Poppler 0.8 Released

So we made it and released poppler 0.8. Congrats to everyone involved.

Changes since 0.7.3 include:
* Fix caching of members in the glib frontend causing issues with rendering
* Change glib public api to have a correct naming
* Some better error handling on corner cases
* Check the document stream is seekable when opening it
* Build fixes with autotools and with cmake
* Fix infinite recursion on some malformed documents when consulting the fonts
* Fix possible crash when asking for Movie contents

I've created a branch for 0.8 releases for bugfixes, i'll try to keep a monthly release schedule like we had with 0.6

If you want to create a directory holding branch 0.8 you can do:

git clone ssh://yourUser@git.freedesktop.org/git/poppler/poppler poppler-0.8
cd poppler-0.8/
git checkout --track -b poppler-0.8 origin/poppler-0.8

if you don't have an account first line should be
git clone git://git.freedesktop.org/git/poppler/poppler poppler-0.8

Testing, patches and bug reports welcome.

Poppler 0.7.3 (0.8 RC2) released

This is the second and last release candidate of what will be Poppler 0.8

Changes include:
* Fix regression in Splash renderer
* Fix off-by-one write in Splash
* Plug some minor leaks in Optional Content code
* Improve error handling when creating a document in the glib frontend

So only one regression and some minor fine tuning. Seems we are on track for
releasing 0.8.0 next week

glib tests are known not to build using cmake, so if you are using cmake
disable glib tests for now.

Testing, patches and bug reports welcome.

Poppler 0.7.2 (0.8 RC1) released

So one week after the scheduled date, we have released Poppler 0.7.2.

This is the first release candidate of what will be Poppler 0.8

From now on no API nor ABI changes are allowed unless TOTALLY necessary. Only bugfixes until we release and branch 0.8

We will try to follow the planned schedule with a 1 week delay applied, that is:
* March 19 -> Poppler 0.7.3 (0.8 RC 2)
* March 26 -> Poppler 0.8.0

And now onto the changes

Major Changes:
* Improve font matching not forcing default values onto Fontconfig
* Add preliminary annotations support in the glib frontend
* Initial Movie support in the core
* Make GDK dependency optional in glib bindings

Minor Changes:
* Make the core able to read mime types of embedded files
* Qt4 API for accessing mime types of embedded files
* Handle correctly check state of optional content groups
regarding parents state
* Avoid setting singular CTM matrices on the Cairo backend
* Improved Qt4 API to get character position
* Qt4 api documentation improvements
* Qt4 minor stability fixes
* Proper lib64 Qt detection
* Fix build when compiling without cairo support

Testing, patches and bug reports welcome.

Konqueror 4.0.2 is more translated than firefox :-)

With the imminent release of KDE 4.0.2, Konqueror will not only have a bigger Acid3 score than Firefox, it will also include 50 languages (49 translations + original English) which equals 50 Firefox 2.0.0.12 translations (44 official + 1 beta + 5 language packs) so if you belong to a language that still is not well translated into KDE join the amazing l10n team of KDE and help us surpass Firefox there too ;-)

Spending my time writing useless software

So here i am, having a TODO list of over 70 items and having to finish my slides for a class i'll do on Saturday about KDE and what do i do? Port and improve my gopher ioslave to KDE4. *sigh*

Poppler 0.7.1 (0.8 Beta 2) released

Available from
http://poppler.freedesktop.org/poppler-0.7.1.tar.gz

This is the second release of what will be the 0.8 stable series. We will be having a roughly weekly release schedule until we hit 0.8 stable version. Target is March 19 for 0.8.0

Major Changes:
* Really distribute CMake files as optional build tool
* Initial Optional Content support in core and in the Qt4 frontend

Minor Changes:
* Allow grouped checkboxes to be selected individually
* Qt4 demo program improvements
* Keep cairo and cairo_shape consistent
* Safety checks on Splash renderer so that it does not draw outside the
allocated bitmap
* Do not try to display bitmaps of invalid size
* Fix building with exceptions
* Improvements for building with MSVC and CMake

Testing, patches and bug reports welcome.

PostScript is turing complete

Yes, PostScript is turing complete so next time you get a different output when printing with kpdf than the one you get when doing print preview in kpdf, specially if the print preview looks correct, blame whoever decided to use such a complex language for printers and also the drivers of your printer for not being able to understand it, do not blame kpdf.

Poppler 0.7.0 (0.8 Beta 1) released

Available from
http://poppler.freedesktop.org/poppler-0.7.0.tar.gz

This is the first release of what will be the 0.8 stable series. We will be having a roughly weekly release schedule until we hit 0.8 stable version.

Besides lots of small improvements/bugfixes, the big things of this release are:
* Saving support
* Partial annotation support
* Forms improvements
* Add support for ActualText entries
* Display characters outside of unicode BMP with TT font
* CJK rendering fixes
* Implement Adobe Glyph Naming convention for fonts
* CMake as optional build tool
* Better font scaling for non embedded fonts
* Preserve PDF page labels when we output as postscript

I've created a tag for 0.7.0 but not a branch. We will keep developing on master for the short 0.7 series, so please, only commit bugfixes, frontend improvements and "preapproved core changes" like saving/forms/optionalContent changes.

Testing, patches and bug reports welcome.

Okular and libspectre

Since KDE 4.0 okular has been using libspectre to render PS files. Due to libspectre being too new we decided to package it inside okular sources in the KDE 4.0.x tree. That has been corrected in trunk because everyone knows having other libraries inside your own source tree sucks, so for now on you need libspectre to get PS support on okular. The downside of that is that i could only find Debian and Pardus libspectre packages, so go to your distro and file a bug and tell them to package libspectre.

Intel publishes graphic cards specs

So now, besides paying people to work on drivers, specs are available to everyone else, cool!

Suggestions for improving a message

Today speaking with fellow KDE devels we realized some of them had the region set to the default C region, that basically means something like USA region but not completely, so not something you want when living not in USA.

Currently the name for that text entry for that is "Default", that may lead to problems as you might think the "Default" region is the correct, but it most probably is not. Some people suggested to switch to "Not Set" which is not completely accurate as it is set to C region, but will probably help "non-purist" users to set the correct Region. Other options go through "Default (Not Set)" or "Not Set (C Region)", etc.

So i'm asking the wider audience here, what would you think it would be the better wording?

To see it live go to systemsettings->Regional & Language, choose "Country/Region & Language" option on the left bar and "Country or Region: YourCurrentRegion (change...)" is what we are talking about.

Poppler 0.6.4 released

Poppler 0.6.4 is available from http://poppler.freedesktop.org/poppler-0.6.4.tar.gz

Changes since 0.6.3:
 Qt4 frontend:
  * Fix crash on links that point to a non existant page
  * Make Document::renderHints return the correct render hints
  * Fix infinite loop when parsing LineAnnotation

 core:
  * Fix crash in the Splash renderer when T3 fonts are badly defined
  * Draw underlined Links correctly

 utils:
  * Fix two use after free bugs in HtmlOutputDev.cc

 build system:
  * Fix build on mingw32

 tests:
  * Distribute the glade file of pdf-inspector

ktank project seeking for developers

KTank project, formed by DrIDK and Ikit, two new french KDE developers that can be often found on #kdegames, aims to create a nice Tank vs Tank game for KDE.
They already have some nice 2D openGL engine


But of course as any other project out there they need more [wo]manpower, specially they are looking for someone that can create nice sounds and songs (rockets have to sound BIG) and also someone with some GGZ knowledge for the multiplayer side, so if you want to be involved in a cool KDE game write to istdasklar free fr or drop by the IRC kdegames channel.

KDE 4.0.0 dinner in Barcelona

If you are from Barcelona and want to come to the dinner we organize for Saturday 12 night with KDE programmers, translators and supporters, drop me a mail at aacid@kde.org before Friday night, everyone is welcome!

libspectre 0.2.0 now available

A new libspectre release is now available from http://libspectre.freedesktop.org/releases/libspectre-0.2.0.tar.gz

That means more work for when KDE 4.1 branch opens, damn!

Changes since libspectre 0.1.0
==================================

API additions:

- Rendering unstructured documents: it's a bit confusing calling
get_page for a document with no pages. The following functions has
been added for rendering unstructured documents:

* spectre_document_render
* spectre_document_render_full
* spectre_document_get_page_size

- Tile rendering: spectre_page_render_slice has been added to allow
rendering rectangles of the page. (Bug #13754)

API changes:

- spectre_render_context_set_page_size determines the size of the
output image, but it doesn't affect the scale factor anymore.

- spectre_render_context_[set|get]_scale now require the scale factor for
both the X and Y dimensions.

Translate!

Hello, this is Albert speaking from my new KDE 4 i18n/l10n coordinator position.

If you have always wanted to help KDE and you have knowledge of a language different than english you can do it! Join today your local Translation team and you will improve your english but also your native language skills :-)

Translations for KDE4.0 are closing in about 12 days but there will be a 4.0.1 so don't worry of being late!

And congrats to Portuguese team that has a 100% translation!

libspectre 0.1.0 now available

First libspectre release is now available from:
http://libspectre.freedesktop.org/releases/libspectre-0.1.0.tar.gz

What is libspectre
==================
libspectre is a small library for rendering Postscript documents. It provides a convenient easy to use API for handling and rendering Postscript documents.

Dependencies
============
libspectre depends on libgs which is available at http://www.ghostscript.com

More information about libspectre
=================================
Web site: http://libspectre.freedesktop.org

The programming manual: http://libspectre.freedesktop.org/manual

Bug reports and feedback: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/ Product: libspectre

And yes, in the TRUE cross-desktop spirit this library is programmed by gnome and KDE people :-)

Valgrind 3.3.0

The cool valgrind crew has released a new version, from the NEWS file:

*********
3.3.0 is a feature release with many significant improvements and the
usual collection of bug fixes. This release supports X86/Linux,
AMD64/Linux, PPC32/Linux and PPC64/Linux. Support for recent distros
(using gcc 4.3, glibc 2.6 and 2.7) has been added.

The main excitement in 3.3.0 is new and improved tools. Helgrind
works again, Massif has been completely overhauled and much improved,
Cachegrind now does branch-misprediction profiling, and a new category
of experimental tools has been created, containing two new tools:
Omega and DRD.
*********

Omega is cool it actually tells you when a leak just happened instead of having to wait to the end of program execution to know you have a leak :D

And i already blogged on how useful helgrind can be to detect problems in thread programs, but i'll say it again, helgrind rocks too!

Terry Pratchett has rare Alzheimer

Today is a bad day :-(

Eek!

Poppler 0.6.3 and Poppler-data 0.2.0 released

Poppler 0.6.3 is available from http://poppler.freedesktop.org/poppler-0.6.3.tar.gz

Changes since 0.6.2:
 poppler core:
  * Fix crash in extra debug code

 glib frontend:
  * Make sure passwords are passed correctly to poppler core

 Qt frontend:
  * Fix crash on documents that specify an empty date

 build system:
  * Disable gtk tests if the user disabled glib frontend

Poppler-data 0.2.0 is available from http://poppler.freedesktop.org/poppler-data-0.2.0.tar.gz and contains lots of new cmaps and nameToUnicode and unicodeMap files so if you are a non strictly latin1 user be sure to grab it.