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There may be some magazines interested in doing a feature article on
KST. For example:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/">Linux User & Developer</a>
- (GNU software mag) <a
href="mailto:linuxuser@imagine-publishing.co.uk">linuxuser@imagine-publishing.co.uk</a><br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.elektor.com/">Elektor</a> - (Hobbyist
electronics mag) <a href="mailto:info@elektor.com" target="_blank">info@elektor.com</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 27/03/2011 6:01 AM, Nicolas Brisset wrote:
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<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; color: rgb(0, 0,
0);">Hi,<br>
<br>
since we're going to release 2.0.3 any time now (Peter, Barth:
is there anything preventing us from doing it right now?), I
thought it was a good idea to try and put together a small
release blurb. Please comment/improve so that we can try to
promote kst a bit wider than just this mailing list this time...<br>
<br>
My plan for this communication effort would be:<br>
- send the release mail to this list (of course)<br>
- send the release mail to the kde-science list<br>
- contact Stuart Jarvis to do an interview and publish something
on KDE Dot News (he already offered to do that a little while
ago, and Barth could certainly tell a couple of nice stories
like committing from the South Pole!)<br>
- somehow get the news out to planetkde.org (maybe via Stuart
again as we don't yet have any planetkde blogger in the kst
community)<br>
- publish the update on kde-apps.org (right now the latest
version there is 2.0.0 beta1!!!)<br>
- maybe also publish on qt-apps.org?<br>
- I have started contacted scidavis and QtGrace developers to
see if there is interest for some cooperation. I already got
some feedback, but as hard to believe as it may sound (for
people using or working on open-source, Qt-based plotting tools)
they don't know kst at all, so I guess it's going to take some
time to identify what cooperation could mean, as they will need
to try kst - just as we may need to test their tools. I'd like
to emphasize that cooperation does not necessarily mean dumping
some of the tools (even though it's always a possibility), but
maybe some shared libs or plugins would already be interesting.
In any case it could be interesting to get the information of
the new release posted there too, provided that it is not seen
as an offense by the respective devs<br>
- post the still-to-be-done screencasts on youtube, as even if
the quality is not what I'd like for the ones which will be
linked to the website, the audience there is probably greater
and it can certainly help the google ranking of kst, which is
not in the first page right now when you look for "free plotting
tool", "free plot tool", or "cross-platform open-source plot
tool"<br>
- pimp up the wikipedia page(s) somehow linked with kst<br>
- any other good idea you may suggest :-)<br>
<br>
Now in terms of contents, here is what I think we should
address. The complete text I'm proposing for review can be found
between the lines with stars.<br>
- new website<br>
- 3 platforms completely supported<br>
- much improved metadata support<br>
- ASCII datasource improvements (performance, config options)<br>
- KDE integration status and further plans (cmake, icons, KDE
HIG, ...) <br>
- perspective for the next versions (in particular scripting +
kst 1.x format support)<br>
- lots of bugs and crashes fixed <br>
- the fact that it can be installed alongside kst1, i.e. it can
be tested without too much risk<br>
<br>
***********************************************<br>
Kst 2.0.3 released March 29th 2011<br>
<br>
The Kst team is happy to announce the immediate availability of
Kst 2.0.3, the not yet so well-known but outstanding
open-source, cross-platform 2D plotting tool. Packages for
Windows, various Linux distributions and Mac OS X are available,
as well as the complete source code and cmake-based build files.
<br>
A more detailed presentation of Kst can be found on the
completely revamped web page at <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://kst-plot.kde.org">http://kst-plot.kde.org</a>,
which provides detailed <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://kst-plot.kde.org/screenshots/">screenshots</a>, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://kst-plot.kde.org/video_tutorials/">video
tutorials</a> and all the useful <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://kst-plot.kde.org/download/">download links</a>.<br>
<br>
Kst2 is a major rewrite to Qt4 of the long-existing,
Qt3/KDE3-based Kst1 code base. Kst2 has not yet reached
feature-parity with Kst1, but on the other hand Kst2 also offers
some features not available in Kst1. Both versions are
considered stable and can be installed in parallel. This Kst2
release has benefited from much more testing than previous 2.x
releases and is now considered usable for real-life projects,
even though there are still some rough edges, which are being
polished release after release. For a more detailed discussion
on the differences between Kst1 and Kst2, please refer to the
bottom of <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://kst-plot.kde.org/">this page</a>. <br>
Note that in the course of the port to Qt4, it was decided to
base the core of Kst2 on Qt only for ease of distribution,
especially to non-Linux platforms. Currently, Kst2 has no
dependency on KDE, even though optional integration of some KDE
features is being worked on to benefit those users using the KDE
platform.<br>
<br>
Highlights of Kst2 compared with similar plotting tools (like
xmgrace/QtGrace, qtiplot/SciDavis, LabPlot) are:<br>
- outstanding performance: curves with millions of points are no
problem at all!<br>
- plotting of live streams<br>
- out-of-the box support for a variety of formats (currently
ASCII, netCDF, dirfile, Qimage-supported types)<br>
- very user-friendly and efficient, with a fantastic data import
wizard and capacity to edit multiple objects at once<br>
- active community, with over 300 commits since the previous
release in November and an active <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kst/">mailing list</a><br>
- easily expandable for new data formats or data analysis
algorithms thanks to a plugin-based architecture<br>
- available on Windows, Linux and Mac OSX <br>
<br>
The most notable improvements brought by Kst 2.0.3 over the
2.0.2 version released in November 2010 are:<br>
- cmake-based build system, with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
installers<br>
- many improvements in the reading of ASCII files: extensive UI
overhaul and huge speedup<br>
- support for metadata added for netCDF files (scalar and string
attributes) and ASCII (units and some data-file info)<br>
- UI improvements (new icons, consistency with KDE HIG
guidelines, some dialogs reworked)<br>
- lots of bugs and crashes fixed in less-often used parts of the
code<br>
<br>
We hope you will enjoy this release and help us further test and
improve the tool. Kst has been developed over many years by
professional developers and has reached a high level of
maturity, with a very nice, future-proof code base. It was
recently field-proven during the Boomerang mission in
Antarctica, during which the probably south-most commit ever
made landed in KDE's subversion repository!<br>
We are aware that Kst is not very well known and generally
suffers from a lack of awareness, and are seeking to address
that with an ambitious communication plan, now that we have
reached a solid, mass-consumption ready release. Please take the
time to test kst, report the bugs you may find and tell your
friends if you like it!<br>
<br>
The Kst Team<br>
**************************************************<br>
<br>
Sorry for the long mail, but I had lots to say. Now I'm hoping
for some feedback and suggestion improvements!<br>
I still have a couple of things to improve on the website and
the screencasts to prepare. Maybe it would also be nice to give
Linux packagers some time to prepare packages before announcing
the release officially. <br>
I'm pretty excited to see how this release will be received. I
think we're now ready to move to the next level, let's see what
feedback we get!<br>
<br>
Nicolas<br>
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Kst mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:Kst@kde.org">Kst@kde.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kst">https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kst</a>
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