On 19 Mar 2003 18:47:11 +0100 Sven Neumann <sven@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > Hi, > > Ernst Lippe <ernstl@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > At the moment we have an implementation that supports all > > the requirements in the list (writing requirements after > > you've implemented a system is a perfect way to satisfy > > all system requirements). > > > > At the moment we are still working on it, but we hope > > to publish the API real soon now. > > It would be really nice to see something in CVS soon. This would avoid > that already written code is lost due to hardware problems (this has > happened before). It would also assure that the preview makes it into > the next version and isn't hold off by the feature freeze that is > coming really soon now. Maurits fully agrees with you. But at the moment my distribution already contains multiple files: * Two widgets * Two support modules * Gtk-doc documentation files for the previous. * A plug-in test bed for the preview. * Three example plug-ins that use the preview. Maurits has written some additional code that I would like to include as well, but I believe it will need some modifications. Also, I would really like to include some sort of tutorial and a simple example (no, these are not written yet). At the moment my development environment is nicely organized for my own developments, I've got a standard Gnu distribution with autoconf, automake, gtk-doc. Altogether I've got 44 files in CVS just for this project. I can't imagine that you would be very pleased to add all of them to Gnome CVS. Another point is that the current name of the widget is GimpPreview and for some reason I don't think that you will like that name (even though my widget is a direct descendant of Shawn's widget that was written somewhere in 1998). In my experience renaming or reorganizing files after you've added them to CVS is something you should generally try to avoid. Another issue is that I can't compile the current CVS version of the GIMP anymore, because you've upgraded to the most recent version (2.2) of glib etc. Yes, I know that this sounds lame, but over the years I've grown increasingly tired of always trying to use the latest and greatest version of everything, because in most cases, I had to spend a lot of effort to upgrade a myriad of libraries after which I had to conclude that the whole thing would not work on my system anyway. I think that several other plug-in developers are in the same position, so I don't believe that they would mind if they could get a preview that was not yet in the official CVS. Also I don't think that you have to worry about hardware failures too much, I just sent Maurits a full distribution of my stuff. Earthquakes are very rare in the Netherlands, we are generally more afraid of floods and AFAIK I live sufficiently high above sea-level. All this does not mean that I would not like to see my preview in the GIMP CVS ASAP. I'd really like to have the preview and at least a few of the plug-ins in the official 1.4 distribution. (BTW is there already a new deadline? I believe that it was originally scheduled for the end of last year). So, the bottom-line is, that I really would like to see the widget in the CVS but that it would not be wise to do so before other people have commented on it. Also, like Nick Lamb remarked today, it is not very useful to put brilliant new stuff in CVS, when there is no real support and follow-up. greetings, Ernst P.S. Don't worry too much. I have been working on this preview for about four years and I believe that its code is much better shape than e.g. most of the GIMP plug-ins. Previews are very important for a nice GUI but developers will only use them when they are easy to use and well-documented. After my discussions with Maurits and the Gimp-developer list I made some drastic modifications such as splitting the original widget into two different widgets. I'd like to keep that freedom for a little while. When there is enough support for its API, I could have it ready for CVS in a few days. The code compiles cleanly with GTK+-2.0 and GIMP 1.3.12 and it has decent gtk-doc documentation.
