A new development snapshot of the upcoming 1.0 Release Candidate RC1 is now available.
Forum announcement:
http://columba.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=380
Download at:
http://columba.sourceforge.net/index.php?page=download_unstable
Erik did post a couple of interesting bugs or ui issues. Following have been fixed until now:
Nevertheless, there are still a couple of more critical bugs open. So, I guess the next testing release will be a few days later than expected.
As promised here’s the new development snapshot. Read all the details here.
I’ve gone through all JUnit tests making sure that they compile cleanly. Also, changed the ant
build.xml
script, to stop creating release packages if any tests fail. So, this is the first hurdle for releasing Columba.
I’ve got Timo to fix an annoying SMTP open connection bug, caused by to strict assumptions of Ristretto. Should now work much better with servers which aren’t strictly RFC-compliant.
Forwarding messages works correctly again, too. An inputstream was accidently closed too early.
Also gone through the README, COMPILE and CHANGES docs and brought them up-to-date.
Its raining outside, a good day to fix some smaller issues in Columba.
First of all I externalized all pending strings in the Account Dialog most notably the Spam Filter Options Panel, where I also fixed the layout.
Afterwards I’ve assigned every modal JDialog a correct parent JFrame, instead of just passing null. I hope this fixes the focus/window handling users noticed, as reported in the bugtracker.
Additionally, all plugins now compile cleanly. Use and the buid.xml script in the plugins directory to build all plugins. This script stops execution if a build fails. The buildall.sh shell script skips compile errors, so you can make sure that all working plugins compile.
I’ve finally finished my exams and thesis paper. So, starting with today
I’m back developing on Columba again
First of all the roadmap at http://columba.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/Roadmap
is slightly outdated. I’m going to update the items list this week. The M3 release
is going to happen at Mai the 30th. Furthermore, I’m planning to do
testing releases on Mai the 8th and Mai the 16th.
This is the last Milestone release, which should be much more stable and
polished as compared to M2, which sadly contained a couple of very
annoying bugs. The testing releases, the new testcases and a soon to be
updated Smoketest (http://columba.sourceforge.net/phpwiki/index.php/Smoketest)
will ensure this.
Last Milestone also means, last version with new major features. This is
the reason why I would like to call it v1.0 Release Candidate 1 (RC1), instead
of Milestone M3. Afterwards only RC will be released until Columba is stable
enough for a final 1.0 version. This also includes user/developer documentation.
My feeling is that this will happen around 2 months later.
I know that many people would like to see much more new features in Columba,
including changing it into a complete Groupware solution comparable to MS Outlook
and other apps.
Timo and me concluded a while ago that the best for Columba will be to get a
stable release out of the door as fast as possible. With such a stable version,
it will be very easy to add additional features or even concentrate more on
a complete collaboration tool. Users will most likely do without a missing feature,
but they won’t use beta software.
Considering the latest discussions (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cups-horror.html)
about creating open-source software with good user interfaces, robustness and
complete documentation my feeling is that this is a very reasonable plan.
So, stay tuned.
