As the project's homepage suggests for a few days now [0], a new milestone was reached. Its first consequence is the possibility to run the DeforaOS desktop on an embedded platform, given these tight requirements on such devices:

• light and efficient, written in C for Gtk+, with fewer dependencies
• user-friendly application launcher, file management and hardware monitoring
• designed for small screen sizes alike
• stylus- and finger-friendly (on-screen keyboard...)

Naturally, it provides a number of graphical applications as required; in alphabetical order:

• Browser, taking care of the homescreen, desktop handling, file management [1]
• Editor, a simple text editor [2]
• Framer, the window manager [3]
• Mailer, young e-mail and RSS client [4]
• Mixer, handling the volume controls [5]
• Panel, with an application launcher and many applets [6]
• Player, a media player [7]
• Surfer, fully-functional web browser [8]
• Todo, a young task management application [9]

Of course, they are all being actively used, developed and maintained, given their respective feature-set. The website is currently being improved, so as to provide screenshots of each of them soon; this will be announced here as well.

[0] http://www.defora.org/
[1] http://www.defora.org/os/project/display/230/Browser
[2] http://www.defora.org/os/project/display/253/Editor
[3] http://www.defora.org/os/project/display/3283/Framer
[4] http://www.defora.org/os/project/display/268/Mailer
[5] http://www.defora.org/os/project/display/3305/Mixer
[6] http://www.defora.org/os/project/display/3262/Panel
[7] http://www.defora.org/os/project/display/336/Player
[8] http://www.defora.org/os/project/display/340/Surfer
[9] http://www.defora.org/os/project/display/3299/Todo

Unlike what the news count of this past month of May could suggest, a lot of work was put into the project in the last few weeks. Before a couple other posts, each detailing a new direction where this project can now head to, here is a summary of each new released content since the last announcement:

[1] Panel 0.0.6

• more parameters can be defined in the configuration file
• the panel can be placed at the top of the screen instead
• pop-up keyboard applet (using xkbd)
• fixed some resizing bugs

[2] Panel 0.1.0

• new applet for the yet-to-be-announced Phone project
• improved embedded support
• bug fixes and performance improvements

[3] Browser 0.2.0

• the desktop application is more compliant with the NETWM specification
• usability fixes and improvements (dialogs, keyboard shortcuts...)
• implemented a homescreen for embedded platforms

[4] libDesktop 0.0.2

• updated the API to allow better keyboard shortcuts

Of course most of these releases already made their way into either NetBSD (through pkgsrc-wip [5]) and Debian (through hackable:1 [6]).

[1] http://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3348/Panel-0.0.6.tar.gz
[2] http://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3349/Panel-0.1.0.tar.gz
[3] http://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3355/Browser-0.2.0.tar.gz
[4] http://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3357/libDesktop-0.0.2.tar.gz
[5] http://pkgsrc-wip.sourceforge.net/
[6] http://www.hackable1.org/

Another minor version bump for the Surfer [1]: 0.2.0 [2], but with major updates. They include:

• tabbed browsing (at last!)
• fully translated to French (thanks to Calimero);
• partly translated to German;
• a Javascript console;
• some more usability fixes and improvements.

With this done, it's getting much closer to match my own expectations of a daily browsing experience. It's still missing proper history, bookmarking, session handling, some usability tweaks and security measures, but it's getting there. The code also deserves a quick review, as tabbed-browsing support wasn't planned at start the internal API could be more efficient.

But it definitely is the best release of the Surfer project so far, particularly when choosing the default WebKit-based HTML rendering engine.

[1] http://www.defora.org/os/project/340/Surfer
[2] http://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3341/Surfer-0.2.0.tar.gz

While packaging an overdue and very young release from the Probe network monitoring project [1], I noticed that Init, the system's session manager [2], was never released officially so far. They have therefore been tagged today, respectively as Probe_0-0-2 [3] and Init_0-0-0 [4].

Unfortunately, the last release of the libSystem [5], on which both of these projects are relying, does not contain the necessary changes to let the Probe program compile. All three of them were updated nonetheless in pkgsrc's WIP repository [6]; of course, this will be fixed when time allows it.

Meanwhile, the quality of DeforaOS' packaging and integration continues to improve, with some bugfixes and new translations being regularly committed. The daily CVS summary [7] even reported a new security feature withing configure, the Makefile generator [8]. As already stated there, writing documentation becomes a necessity...

[1] https://www.defora.org/os/project/display/44/Probe
[2] https://www.defora.org/os/project/display/41/Init
[3] https://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3335/Probe-0.0.2.tar.gz
[4] https://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3337/Init-0.0.0.tar.gz
[5] https://www.defora.org/os/project/display/27/libSystem
[6] http://pkgsrc-wip.sf.net/
[7] http://lists.defora.org/devel/2010/04/msg00012.html
[8] https://www.defora.org/os/project/display/16/configure

A new mailing-list was just created [1], to the attention of the French-speaking DeforaOS' developers and advanced users among you: devel-fr [2]. You aren't many but the latest evolutions of the project seem to be justifying the presence of at least one new mailing-list with a different main language, as the desktop applications are currently being translated to at least French and German, then Spanish and maybe Italian, too.

This is implemented using gettext(), as announced a few days ago on the main development mailing-list [3]. Browser [4] and Surfer [5] are the first applications to be undergoing this, with more to come. Translations of these "po" files will naturally be open to anyone, either through the mailing-lists, or possibly giving commit access to translators if so desired.

[1] http://lists.defora.org/
[2] mailto:minimalist@lists.defora.org?subject=subscribe%20devel-fr
[3] http://lists.defora.org/devel/2010/03/msg00044.html
[4] https://www.defora.org/os/project/display/230/Browser
[5] https://www.defora.org/os/project/display/340/Surfer

A number of sub-projects seem to mature these days. Surfer, the DeforaOS desktop web browser, is joining them in this category and was given a minor version bump today, to reach 0.1.0.
Its WebKit-based implementation is now the most featureful and usable, with the GtkTextView implementation joining the battle (although only rendering source code at the moment). Among the other changes, you may find:

• the possibility to search for text within pages,
• the possibility to view the source code of pages,
• the possibility to print pages (with WebKit only),
• protocol auto-detection with WebKit too,
• otherwise improved browsing experience with WebKit,
• improved embedded mode,
• better support of startup-notify,
• the possibility to no longer depend on gnet with WebKit (for the download utility),
• more code re-use thanks to the libDesktop library,
• fewer warnings when compiling.

Binary packages will be updated shortly, and more details about them documented shortly if all goes well. Do not forget you can also register [3] and report bugs or missing features [4]!

[1] https://www.defora.org/os/project/display/340/Surfer
[2] https://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3330/Surfer-0.1.0.tar.gz
[3] https://www.defora.org/os/user/register
[4] https://www.defora.org/os/project/bug_new?project_id=340

Just like the Panel was recently, Browser [1] is now tagged as version 0.1.4 [2]! Among the changes since the last version:

• depends on libDesktop for more code re-use
• improved the embedded interface (keyboard shortcuts...)
• possibility to create and rename symbolic links
• fixed some bugs (wrong error messages...)
• refactored code (callbacks...)
• implemented a basic preferences window for the desktop (sets the background)
• the desktop can display application icons instead of files
• the optional tools are now part of the archive and built by default (but not installable)

The short term plan for the next version is to further improve the application view of the desktop, so that it can be used as the home screen for embedded devices for instance.

[1] https://www.defora.org/os/project/display/230/Browser
[2] https://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3328/Browser-0.1.4.tar.gz

There's been a lack of news, but not a lack of commits! After a series of minor improvements, the Panel [1] was tagged and released as version 0.0.5 [2].

Among other things, it supports:

• more icon sizes (with the -s and -x flags),
• swap monitoring,
• improved Linux support (memory monitoring),
• an actual systray,
• hardware monitoring (GPS, GSM, Bluetooth for the Openmoko Freerunner in particular)
• probably fewer warnings while compiling.

Binary packages for various platforms will follow.

[1] http://www.defora.org/os/project/3262/Panel
[2] http://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3326/Panel-0.0.5.tar.gz

Another version of the Panel was tagged yesterday as 0.0.4. Of course, its source archive is available for download [1], and the pkgsrc package was updated as well [2].

[1] http://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3321/Panel-0.0.4.tar.gz
[2] http://pkgsrc.se/wip/deforaos-panel

The first releases of the libDesktop [1] and Mixer [2] projects made it to their respective project pages [3] a few hours ago. An attempt at packaging them has already hit pkgsrc's wip (work in progress) repository [4][5].
Both labelled as 0.0.1, the Mixer application will only be interesting on NetBSD-based platforms though (and probably Solaris too).

[1] http://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3314/libDesktop-0.0.1.tar.gz
[2] http://www.defora.org/os/download/download/3317/Mixer-0.0.1.tar.gz
[3] http://www.defora.org/os/project/list
[4] http://pkgsrc.se/wip/deforaos-libdesktop
[5] http://pkgsrc.se/wip/deforaos-mixer