[rkward-devel] Call for testing: RKWard 0.5.4-pre1 / Release schedule

[Thomas Friedrichsmeier]

Hi!

Once again, a nice number of fixes and improvements has accumulated in the 
development version of RKWard, and I would like to make those available in an 
official release, soon. As usual, before doing so, we need to do some more 
testing, and I would like to invite you all to participate in that.

A tentative timeline for the release / the testing is at 
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rkward/index.php?title=Release_Schedule 
. The targetted release date is October 4, with the testing phase open until 
September 30. Of course the deadlines will extended, as needed, if needed.

--- Testing ---

Please download the 0.5.4-pre1 release and give it a try (both the source 
release, and packages for openSuSE and Ubuntu are linked from 
http://p.sf.net/rkward/download ; binaries may need a few hours to be built; a 
windows installer package will follow, shortly). Here are some things to watch 
out for in particular:
- The data-editor now supports editing row.names. Use Edit->Show/Edit row 
names to give this a try.
- Prasenjit Kapat has implemented a very nice plot history feature for 
onscreen graphics. Please give this a good round of testing, so we can iron 
out any remaining quirks.
- R 2.12.0 is scheduled for release on October 15. If you have the chance to 
test with one of the prerelease versions of R 2.12.0, that would be very 
helpful.

Please try to provide feedback by September 30.

--- Translators ---

.po and .pot files are located in the po-subdirectory of the source tar.gz, as 
usual. Please provide your updates by September 30.

--- Contributors ---

The following changes are currently allowed in SVN:
- Bug fixes
- Documentation updates
- Trivial additions

If you would like to make any other change before the release, please post to 
the mailing list, first.

SVN will be branched and unfrozen shortly after the end of the testing period.

--- Packagers ---

Note that RKWard no longer requires PHP at runtime since version 0.5.3 (the 
PHP-backend is still functional, but not used by any of the plugins), so if 
your packages still depend on PHP, you should drop that dependency.

We will prepare a release candidate shortly after the end of the testing 
phase, and then give you a few days to perpare your packages. Details will 
follow.

--- Windows users ---

A windows binary will follow, shortly. Probably we will not find the time to 
create a "complete installation bundle" during the testing phase. However, you 
can simply make a copy of your existing installation of KDE, and then update 
this copy using the RKWard on Windows installer.

--- Mac users ---

Mac users are always encouraged to give these instructions a try:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rkward/index.php?title=RKWard_on_Mac .

These instructions have worked at least once, but other users have reported 
problems. We continue to be in need of your feedback about this.

--- Closing words ---

Remember: There's always many ways you can help, with or without programming 
skills. Testing is one important way to contribute, but for instance our wiki 
/ website is always in need of love as well. If you have time to spare, your 
help will be very welcome.

Thanks!
Thomas
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