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Posted to fop-dev@xmlgraphics.apache.org by Vincent Hennebert <vi...@anyware-tech.com> on 2007/07/13 15:45:01 UTC
Plan for the 0.94 release
Hi all,
I'll soon start the release process for XML Graphics Commons. There's
not much to do there, apart from updating the website content. Meanwhile
I'd like to enter some kind of freezing phase in the FOP area. That is,
mainly, avoid to perform too big changes which might introduce
instabilities in the code. I propose the following plan:
- make a list of patches/bugs that we would like to apply/fix before
releasing. Here everyone can help, even non-committers ;-) Once the
list is done we will see how many of them we can handle.
- refactor the website according to Chris' recent suggestions. That
requires some writing skills and a minimal knowledge of Cocoon/Forrest
and I'd be /very/ grateful for any help in this area...
- once Commons is released we can start the process for FOP
I'll create the branch very soon, as it's probably best to perform the
website refactoring in it. Once it's done we will have to be careful
when committing changes. I suggest to perform code changes on Trunk only
and merge in the 0.94 branch if applicable; and make website changes in
the branch only, that I'll merge back into Trunk once the release is
out.
Speaking of branches, I noticed that there are many (very) old branches
on Subversion. What about removing them? Some cleanup wouldn't hurt,
they won't be completely lost anyway as it will still be possible to
retrieve them from earlier revisions, and the corresponding tags would
remain. The candidates for removal are:
- FOP_0-20-0_Alt-Design/
- FOP_0-20-4Pre_BuildExp_pbw/
- Temp_API_Finalization/
- Temp_KnuthStylePageBreaking/
- Temp_SpaceResolution/
- dirkx/ <---- what is this one??
- fop-0_14_0/
- fop-0_14_0_regions/
- fop-0_17_0_batikSVG/
- fop-0_20_2-maintain/
- fop-0_90/
- fop-0_91/
- fop-0_92/
- fop-0_93/
- foray-font/
- release-0-13-0/
Some time ago we discussed about abandoning support for Java 1.3. Since
then I forgot to launch the poll on fop-user. I guess this will have to
be postponed and 1.3 archives will be provided for 0.94.
I think that's all for now.
Thanks,
Vincent
Re: Plan for the 0.94 release
Posted by Jeremias Maerki <de...@jeremias-maerki.ch>.
On 13.07.2007 17:08:22 Vincent Hennebert wrote:
> Jeremias Maerki a écrit :
> > On 13.07.2007 15:45:01 Vincent Hennebert wrote:
> > <snip/>
> >> Speaking of branches, I noticed that there are many (very) old branches
> >> on Subversion. What about removing them?
> >
> > -1. If you want to clean up, please create a subdirectory "old-tags" (or
> > similar) and move the old tags there. If you just delete them, it is too
> > difficult to access them anymore (provided you still know at which point
> > in time they existed).
>
> Well I was talking of branches and not tags. I can understand that this
> may be a pain to retrieve old tags, but old branches really seem to not
> be useful anymore. Moreover most of them can be retrieved from their
> corresponding tags.
I'm sorry, you're right. I read too quickly. Anyway, I have the same
opinion for branches. Moving them to an "old-branches" directory is
about as difficult as deleting them.
Jeremias Maerki
Re: Plan for the 0.94 release
Posted by Vincent Hennebert <vi...@anyware-tech.com>.
Jeremias Maerki a écrit :
> On 13.07.2007 15:45:01 Vincent Hennebert wrote:
> <snip/>
>> Speaking of branches, I noticed that there are many (very) old branches
>> on Subversion. What about removing them?
>
> -1. If you want to clean up, please create a subdirectory "old-tags" (or
> similar) and move the old tags there. If you just delete them, it is too
> difficult to access them anymore (provided you still know at which point
> in time they existed).
Well I was talking of branches and not tags. I can understand that this
may be a pain to retrieve old tags, but old branches really seem to not
be useful anymore. Moreover most of them can be retrieved from their
corresponding tags.
Vincent
Re: Plan for the 0.94 release
Posted by Jeremias Maerki <de...@jeremias-maerki.ch>.
On 13.07.2007 15:45:01 Vincent Hennebert wrote:
<snip/>
> Speaking of branches, I noticed that there are many (very) old branches
> on Subversion. What about removing them?
-1. If you want to clean up, please create a subdirectory "old-tags" (or
similar) and move the old tags there. If you just delete them, it is too
difficult to access them anymore (provided you still know at which point
in time they existed).
<snip/>
Sorry for just a short message. Optimizing available time...
Jeremias Maerki
Re: Plan for the 0.94 release
Posted by Jess Holle <je...@ptc.com>.
Manuel Mall wrote:
> On Saturday 14 July 2007 23:37, Jess Holle wrote:
>
>> Andreas L Delmelle wrote:
>>
>>> On Jul 13, 2007, at 21:16, Andreas L Delmelle wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Jul 13, 2007, at 15:45, Vincent Hennebert wrote:
>>>>
> <snip />
>
>>> As always, we value your input and feedback."
>>>
>> So I suppose auto table-layout is still out of the question? [That's
>> what I most want.]
>>
> While nothing is out of the question I would think that it is most
> likely in your court at the moment to make it happen.
>
> While I can't speak for the other FOP developers from my (limited)
> understanding most of us don't have a pressing need for that feature.
> For example I deal mainly with day to day business type documents
> (invoices, orders, etc.). The need for auto layout never came up in
> this context. My customers want full control on how these documents
> look without leaving anything to 'chance' what auto layout to some
> extent is.
>
> I am not saying there is no place for auto layout only that in my
> experience with the 10's of thousands of documents my customers have
> produced with FOP it is not really needed.
>
> In the end 'what itches us most' is being build and, unfortunately from
> your point of view, auto table layout is probably not a 'big itch' at
> the moment.
>
The main use case I see for auto-table-layout is things like generalized
report formats for ad hoc reports.
Of course one can use a commercial report generation engine for such
things instead...
--
Jess Holle
Re: Plan for the 0.94 release
Posted by Manuel Mall <ma...@apache.org>.
On Saturday 14 July 2007 23:37, Jess Holle wrote:
> Andreas L Delmelle wrote:
> > On Jul 13, 2007, at 21:16, Andreas L Delmelle wrote:
> >> On Jul 13, 2007, at 15:45, Vincent Hennebert wrote:
<snip />
> > As always, we value your input and feedback."
>
> So I suppose auto table-layout is still out of the question? [That's
> what I most want.]
While nothing is out of the question I would think that it is most
likely in your court at the moment to make it happen.
While I can't speak for the other FOP developers from my (limited)
understanding most of us don't have a pressing need for that feature.
For example I deal mainly with day to day business type documents
(invoices, orders, etc.). The need for auto layout never came up in
this context. My customers want full control on how these documents
look without leaving anything to 'chance' what auto layout to some
extent is.
I am not saying there is no place for auto layout only that in my
experience with the 10's of thousands of documents my customers have
produced with FOP it is not really needed.
In the end 'what itches us most' is being build and, unfortunately from
your point of view, auto table layout is probably not a 'big itch' at
the moment.
> --
> Jess Holle
Manuel
Re: Plan for the 0.94 release
Posted by Andreas L Delmelle <a_...@pandora.be>.
On Jul 14, 2007, at 17:37, Jess Holle wrote:
> Andreas L Delmelle wrote:
>> <snip />
>> What we are currently looking for are not large improvements, but
>> more the elimination of small annoyances, little things that could
>> mean a great deal to you.
<snip/>
>>
> So I suppose auto table-layout is still out of the question?
> [That's what I most want.]
As Manuel already stated, this is indeed not likely to be included in
this release, unless you or anyone you know has a secret patch that's
ready to be submitted. ;-)
But FWIW, I have already been looking at the existing patch in
Bugzilla 40271 recently, and thought of finally picking up that
thread and finishing it, but even so, this is probably going to take
a bit too long to be on time for 0.94.
Cheers
Andreas
Re: Plan for the 0.94 release
Posted by Jess Holle <je...@ptc.com>.
Andreas L Delmelle wrote:
> On Jul 13, 2007, at 21:16, Andreas L Delmelle wrote:
>> On Jul 13, 2007, at 15:45, Vincent Hennebert wrote:
>> <snip />
>>> I propose the following plan:
>>> - make a list of patches/bugs that we would like to apply/fix before
>>> releasing. Here everyone can help, even non-committers ;-) Once the
>>> list is done we will see how many of them we can handle.
>>
>> Shall I post a little survey mail on fop-users? Maybe it's good to
>> know for them as well about the upcoming release...
>
> I've prepared this mail, so if agreed, I will post something like this
> next Monday:
>
> "As some of you may already know, the fop-dev team is currently in the
> process of preparing a new release. With this post, we would like to
> gather some ideas on what the user community would like to see
> incorporated in FOP 0.94.
>
> Note that the release will already contain some cool new features
> compared to 0.93, like support for border-collapse="collapse",
> auto-detection and -registration of available custom fonts and
> improvements in handling internal destinations...
>
> What we are currently looking for are not large improvements, but more
> the elimination of small annoyances, little things that could mean a
> great deal to you.
>
> So, shoot away, and we'll see what we can do. No suggestion will be
> dismissed without consideration. Even if we do not implement the
> suggestion immediately, if it's interesting we will definitely keep it
> in mind for the next release.
>
> As always, we value your input and feedback."
So I suppose auto table-layout is still out of the question? [That's
what I most want.]
--
Jess Holle
Re: Plan for the 0.94 release
Posted by Andreas L Delmelle <a_...@pandora.be>.
On Jul 13, 2007, at 21:16, Andreas L Delmelle wrote:
> On Jul 13, 2007, at 15:45, Vincent Hennebert wrote:
> <snip />
>> I propose the following plan:
>> - make a list of patches/bugs that we would like to apply/fix before
>> releasing. Here everyone can help, even non-committers ;-) Once the
>> list is done we will see how many of them we can handle.
>
> Shall I post a little survey mail on fop-users? Maybe it's good to
> know for them as well about the upcoming release...
I've prepared this mail, so if agreed, I will post something like
this next Monday:
"As some of you may already know, the fop-dev team is currently in
the process of preparing a new release. With this post, we would like
to gather some ideas on what the user community would like to see
incorporated in FOP 0.94.
Note that the release will already contain some cool new features
compared to 0.93, like support for border-collapse="collapse", auto-
detection and -registration of available custom fonts and
improvements in handling internal destinations...
What we are currently looking for are not large improvements, but
more the elimination of small annoyances, little things that could
mean a great deal to you.
So, shoot away, and we'll see what we can do. No suggestion will be
dismissed without consideration. Even if we do not implement the
suggestion immediately, if it's interesting we will definitely keep
it in mind for the next release.
As always, we value your input and feedback."
Cheers
Andreas
Re: Plan for the 0.94 release
Posted by Vincent Hennebert <vi...@anyware-tech.com>.
Hi Andreas,
Andreas L Delmelle a écrit :
<snip/>
>> I propose the following plan:
>> - make a list of patches/bugs that we would like to apply/fix before
>> releasing. Here everyone can help, even non-committers ;-) Once the
>> list is done we will see how many of them we can handle.
>
> Shall I post a little survey mail on fop-users? Maybe it's good to know
> for them as well about the upcoming release...
I like the idea, and your draft mail looks fine, so +1.
Let's say we wait one week? That should be enough, and I wouldn't like
to delay the release too much.
>> - refactor the website according to Chris' recent suggestions. That
>> requires some writing skills and a minimal knowledge of Cocoon/Forrest
>> and I'd be /very/ grateful for any help in this area...
>> - once Commons is released we can start the process for FOP
>>
>> I'll create the branch very soon, as it's probably best to perform the
>> website refactoring in it. Once it's done we will have to be careful
>> when committing changes. I suggest to perform code changes on Trunk only
>> and merge in the 0.94 branch if applicable; and make website changes in
>> the branch only, that I'll merge back into Trunk once the release is
>> out.
>
> +1
Ok, I'll create the branch on Monday morning.
<snip/>
>> Some time ago we discussed about abandoning support for Java 1.3. Since
>> then I forgot to launch the poll on fop-user. I guess this will have to
>> be postponed and 1.3 archives will be provided for 0.94.
>
> Not necessarily, IMO. Now may just be a good time to start dropping
> support for 1.3, precisely by not releasing new binaries anymore. Users
> will be warned that with the sources, a 1.3 build is still possible, but
> they would have to do it on their own. After the release, we can then
> gradually start dropping support for 1.3 in the code as well, and clean
> up some there too.
>
> For you, this means less work with building the release-binaries :-)
> Only a few extra lines of caution in the announce mail.
Now that's again a good idea! Although I should perhaps try to build at
least once with 1.3 to be sure that's still feasible. Well, and if I do
that there isn't much work left to build the binaries actually...
Still, I like the idea. Any objections?
Vincent
Re: Plan for the 0.94 release
Posted by Andreas L Delmelle <a_...@pandora.be>.
On Jul 13, 2007, at 15:45, Vincent Hennebert wrote:
Hi Vincent
> I'll soon start the release process for XML Graphics Commons. There's
> not much to do there, apart from updating the website content.
> Meanwhile
> I'd like to enter some kind of freezing phase in the FOP area. That
> is,
> mainly, avoid to perform too big changes which might introduce
> instabilities in the code.
Agreed.
> I propose the following plan:
> - make a list of patches/bugs that we would like to apply/fix before
> releasing. Here everyone can help, even non-committers ;-) Once the
> list is done we will see how many of them we can handle.
Shall I post a little survey mail on fop-users? Maybe it's good to
know for them as well about the upcoming release...
> - refactor the website according to Chris' recent suggestions. That
> requires some writing skills and a minimal knowledge of Cocoon/
> Forrest
> and I'd be /very/ grateful for any help in this area...
> - once Commons is released we can start the process for FOP
>
> I'll create the branch very soon, as it's probably best to perform the
> website refactoring in it. Once it's done we will have to be careful
> when committing changes. I suggest to perform code changes on Trunk
> only
> and merge in the 0.94 branch if applicable; and make website
> changes in
> the branch only, that I'll merge back into Trunk once the release is
> out.
+1
> Speaking of branches, I noticed that there are many (very) old
> branches
> on Subversion. What about removing them? Some cleanup wouldn't hurt,
<snip />
No explicit opinion here.
> Some time ago we discussed about abandoning support for Java 1.3.
> Since
> then I forgot to launch the poll on fop-user. I guess this will
> have to
> be postponed and 1.3 archives will be provided for 0.94.
Not necessarily, IMO. Now may just be a good time to start dropping
support for 1.3, precisely by not releasing new binaries anymore.
Users will be warned that with the sources, a 1.3 build is still
possible, but they would have to do it on their own. After the
release, we can then gradually start dropping support for 1.3 in the
code as well, and clean up some there too.
For you, this means less work with building the release-binaries :-)
Only a few extra lines of caution in the announce mail.
Cheers
Andreas