IP-based network."

Tips for Scripting Java with Jython (O'Reilly). Noel Rappin talks about the use of Jython for web scripting. "It really works. Anything you can do with the Java SDK can be done in Jython, including standalone applications, applets, servlets, and beans. Arbitrary Java code can be called from Jython, Java objects can be used as-is, or can be subclassed in Jython."

Lisp

New Lisp Packages. A number of new Lisp packages are available this week. An implementation of a Java-like hierarchical packages was released for Common Lisp. CLSQL version 0.6.0 is a Common Lisp interface to MySQL, PostgreSQL, and AODBC. SBCL version 0.7.2 is a new release of Steel Bank Common Lisp.

Perl

The Perl Review. The April 1, 2002 issue of the PDF format Perl Review is out, follow the link to Past Issues.

Exegesis 4 (O'Reilly). Damian Conway has published Exegis 4, in response to Larry Wall's Apocalypse 4. "In Apocalypse 4, Larry explains the fundamental changes to flow and block control in Perl 6. The changes bring fully integrated exceptions; a powerful new switch statement; a coherent mechanism for polymorphic matching; a greatly enhanced for loop; and unification of blocks, subroutines and closures."

PHP

PHP Weekly Summary. Issue #81 of the PHP Weekly Summary looks at reducing build times with ccache, features talk on a bi-directional process pipe, and includes fixes for openssl_get_privatekey(), a short CLI timeout, and redeclaring in classes.

PHP Session Management With Cookies (O'Reilly). O'Reilly has published an excerpt from a book by David Lane and Hugh E. Williams on the topic of PHP Session Management.

Python

Dr. Dobb's Python-URL!. The Dr. Dobb's Python-URL! for April 2nd is available for your reading pleasure. Topics include an April Fool's roundup, boolean types, Queue, TKinter docs, plotting pointers, measuring memory allocation, and more.

The Daily Python-URL. New items on the Daily Python-URL include the pyRXP validating XML parser, the Shicks! POP3/SMTP server, a Python ICAP server and IRML parser, the IM Python module, and several book reviews.

Ruby

The Ruby Garden. This week, the Ruby Garden mentions a number of new Ruby RPM packages that are available for Red Hat Linux 7.2.

The Ruby Weekly News includes announcements for Imlib2-Ruby 0.1.0, Xml Serialization 1.0.pre2, the Ruby IRC bot rbot, and some April Fool's day humor.

XML

Apache SOAP type mapping, Part 1 (IBM developerWorks). Gavin Bong introduces the Apache SOAP toolkit on IBM's developerWorks. "In this article, I will describe the type system in SOAP, as applicable to the Apache SOAP toolkit. Although the current incarnation of the SOAP toolkit supports both messaging and RPC interaction patterns, this article will concentrate on the latter."

Integrated Development Environments

Gnustep Weekly Editorial. The Gnustep Weekly Editorial for March 29, 2002 looks at GNUMail.app 1.0.0, code changes to gnustep-gui, and more.

Miscellaneous

Jext updates. There are a few new updates for the Jext programmer's editor. Jext 3.1pre3 has been released, the feature list is here, and SQL Console 1.2 is out.

Section Editor: Forrest Cook

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