DataBasin 0.5

I'm pleased to release DataBasin 0.5.

• quoted CVS support in reading
• support for reading DOS/UNIX/MAC file formats
• improved exception trapping and display
• fixed bugs in create and updates
• various fixes

Cynthiune running on Macintosh

Cynthiune is working again on the Mac! I was able to compile a limited set of bundles on Mac again! This is good because it also confirms that some of the latest playlist changes work fine!
I am unable to compile the ID3 Tag bundle for some weird compiler errors I don't get on any GNUstep machine, so I won't prepare a binary release.

Zipper 1.4

I'm happy to announce that yesterday the GNUstep Application Project released version 1.4 of Zipper. It was adopted by GAP in accordance with the original author and the license changed to GPL v2.

Zipper is an archive tool which allow viewing of various formats and creation of tarball (with GWorkspace Service).

What's new in this 1.4 release

• First version released by GAP
• Interface redone in Gorm
• Extensive fixes to BSD tar support
• Bug fixes in the handling of archiver outputs, options and dates
• Portability fixes and crash fixes
• Updated infrastructure to current GNUstep make and runtime
• Macintosh port (to prove portability)

Where to find it?

In the GAP project: http://gap.nongnu.org/zipper/index.html

Many thanks to Sebastian Reitenbach who contacted the original Author, Dirk Olmes, to make the move and who with Philippe Roussel helped during tested and debugging sessions

Cynthiune on Windows

During the revamp we of GAP are giving to Cynthiune, I revived today also the Windows port, look at how it is running on Windows 7... and yes, it plays really (something I am yet unabel to achieve on NetBSD...)

PRICE 1.1.0

PRICE 1.1.0 is out!

It has been a long hiatus, I essentially skipped a release and made two in one. What's new?

Curves: this was a lot of work (and will need more). Smooth way to correct highlights and shadows with an S-curve. Source and resulting histograms are displayed.

Bilinear filtering: scaling will now look better!

Minor tweaks to the interface, like the filters that on cancel while previewing or on GNUstep the convolve matrix reacting on end editing.

Furthermore a plethora of bug fixes and portability enhancements.

Get it here from SourceForce, in form of sources for all platforms (GNUstep or Cocoa) or as Macintosh binary.

It has been 10 years I've been working on PRICE. This is kind of an anniversary release. It has been a long time and it has been fun and I hope it will continue! But it is an amazing long time. There have been ups and downs, and some melancholy creeps in! I think I will blog more about some past and future ideas about GNUstep.

LaternaMagica 0.4

LaternaMagica 0.4 got released.


The Image viewer and slideshow tool for GNUstep (and your Macintosh).

Enjoy better navigation, keyboard shortcuts and better mass-exporting tool Enjoy it on more platforms too.

FTP 0.3 Released

FTP 0.3 got finally a release! Many small fixes in the build system, better portability and updates.

You can see it in the screenshot running on Windows 7 with the native windows theme!

GWorkspace dock

Now really transparent (if your backend supports it...)

DataBasin 0.4

0.4 is out!

Select Identify: Execute iteratively selects with given Ids or Unique Identifiers (no more Excel connector for this chore)

Select Http or Https as a preference for your connection (and it even works... http had a workaround due to sfdc stubborness which is now enabled only when necessary)

DataBasin at GAP

Neos 0.1 theme for GNUstep

Finally, the first official 0.1 release of the Neos theme. The theme contains now all the icons for the new special folders handled by GWorkspace, following thus the enhancements of the standard theme. You need both the latest GWorkspace and Base for all of them to appear properly.

Use the GNUstep filesystem layout (with the standard /usr/GNUstep or even / as a prefix) for maximum enjoyment. FHS has no real reason in a full GNUstep environment, in my opinion it should not be the default, it should just exist to ease people wanting to install one or two application in another environment.

Name your folders Documents, Images, Music, Downloads.

To have in idea of the look, check my past blog posts and you will see its evolution.

The end of an Aera

Jobs died. Now He was not only the father of the Macintosh, the iPod, iPhone and the iPad. he was also the father of NeXT and thus our guide too, our uncle or step-father.
He surely left a trace in computing. Let us keep his spirit alive in GNUstep

GWorkspace 0.9.0

GWorkspace 0.9.0 is out.

Custom icons for special folders (System, Library, Images, Music, Documents, Downloads, Desktop). Themable.

Volume recognition ported or improved on NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD.

Many fixes in the build system, crash & security fixes.

OresmeKit: plotting two functions

OresmeKit now is capable of plotting two function each against the other in its Cartesian view.

I ported OresmeKit and its examples to the Mac without any major effort, as expected.

Oresme, plotting for GNUstep

Parabola

I started creating OresmeKit, a plotting and charting framework for Objective-C, GNUstep (and Cocoa/Mac). I had the idea since quite some time, but finally started working on it. I know others had sketches on the subject too, but at the end one does need to start somewhere. The Kit will offer custom Views to be embedded inside your application to plot data. The goal is to have simple setup possible. Plotting is a complex art which can be tweaked quite a bit and which can lead to interesting mathematical computations, but let's start with something simple and easily usable, or the design will never go beyond the drawing board.

sinc(x)

The first component is a Cartesian plotting: two X and Y array need to be provided for abscissa and ordinata values. The view can be set to display different X/Y ranges, the Quadrant can be selected and a "centered" mode is available to automatically set the Origo in the center. The View live-resizes and the plot colors can be set. Currently there are no optimizations of any kind, but for simple graphs it works quite well, as the example application shows. Along with the Framework I develop and release also examples which serve the dual-purpose of testing the Kit and providing a starting point for other developers who want to use OresmeKit.

In the screenshots, the example application plotting a parabola  and the plot of the sinc(x) function.


Why OresmeKit? In honour of Nicolas Oresme the antique philosopher who thought about coordinates long before Cartesius. Because Cartesius was too predictable as a name and too tied to X-Y plotting, while OresmeKit shall support more chart types in the future. What's next? I plan on adding some more features to the Cartesian drawing view first. Then typical charting views: bars, lines, pies... At some point some optimization and computation will be available, since otherwise plotting of large datasets will be unbearably slow.

OresmeKit and its examples are available in GAP and are yet unreleased, check the CVS repository.

DataBasin 0.3

DataBasin 0.3 released!

New object inspector, bug fixes, improved character encoding...

DataBasin at GAP

GMastermind running on Macintosh

During the weekend, I rewrote the whole graphics core of GMastermind to use NSBezierPaths instead of PS operations. Furthermore it uses a gorm file to create the menus and instantiate the application Controller.

With these changes, a port of the code to Cocoa is possible! The screenshot shows the game running on my iBook with 100% the same code base of GNUstep.

GMastermind, LapisPuzzle, Sudoku, GMines released

Some of the applications given by Marko Riedel to the care of the GNUstep Application Project were released today:
GMastermind
Sudoku
GMines

Furthermore, LapisPuzzle was released too.

These are maintenace releases which make the application work on current gnustep, fix bugs, improve memory handling and improve porting to different platforms, including windows.

Many thanks to the original author Marko Riedel who helped the code not fall into oblivion and Sebastian Reitenbach whose idea was to import the apps and who helped fix them.

GNUstep on PowerPC

I got a first-generation iBook, those cute tangerine clamshells. Already owning a clamshell iBook, the lime SE version, which runs MacOS Panther, this one had to run GNUstep. I installed Debian/ppc, installed GNUstep and about everything seems to work quite smoothly, I see no extra problems compared to x86.
You can see a busy desktop exported to a bigger display.

GMines 0.2

GMines 0.2, the GNUstep version of the mine field / minesweeper game, got released. It is the first of several applications written by Marko Riedel that were salvaged and subsequently updated and bug-fixed by the GNUstep Application Project.

GMines on GAP.

BatteryMonitor supports NetBSD

BatteryMonitor for GNUstep now has support for NetBSD acpi too now! Support languished because decent acpi support in NetBSD is relatively recent and reading it requires checking a property list (which is of course more complex, but at least consistent and clean compared to the maze of files linux provides). To manipulate it libprop sports handy functions, yet I always had some problems here and there, until I realized something very cool. Property lists are familiar to GNUstep and Cocoa users.
char * prop_dictionary_externalize(prop_dictionary_t dict);
Exports fully-fledged XML property list compatible with GNUstep plists, not just something similar. Thus it is a matter of using
-[NSString propertyList]
to get a dictionary and manipulate it with obj-c iterators, which is much more convenient than the equivalent C function provided by libprop.

Support is still quite rough and, for example, only the first battery is checked. I have only one NetBSD laptop and I don't know how NetBSD shields the results from BIOS idiosyncrasies I experienced on Linux (watt-hour and ampere-hour usage and orthogonality for example). But it is already very nice!