[rkward-users] Call for testing: RKWard 0.5.3-pre1 / Release schedule

[Thomas Friedrichsmeier]

Hi!

The current development version of RKWard has a nice number of changes, and I 
think it's about time to release those, officially. Before doing so, of course, 
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 April 30, with the testing phase open until 
April 25. Of course the deadlines will extended, if necessary.

--- Testing ---

Please download the 0.5.3-pre1 release (also linked to from 
http://p.sf.net/rkward/download) and give it a try. Here are some things to 
watch out for in particular:
- All plugins were converted to use JS instead of PHP. This change will allow 
us to provide more flexibility in plugins in the future, but for now this 
change should be mostly invisible to end-users. This transition was quite a 
lot of work, and while we proceeded with care, it is quite likely that we 
introduced a few new bugs in some plugins. Therefore, please test the plugins 
you use, very carefully.
Also, if compiling from sources, please run
   make plugintests
after make install, and report any failed tests.

- R 2.11.0 is scheduled for release on April 22. If you have the chance to use 
R 2.11.0 (or a recent beta) in your testing, that would be very helpful.

Please try to provide feedback by April 25.

--- Translators ---

.po and .pot files are located in the po-subdirectory, as usual. Please provide 
your updates by April 25.

--- Plugin authors ---

If you plan to add features to existing plugins before the release, please 
post to the mailing list, first. 

--- Packagers ---

Note that RKWard no longer required PHP at runtime (the PHP-backend is still 
functional, but not used by any of the plugins), so you may drop that 
dependency.

--- Windows users ---

A windows binary will follow, shortly. You may want to check the updated 
installation instructions for correctness: 
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rkward/index.php?title=RKWard_on_Windows 
.

Note that you can now install RKWard from source using emerge (instructions 
provided on the same page). I'd like to encourage you to give this a try, as 
it provides a fairly convenient way to follow the current development on 
windows.

--- Mac users ---

If there are any Mac users on the list: Please give these instructions a try:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/rkward/index.php?title=RKWard_on_Mac .

Probably this does not quite work, yet (I cannot try, myself), but the only 
way to get the remaining problems fixed is by testing, and reporting. I'm 
confident that RKWard on Mac is only a few steps away, with your help.

--- 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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