[RkWard-devel] RKWard 0.4.5pre1, 0.4.5 release process

[Thomas Friedrichsmeier]

Hi!

Since there are only two of us actively committing to SVN at the moment, and 
we both have our feature changes in, I rushed the feature freeze, and started 
the release process for 0.4.5. More on the details of that below.

First, however, I'd like to announce a preview release of 0.4.5:
http://rkward.sourceforge.net/temp/rkward-0.4.5pre1.tar.gz

Major changes in this release include:
- many new plugins
- rework of the code generated by most plugins
- added help system (with only some few pages, so far)
- several small fixes and improvements as seen in the ChangeLog at the end of 
this mail.

One change in particular I'd like to get your feedback on (if you don't like 
it, it's not too late to remove it from the release, yet):
The "Edit", "View", and "Run" menus, as well as the "Run" toolbar are now 
always shown, regardless of which part/window is currently active. 
The "Output" menu was removed entirely ("Flush Output" was moved to Edit, 
and "Refresh Output" was move to View).
The idea behind these changes is, that now the menus will no longer "jump 
around" whenever you switch, e.g. between a help window and an editor window. 
The contents of the menus will still change, but the position remains fixed.
Does this seem like a good idea, or do you think it causes more harm than 
good?

Of course besides this, please do some testing on the preview release, so we 
can fix the most serious bugs before the official release.

----------

The following section is of interest mostly to people with SVN write access. 
Feel free to skip over:

RKWard SVN is now split into the regular development branch, and a release 
branch. This allows us to continue doing all sorts of changes on the 
development branch, while only bug-fixes, translation and documentation 
updates go to the release branch.
To work on the development branch, or follow it, proceed as usual. To work on 
the release branch, you will have to do an additional checkout to a separate 
directory:

svn co 
https://rkward.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/rkward/branches/release_branch_0.4.5

and the usual
make -f Makefile.svn
./configure

Many changes you make to one branch will also be of interest to the other, 
requiring two separate commits. If in doubt, continue working on the 
development branch only, and notify me about which changes are relevant for 
the release branch.
Or you may decide to do all your work on the release branch (minding the 
feature freeze), and I'll take care of applying relevant patches to the 
development branch.

-------------

Release schedule:
If nothing grave turns up during testing, I intend to prepare an official 
release around the 21st of January. The date may vary depending on the time I 
have available and assorted other factors.

Translations:
Now is a good time to update your translations! The most recent .po and .pot 
files can be downloaded here:
http://rkward.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/rkward/branches/release_branch_0.4.5/rkward/po/
Or take them from the po subdirectory of the 0.4.5pre1 release.
This time around we will avoid any source string changes between now and the 
release as much as reasonably possible (i.e. strings may only be changed for 
important bugs), so you have stable base to work on.

Please send in your translations (or commit them to SVN, if you have access) 
no later than January 20.

Also, please make sure to coordinate your translation efforts either on this 
list, or at least with any people mentioned as previous translators for your 
language, so you won't duplicate each other's efforts.

Documentation:
The release branch is open for documentation updates (as those are not 
currently translatable anyway), and now that there is a help system, there is 
a lot of documentation to be written. If you can find some time, your 
contribution would be highly welcome!

Regards
Thomas

------------------
ChangeLog for 0.4.5pre1:

- new Console RMB actions: "copy selection cleaned" and "run selection"
- added a basic help system, and some introductory help pages
- plug-in for skewness and kurtosis added
- plug-ins for distribution analysis added
- plug-ins for new plots (stripchart & density plot)
- enhancements to existing plot plug-ins
- removed the "output" menu; entries were moved to "Edit" and "View"
- always show all top level menus
- code generated for most plugins cleaned and simplified
- new function rk.results () for use in plugins
- fix: the output window would not refresh changed plot images (unless closed 
and reopened)
- fix several minor issues as identified by the "krazy" source code checker
- allow varslots to request objects of specified dimensionality and length
- fixed: integer spinboxes with starting values greater than 1 would get 
unreasonable change steps
- fix compilation with some versions of KDE / GCC
- small improvements to syntax highlighting definition
- in console, make cursor go to empty next line after pressing enter, before 
there is output (more like in the real console)
- add "run selection" option to command log
- script editor commands are piped through the console (by default; this is 
configurable)
- assorted cleanups
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