We're pleased as punch to announce that, for the first time, you can use
AbiWord *without* having to compile it yourself. After over 16,000 source
downloads (from over 9,000 unique hosts), we're eager to see how much
interest there is in binary versions of AbiWord. Any guesses? We've been
averaging about 1000 source downloads a week for the past month, so interest
is really picking up. :-)
So, in addition to the usual source access (via tarballs, zipfiles, and
anonymous CVS), we're now also releasing the following flavors of binary
installers:
- vanilla .tar.gz install script
- .deb and .rpm packages
- and a Win32 GUI setup program (because InstallShield's not GPL)
We're even selling CDs! :-)
Selected highlights since 0.5.5 include:
1. More platforms supported. Integrated a first pass at IRIX support from
Ryan Dooley <ryan@coe.missouri.edu>.
2. Localization. Over the past two weeks, we've added the following three
translations:
Danish Martin Willemoes Hansen <mwh@stampede.org>
Dutch Albi <albi@linuxfan.com>
German Christian Terboven <cterboven@gmx.net>
3. Spiffy artwork. Added or updated splash screens, about box, application
icons, and document icons.
4. Installers. Shaw's kicked out a bunch of scripts to automatically
create a variety of package formats and install scripts. Eric wrote a
cross-platform GUI setup toolkit, which is due to be ported back to GTK
after Linux Expo. Jeff wrote a set of web-based, cross-platform automated
build servers.
5. Layout fixes. While we've been busy primping, polishing, and packaging,
Matt Kimball <robozapp@xmission.com> has been doing the unglamorous but
essential work of trudging through Bugzilla, picking off and nailing a bunch
of lingering bugs deep in the bowels of the code.
6. Static / dynamic builds on Unix. Releases prior to 0.7.0 always
built a "default" binary, which was usually dynamically linked. Now
each platform's makefiles declare one or both of UNIX_CAN_BUILD_STATIC
and UNIX_CAN_BUILD_DYNAMIC to trigger the relevant linker flags.
7. Code cleanup. Diff fanatics will notice that a bunch of misnamed XAP
classes got fixed, touching over 200 files. Everyone else won't.
CAVEAT -- Unless you've been staying in sync via CVS with all the recent
changes, chances are that you won't be able to build the 0.7.0 sources
unless you download fresh versions of *all* of the following modules:
abi
abidistfiles
expat
zlib (not needed on Unix)
libpng (not needed on Unix)
Enjoy!
Paul
PS: Yes, by popular demand, Shaw *will* be at the show. ;-)