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Friday, 8 December 2023

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2023-49.


Mobilizon V4: the maturity stage – Framablog

Tags: tech, framasoft, privacy, social-media, foss

Another important software release. Let’s wish luck to the new maintainers!

https://framablog.org/2023/12/05/mobilisation-v4-the-maturity-stage/


Introducing Wikifunctions: first Wikimedia project to launch in a decade creates new forms of knowledge – Wikimedia Foundation

Tags: tech, wikipedia, knowledge, programming

Interesting move, I’m wondering how far this will go. Reuse of those functions in other Wikimedia project will be critical to its success.

https://wikimediafoundation.org/news/2023/12/05/introducing-wikifunctions-first-wikimedia-project-to-launch-in-a-decade-creates-new-forms-of-knowledge/


Toxic comments are associated with reduced activity of volunteer editors on Wikipedia | PNAS Nexus | Oxford Academic

Tags: tech, wikipedia, knowledge, community, sociology

Very interesting study, shows how toxic comments impact contributions. Gives a good idea of the probability for people to leave. In the case of Wikipedia this highlights reasons which contribute to the lack of diversity in the contributors. This is a complex community issue in general, this studies does a good thing by shedding some light on the dynamics in the case of Wikipedia.

https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/12/pgad385/7457939?login=false


An Open Letter to the Python Software Foundation

Tags: tech, python, community

The fact that they felt the need to write such a letter is troubling. What’s going on in the Python Software Foundation really? Something needs to be fixed it seems.

https://pythonafrica.blogspot.com/2023/12/an-open-letter-to-python-software_5.html


Firefox on the brink? | BryceWray.com

Tags: tech, web, mozilla, google

Let’s hope it won’t get there… I wish people would abandon Chrome en masse. I unfortunately don’t see it happening and it’ll just weaken the Web.

https://www.brycewray.com/posts/2023/11/firefox-brink/


Chrome’s next weapon in the War on Ad Blockers: Slower extension updates | Ars Technica

Tags: tech, google, browser, attention-economy

Still using Chrome? What are you waiting for to change for another browser which doesn’t play against your interests.

https://arstechnica.com/google/2023/12/chromes-next-weapon-in-the-war-on-ad-blockers-slower-extension-updates/


Automakers’ data privacy practices “are unacceptable,” says US senator | Ars Technica

Tags: tech, automotive, privacy

A senator is stepping up and rightfully pointing the finger at automakers. Let’s hope more will follow.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/12/automakers-data-privacy-practices-are-unacceptable-says-us-senator/


PlayStation keeps reminding us why digital ownership sucks - The Verge

Tags: tech, DRM, copyright

If you can’t download it without DRMs you just don’t own it, you’re renting it. This is completely different.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/5/23989290/playstation-digital-ownership-sucks


Just about every Windows and Linux device vulnerable to new LogoFAIL firmware attack

Tags: tech, security, bios

Fascinating vulnerability. When the BIOS is at fault with a crappy image parser… you can’t do much to prevent problems from happening.

https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/12/just-about-every-windows-and-linux-device-vulnerable-to-new-logofail-firmware-attack/


AI and Mass Spying - Schneier on Security

Tags: tech, ai, gpt, surveillance, spy

Definitely one of the worrying aspects of reducing human labor needs for analyzing texts. Surveillance is on the brink of being increased thanks to it.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/12/ai-and-mass-spying.html


Google Researchers’ Attack Prompts ChatGPT to Reveal Its Training Data

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copyright

A glimpse into how those generator models can present a real copyright problem… there should be more transparency on the training data sets.

https://www.404media.co/google-researchers-attack-convinces-chatgpt-to-reveal-its-training-data/


Block the Bots that Feed “AI” Models by Scraping Your Website – Neil Clarke

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, copyright, criticism

This is clearly an uphill battle. And yes, this is because it’s broken by design, it should be opt-in and not opt-out.

https://neil-clarke.com/block-the-bots-that-feed-ai-models-by-scraping-your-website/


Introducing Gemini: Google’s most capable AI model yet

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt

The Large Language Model arm race is still going strong. Models are still mostly hidden behind APIs of course, and this is likely consuming lots of energy to run. Results seem interesting though, even though I suspect they’re over inflating the “safety” built in all this. Also be careful of the demo videos, they’ve been reported as heavily edited and misleading…

https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-gemini-ai/#availability


Multifaceted: the linguistic echo chambers of LLMs - by James Padolsey

Tags: tech, linguistics, ai, machine-learning, gpt

LLMs training had a bias from the start… and now we got a feedback loop since people are posting generated content online which is then used for training again. Expect idiosyncrasies to increase with time.

https://blog.j11y.io/2023-11-22_multifaceted/


Seamless Communication - AI at Meta

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, translation, speech

Now this is a very interesting use of generator models. I find this more exciting than the glorified chatbots.

https://ai.meta.com/research/seamless-communication/#our-approach


ChatGPT’s One-year Anniversary: Are Open-Source Large Language Models Catching up?

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, foss

Very interesting review, we can see some interesting strengths and weaknesses. Also gives a good idea of the different ways to evaluate such models.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.16989


reaction, in replacement of fail2ban

Tags: tech, security, server, self-hosting

Could indeed turn into a nice alternative to fail2ban.

https://blog.ppom.me/en-reaction/


Standard Webhooks

Tags: tech, web, services, webhooks

Interesting attempt at having webhooks implementation a bit more standardized. This is indeed needed, currently everyone does them in slightly different ways and sometimes the quality is debatable. If it gets adopted it’d give a good baseline.

https://www.standardwebhooks.com/


You (probably) don’t need DateTime · Scorpil

Tags: tech, date, time, unix, complexity

Good reminder that the raw UNIX timestamps have interesting properties and often are enough not necessarily needing to rely on something more complex. Also gives nice criteria for picking between said timestamps and higher level types.

https://scorpil.com/post/you-dont-need-datetime/


You don’t need JavaScript for that - HTMHell

Tags: tech, web, html, css, frontend

Nice examples showing JavaScript use can be reduced in the browser. HTML and CSS are gaining nice features.

https://www.htmhell.dev/adventcalendar/2023/2/


Documentation unit tests

Tags: tech, tests, documentation

Interesting approach to reduce the amount of undocumented features because we simply forgot to update the documentation. Shows a few inspiring tricks to get there.

https://simonwillison.net/2018/Jul/28/documentation-unit-tests/


Struct initialization | Sandor Dargo’s Blog

Tags: tech, c++

Good walkthrough the finer points of members initialization in C++. Worth keeping in mind.

https://www.sandordargo.com/blog/2023/11/22/struct-initialization


When static types make your code shorter

Tags: tech, programming, type-systems

Somehow unsurprising, this is often the case: less validation code, but also less automated tests. With types you can write unwanted states out of existence.

https://evanhahn.com/when-static-types-make-your-code-shorter/


Profiling Rust programs the easy way | nicole@web

Tags: tech, rust, optimization, profiling

The Rust tooling makes it super easy to profile your programs. This is neat.

https://ntietz.com/blog/profiling-rust-programs-the-easy-way/


Topics in computer graphics

Tags: tech, graphics, 3d, learning

Very nice collection of tidbits of information for the main topics in computer graphics. A good way to get started or refresh the basics.

https://mrl.cs.nyu.edu/~perlin/graphics/


Nuclear Reactor Simulator

Tags: tech, web, game, 3d, simulation

Very cool simplified simulator. Gives a good idea of how this roughly works.

https://dalton-nrs.manchester.ac.uk/


“Smartifying” my Hi-Fi system

Tags: tech, hacking, raspberry-pi, music, networking, usb

Alright, this is definitely a cool hack.

https://blog.rgsilva.com/smartifying-my-hi-fi-system/


Deciphering Glyph :: Safer, Not Later

Tags: tech, quality, project-management, programming

An interesting interpretation of what was behind the “move fast and break things” motto which is nowadays blindly followed by some. A bit of a long piece but does the job and propose a more complete view and an alternative approach.

https://blog.glyph.im/2023/12/safer-not-later.html


TDD Isn’t Design - by Kent Beck

Tags: tech, tdd, design

Definitely this. Again TDD helps to work on the design, but it’s not a silver bullet which will give you the right design on a platter.

https://tidyfirst.substack.com/p/tdd-isnt-design


A few words about Blameless culture

Tags: tech, culture, blameless, quality, trust

Shows why it’s important to go for a blameless culture, also outside of postmortem. This is definitely not easy but worth it.

https://www.gybe.ca/a-few-words-about-blameless-culture/


How to do annual planning and strategy for an engineering organization — Lena Reinhard

Tags: tech, organization, strategy, planning

Good blueprint for building up and following up (the most important part really) of a strategy in your organization.

https://www.lenareinhard.com/articles/annual-engineering-organization-strategy-planning


Return to office is dead, Stanford economist says. Here’s why

Tags: tech, remote-working

Looks like remote work is here to stay for good now.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/30/return-to-office-is-dead-stanford-economist-says-heres-why.html


RFC processes are a poor fit for most organizations - Jacob Kaplan-Moss

Tags: business, organization, decision-making

Good point on why you don’t want to drive your organization simply on RFCs. Yet another fad of “this worked for them, let’s do it as well”… per usual this fails to take into account the specificity of the context where it worked.

https://jacobian.org/2023/dec/1/against-rfcs/


First decide how to decide: “one weird trick” for easier decisions - Jacob Kaplan-Moss

Tags: tech, management, decision-making

Nice ideas for decision making in larger groups.

https://jacobian.org/2023/dec/5/how-to-decide/



Bye for now!

Thursday, 7 December 2023

For the fourth installment of Off-Theme we have a global theme based on the granddaddy of all the classic Unix desktops, a desktop that ruled the roost of the workstations from a bygone era. It is time to pay tribute to the DE that once dominated the Unix world.

Tuesday, 5 December 2023

Thank you to everyone who reported issues and contributed to QCoro. Your help is much appreciated!

Support for awaiting Qt signals with QPrivateSignal

Qt has a feature where signals can be made “private” (in the sense that only class that defines the signal can emit it) by appending QPrivateSignal argument to the signal method:

class MyObject : public QObject {
 Q_OBJECT
...
Q_SIGNALS:
 void error(int code, const QString &message, QPrivateSignal);
};

QPrivateSignal is a type that is defined inside the Q_OBJECT macro, so it’s private and as such only MyObject class can emit the signal, since only MyObject can instantiate QPrivateSignal:

void MyObject::handleError(int code, const QString &message)
{
 Q_EMIT error(code, message, QPrivateSignal{});
}

QCoro has a feature that makes it possible to co_await a signal emission and returns the signals arguments as a tuple:


MyObject myObject;
const auto [code, message] = co_await qCoro(&myObject, &MyObject::handleError);

While it was possible to co_await a “private” signal previously, it would get return the QPrivateSignal value as an additional value in the result tuple and on some occasions would not compile at all.

In QCoro 0.10, we can detect the QPrivateSignal argument and drop it inside QCoro so that it does not cause trouble and does not clutter the result type.

Achieving this wasn’t simple, as it’s not really possible to detect the type (because it’s private), e.g. code like this would fail to compile, because we are not allowed to refer to Obj::QPrivateSignal, since that type is private to Obj.

template<typename T, typename Obj>
constexpr bool is_qprivatesignal = std::same_as_v<T, typename Obj::QPrivateSignal>;

After many different attempts we ended up abusing __PRETTY_FUNCTION__ (and __FUNCSIG__ on MSVC) and checking whether the function’s name contains QPrivateSignal string in the expected location. It’s a whacky hack, but hey - if it works, it’s not stupid :). And thanks to improvements in compile-time evaluation in C++20, the check is evaluated completely at compile-time, so there’s no runtime overhead of obtaining current source location and doing string comparisons.

Source Code Reorganization (again!)

Big part of QCoro are template classes, so there’s a lot of code in headers. In my opinion, some of the files (especially qcorotask.h) were getting hard to read and navigate and it made it harder to just see the API of the class (like you get with non-template classes), which is what users of a library are usually most interested in.

Therefore I decided to move definitions into separated files, so that they don’t clutter the main include files.

This change is completely source- and binary-compatible, so QCoro users don’t have to make any changes to their code. The only difference is that the main QCoro headers are much prettier to look at now.

Bugfixes

  • QCoro::waitFor() now re-throws exceptions (#172, Daniel Vrátil)
  • Replaced deprecated QWebSocket::error with QWbSocket::errorOccured in QCoroWebSockets module (#174, Marius P)
  • Fix QCoro::connect() not working with lambdas (#179, Johan Brüchert)
  • Fix library name postfix for qmake compatibilty (#192, Shantanu Tushar)
  • Fix std::coroutine_traits isn't a class template error with LLVM 16 (#196, Rafael Sadowski)

Full changelog

See changelog on Github

Sunday, 3 December 2023


KStars v3.6.8 is released on 2023.12.03 for Windows, MacOS & Linux. It's a bi-monthly bug-fix release with a couple of exciting features.

Aberration Inspector


John Evans introduces the very exciting Aberration Inspector tool. The Aberration Inspector is a tool that makes use of Autofocus to analyze backfocus and sensor tilt in the connected optical train. It solves up to 9 virtual tiles on the sensor as defined by the existing Mosaic Mask.


The information is then used to analyze:
  • Back focus.
  • Sensor Tilt.
There are 4 sections:
  • V-curve for the each tile.
  • Table of data detailing the curve fitting results.
  • Analysis of back focus and tilt.
  • 3D Surface graphic to explain the Petzval Surface intersection with the sensor.
This release provides display only functionality. In future it would be possible to add functionality to offer recommendations for adjustments using Octopi, PhotonCage, etc.

Sub-exposure Calculator


Joseph McGee continues to add improvements and fixes for the Sub-exposure calculator. For usability, the window is now re-sizeable, an issue with the display of tool tips was corrected, and an indicator has been added for the sensor type of the selected camera (Mono / Color).  For functionality: the upper limit of the Noise Increase input parameter was increased, support was added for cameras with non-variable read noise, (cameras with CCD sensors).


Several new camera data files were added to the KStars source code repository, and a function to allow direct direct download of camera files from the repository was enabled. (Note: users who have created their own camera data files, may wish set the file attribute to read-only, and/or make a back up copy in case of an accidental over-write from the download function if the camera file has the same name).

A new experimental graphical tool to determine an appropriate number of sub-exposures for integration was added. This tool allows the selection of an exposure time to noise ratio for a stacked image; the tool will compute the number of sub-exposures required to achieve that value.

Added several new camera data files:
  • Atik-16200CCD_Mono.xml
  • FLI-16200CCD_Mono.xml 
  • QHY_CCD_294M_Pro.xml
  • QHY_CCD_461_PH.xml
  • QHY_CCD_163C.xml 
  • QHY_CCD_163M.xml
  • QHY_CCD_268C.xml
  • QHY_CCD_294M.xml
  • QHY_CCD_600_PH.xml
  • ZWO_CCD_ASI294MC
  • Pro.xml ZWO_CCD_ASI294MM
  • Pro.xml ZWO_CCD_ASI533MC
  • Pro.xml ZWO_CCD_ASI2600MC
  • Pro.xml ZWO_CCD_ASI6200MC
  • Pro.xml ZWO_CCD_ASI533MC
  • Pro.xml ZWO_CCD_ASI533MM
  • Pro.xml Nikon_DSLR_DSC_D5100_(PTP_mode).xml Nikon_DSLR_DSC_D700_(PTP_mode).xml

FITSViewer Solver


Hy Murveit added a very useful feature to the FITS Viewer: a built-in solver!

The FITS Viewer Solver is used to plate-solve the image loaded in the FITS Viewer's tab. It only works with the internal StellarSolver. You get the RA and DEC coordinates for the center of the image, the image's scale, the angle of rotation, and the number of stars detected in the image. Its main use case is debugging plate-solving issues in Ekos, though the information displayed can be generally useful. The controls and displays are described below.


This adds a new tool inside the splitter on the FITS Viewer. It plate-solves the displayed image, and allows the user to experiment with a number of plate-solving parameters, and thus help debug plate-solving issues.

How to test it out?
  • Open the sliding panel on the left part way, click on Plate Solving, and resize the windows appropriately.
  • Experiment with the parameters available (Use Scale, Use Position, the scale and RA/DEC positions, choose a profile and/or edit it)
  • Click Solve, and the image is solved and the solution presented in the Scale and RA & DEC and Angle boxes.
  • If you enable "Mark Stars" above the image window, you will also see the stars that were detected.

Quality of Life improvements

  • Make "Set Coordinates Manually" dialog more intuitive.
  • Telescope name specified in the optical trains are now saved in the  FITS header (the mount name was saved before).
  • New placeholders for ISO, binning and pure exposure time added.
  • Add a new not-default scheduler option to disable greedy scheduling.
  • Reduce latency between captures, especially when guiding / dithering.
  • Fix issue with differential slewing.
  • Separate Business Logic from UI in Scheduler.
  • Fix bug in estimating job time, capture delays were misinterpreted.
  • Fixed guide start deviation was not saved properly in esq file.
  • Bugfix in one-pulse dither. Dither pulses were going the wrong way.
  • Fix Scheduler hangs when Focus does not signal Autofocus start failure.
  • Focus Guide Settle Bug.

Dear digiKam fans and users,

After five months of active maintenance and long bugs triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 8.2.0 of its open source digital photo manager.

See below the list of most important features coming with this release.

  • Libraw : Updated to snapshot 2023-11-21
  • Bundles : Updated Exiv2 to last 0.28.1 release
  • Bundles : Updated ExifTool to last 12.70 release.
  • Bundles : Linux and macOS uses KF5 framework to last 5.110

This version arrives with a long review of bugzilla entries. Long time bugs present in older versions have been fixed and we spare a lots of time to contact users to validate changes in pre-release to confirm fixes before to deploy the program in production.

Friday, 1 December 2023

Let’s go for my web review for the week 2023-48.


KDE’s 6th Megarelease - Beta 1 - KDE Community

Tags: tech, kde

The best time to test it and provide fixes is now!

https://kde.org/announcements/megarelease/6/beta1/


PeerTube v6 is out, and powered by your ideas! – Framablog

Tags: tech, video, self-hosting

Another great release. Definitely welcome features.

https://framablog.org/2023/11/28/peertube-v6-is-out-and-powered-by-your-ideas/


Where Is OpenCV 5? - OpenCV

Tags: tech, graphics, opencv, vision

This is an important project, they’re starting a crowdfunding. Time to give back!

https://opencv.org/blog/where-is-opencv-5/


Red Hat Enterprise Linux 10 plans for Wayland and Xorg server

Tags: tech, redhat, wayland

The beginning of the end for X11. The writing is now on the wall.

https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/rhel-10-plans-wayland-and-xorg-server


New Outlook is good, both for yourself and 766 third parties

Tags: tech, microsoft, privacy

They respect privacy apparently… oh wait!

https://godforsaken.website/@Shrigglepuss/111482466182637440


Pluralistic: The real AI fight

Tags: tech, ai, ethics

Excellent piece from Cory Doctorow, it’s a good summary of where the real debates about AI should be… and it’s nowhere near the OpenAI soap opera.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space


UK school pupils ‘using AI to create indecent imagery of other children’

Tags: tech, ai, gpt, criticism

School bullying has a new tool to its belt… and this one is rather creepy.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/nov/27/uk-school-pupils-using-ai-create-indecent-sexual-abuse-images-of-other-children


GAIA: A Benchmark for General AI Assistants

Tags: tech, ai, gpt, benchmarking

That’s the beginning of interesting benchmarks for AI assistants. Still a long way to go but this is a good start.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2311.12983.pdf


Neil Gaiman’s Radical Vision for the Future of the Internet - Cal Newport

Tags: tech, web, blog, social-media

Hopefully this becomes true. I wouldn’t mind a post-Social Media era of the Web.

https://calnewport.com/neil-gaimans-radical-vision-for-the-future-of-the-internet/


An ode to the neo-grotesque web | Redowan’s Reflections

Tags: tech, web, blog, history, ux

There was definitely something we lost from the early days of the web. It was not perfect, far from it, but some of that spark is missing.

https://rednafi.com/zephyr/an_ode_to_the_neo_grotesque_web/


cohost! - “Paper: You Want My Password or a Dead Patient?”

Tags: tech, medecine, usability, security, safety

How the medical sector is struggling with badly designed software. Also important to note how security is just getting in the way of nurses and doctors jobs.

https://cohost.org/mononcqc/post/3647311-paper-you-want-my-p


Secure DNS (DoT & DoH) is not enough

Tags: tech, browser, dns, privacy

Looking forward to Encrypted Client Hello to be widely available. This was no more clear text SNI, and privacy should be really ensured when browsing the web.

https://lu.sagebl.eu/notes/secure-dns-dot-doh-is-not-enough/


Beej’s Guide to Interprocess Communications

Tags: tech, unix, processes, communication

Looks like a good resource for someone who needs to get into IPC mechanisms on UNIX flavors.

https://beej.us/guide/bgipc/


Modern C++ Programming Course (C++11/14/17/20)

Tags: tech, c++, learning

Looks like a fairly comprehensive course to get started or refresh your Modern C++

https://github.com/federico-busato/Modern-CPP-Programming


On harmful overuse of std::move - The Old New Thing

Tags: tech, c++, performance

Seen this a bit too often indeed. When people learn about std::move they tend to sprinkle it too much preventing proper optimizations. Its use should be fairly limited usually.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20231124-00/?p=109059


Live and Let Die

Tags: tech, programming, c++, raii, resources

Interesting dive on the limits of destructors and when they’re called. This can have implications on how programs are stopped.

https://accu.org/journals/overload/31/177/janzen/


Brandt Bucher – A JIT Compiler for CPython

Tags: tech, python, compiler

If you wonder what’s happening on the JIT front in CPython land, here is a talk explaining what’s coming in 3.13.

https://piped.video/watch?v=HxSHIpEQRjs


Oatmeal

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, vim, command-line, self-hosting, foss

Interesting terminal oriented tool to interacting with LLM. Let you choose to self-host or run locally.

https://dustinblackman.com/posts/oatmeal/


Distribute and run LLMs with a single file

Tags: tech, ai, machine-learning, gpt, foss, portability

Interesting experiment. It makes for a very large file but there are a few clever tricks in there.

https://github.com/Mozilla-Ocho/llamafile


Using Polars in a Pandas world

Tags: tech, data, pandas, polars

Good things to keep in mind if you’re pondering between pandas or polars for your data processing.

https://pythonspeed.com/articles/polars-pandas-interopability/


Ray Marching Fog With Blue Noise « The blog at the bottom of the sea

Tags: tech, graphics, 3d, noise

I keep being baffled at how the right type of noise can really make a difference in the rendering of some effects.

https://blog.demofox.org/2020/05/10/ray-marching-fog-with-blue-noise/


Animotion — a visual CSS animation app

Tags: tech, web, css, animation, tools

Nice little editor for CSS animations. Should definitely help building those.

https://cssanimotion.pages.dev/


The Weirdest Bug I’ve Seen Yet

Tags: tech, debugging

Definitely a weird one… still a mystery and unfortunately will probably stay this way. Having the code source could have helped nail it down, could have been interesting.

https://engineering.gusto.com/the-weirdest-bug-ive-seen-yet/


CUPID—for joyful coding - Dan North & Associates Limited

Tags: tech, craftsmanship, design, programming, quality

This is a good set of properties to strive for. Since the SOLID principles start to show their age this might be a worthwhile alternative.

https://dannorth.net/cupid-for-joyful-coding/


Code is run more than read

Tags: tech, business, craftsmanship, foss

Interesting food for thought. The later point about the tension between business and users lately is also a good one and should be kept in mind. That’s an ethical concern you find most in companies publishing Free Software though. It’s not the full packaged solution but a good starting point.

https://olano.dev/2023-11-30-code-is-run-more-than-read/


Supporting Sustainability

Tags: tech, project-management, communication, sustainability

Interesting set of advices for better communication and more sustainable production of software.

https://benjiweber.co.uk/blog/2022/01/30/supporting-sustainability/


Be Indirect in Your Research Questionnaire to Gain More Honesty

Tags: sociology, polling

Definitely this. When polling the questions shouldn’t be too obvious, otherwise people will tell you what you want to hear.

https://www.yegor256.com/2023/11/28/research-questionnaire.html



Bye for now!

MauiKit: A Toolkit for Multi Adaptable User Interfaces.

Today, we bring you a report on the brand-new release of the Maui Project.

We are excited to announce the latest release of MauiKit version 3.0.2, our comprehensive user interface toolkit specifically designed for convergent interfaces, the complying frameworks, and an in-house developed set of convergent applications.

Built on the foundations of Qt Quick Controls, QML, and the power and stability of C++, MauiKit empowers developers to create adaptable and seamless user interfaces across a range of devices, and with this release, we are a step closer to finalizing the migration to a new major version – the upcoming MauiKit4 release, now fully documented.

Join us on this journey as we unveil the potential of MauiKit3 for building convergent interfaces, the roadmap towards MauiKit4 and its new additions, and finally discover the possibilities offered by the enhanced Maui App stack.

Community

To follow the Maui Project’s development or to just say hi, you can join us on Telegram @mauiproject

We are present on Twitter and Mastodon:

Thanks to the KDE contributors who have helped translate the Maui Apps and Frameworks!

Downloads & Sources

You can get the stable release packages [APKs, AppImage, TARs] directly from the KDE downloads server at https://download.kde.org/stable/maui/

And if you are feeling a bit curious about the Maui DE, you can download the Manjaro-based image for **testing** the project’s state as a snapshot of MauiKit3.

https://master.dl.sourceforge.net/project/nulogicos/maui-shell/ISO/manjaro-maui-shell-23.0.0-minimal-230731-linux515.iso?viasf=1

Note: Please be aware that this is an ISO image from a third party.

All of the Maui repositories have the newly release branches and tags. You can get the sources right from the Maui group: https://invent.kde.org/maui

What’s new?

With this update, we have focused on publishing the comprehensive documentation for the recently ported MauiKit4 Frameworks, polishing and updating the upcoming MauiKit4 frameworks code base, and starting to get the Maui Applications into shape for the migration to MauiKit4 – all while fixing bugs, improving performance, and fine-tuning all visual details.

MauiKit3 & 4

While documenting the source code – for the ported MauiKit4 frameworks – a lot of the implementation details of the visual controls have been reviewed and refined, this has resulted in a more curated set of UI elements, performance boost, cleaner code an early addition of new features.

Controls

All of the frameworks have a new information header, with information about the module, such as version number, build version, and all of the open-source tools that are part of it.

A quick overview of the changes made include:

  • Startup optimizations for the ApplicationWindow
  • The SettingsDialog layout is now cleaner when using the accompanying SectionGroup and SectionItem controls
  • Fix regressions introduced with the dialogs now based on QQC2 Dialog component
  • The TabView overview preview thumbnails are now correctly scaled and more tab information, such as the custom color and tooltip text – are now used.
  • Lazy loading elements until they are needed resulting in small performance boost
  • The AboutDialog links are clearer without using any special styling, and some parts have been refactored for a cleaner source code
  • Fixes to the GridBrowserDelegate and ListBrowserDelegate checkable state

Terminal, TextEditor & FileBrowsing

The FileDialog issues on mobile devices with the single click preference have been solved. Another bunch of small fixes include fixes to the dialog buttons, the FileBrowser action dialogs, information about tag locations, and the addition of more methods to the file management classes.

MauiKitTerminal now exposes more interface properties for handling processes that have gone silent, and functions to correctly change the current working directory.

Documents, Accounts, Calendar &ImageTools

Added the header with module information, and started the porting work.

And, as for MauiKit4:

  • The Holder control can now have an image source as the emoji
  • Many corrections in the QML syntax for the definition of catching signals.
  • The SettingsDialog is now a detached window on desktop environments
  • Added a new control DialogWindow and BaseWindow, from which ApplicationWindow now inherits. The new DialogWindow is correctly set as a dialog window and it’s modal.
  • Simplify the implementation of controls, such as the InputDialog
  • Fixes to CSD buttons controls, and now respects hints of no resizable windows or windows that should not be minimized.
  • Added a build flag `-DBUILD_DEMO=ON` for building or skipping the MauiKit4 demo app.
  • Added documentation to the sources and example files for all the visual controls
  • The SectionItem has been changed into two different variants: SectionItem and FlexSectionItem, more information about their use cases is in the documentation linked in the section below
  • Some of the previously public types that were only part of the implementation have now become private, such as the SideBar for the SideBarView

MauiKit4 Documentation

Documentation has been published for the ported MauiKit4 frameworks, as part of the migration plan. As new frameworks get ported, the accompanying documentation will be published. You can find the documentation online at https://api.kde.org/mauikit/index.html

At the time of this release, the following frameworks have now been fully documented, and have a comprehensive list of example source files:

The documentation effort also resulted in a complete set of example source files, which can be used for interested users to quickly hack and learn about MauiKit4, and for testers – and unit tests, to monitor all parts are functional.

If you are interested in contributing to the project, or in developing a MauiKit-based application, and you find any issues, bugs about the documentation text readability, or any other comments, please feel free to open a bug report on the corresponding repository issues page, and/or joining us at our telegram public chat group, where any concerns or questions will be answered promptly.

MauiKit3 Apps

Among specific new features and updates listed below, all of the Maui apps have been updated to the latest MauiKit3 changes, which also include fixes to some regressions introduced in the porting to MauiKit4 – and have also received an initial set of tweaks to get ready for their migration to MauiKit4.

Fix regression to the new dialogs versus the previous implementation.

Updated translations to multiple languages, thanks to the KDE community.

Index, Vvave & Shelf

Index now allows previewing files by default instead of opening them in an external application, and the dialog can be detached on desktop environments. Some UI elements have been improved to be loaded only when needed.

In Index, the previewer model is now independent of the current directory model, and the previews of videos and audios now have a playback button for pausing and resuming.

The albums and artist view in Vvave, now display a quick play button on hovering over the cover, to quickly start playing a full album or artist collection.

Shelf correct browsing by categories.

Clip, Nota & Station

The alerts on Station, for inactive or silent processes are now optional and exposed in the settings dialog. Now the last session can be restored if preferred.

For Nota, the crashing issues on Android have been addressed. Menus and other elements are now being lazy-loaded, making the app quicker. Also, menus have been revised and the mobile contextual menu is now correctly working.

Fiery, Buho & More

Fiery now has detachable tabs.

Maui Shell

Cask, Maui Settings & More

The session startup manager now has been fully ported to Qt6 and it’s working correctly.

Many fixes were done to the Cask panels and dock, fixing regressions introduced in the migration to MauiKit4. This is still a work in progress and more development will go into this for the upcoming release of the Shell in February.

2024 Roadmap

For the upcoming release scheduled for February, most of the work will go into the Shell and its sub-projects, as decided in the release chronogram, however, this will also be the time when the remaining MauiKit frameworks will be ported from Qt5 to Qt6, those include Documents, Terminal,ImageTools, TextEditor, Accounts.

It is expected that most of the Maui Applications will be ported to MauiKit4 Frameworks and Qt6, for their new release around May 2024. And by August release it is expected that all of the Maui Project has been successfully migrated to Qt6.

To follow the Maui Project’s development or say hi, you can join us on Telegram: https://t.me/mauiproject.

We are present on Twitter and Mastodon:

New release schedule

 

The post Maui Release Briefing # 4 appeared first on MauiKit — #UIFramework.

Wednesday, 29 November 2023

KDiagram is two powerful libraries (KChart, KGantt) for creating business diagrams.

Version 3.0.0 is now available for packaging.

It moves KDiagram to use Qt 6. It is co-installable with previous Qt 5 versions and distros may want to package both alongside each other for app compatibility.

URL: https://download.kde.org/stable/kdiagram/3.0.0/
SHA256: 6d5f53dfdd019018151c0193a01eed36df10111a92c7c06ed7d631535e943c21

Signed by E0A3EB202F8E57528E13E72FD7574483BB57B18D Jonathan Esk-Riddell jr@jriddell.org
https://jriddell.org/esk-riddell.gpg

KWeatherCore is a library to facilitate retrieval of weather information including forecasts and alerts.

0.8.0 is available for packaging now

URL: https://download.kde.org/stable/kweathercore/0.8.0/
SHA256: 9bcac13daf98705e2f0d5b06b21a1a8694962078fce1bf620dbbc364873a0efeS
Signed by E0A3EB202F8E57528E13E72FD7574483BB57B18D Jonathan Esk-Riddell <jr@jriddell.org>
https://jriddell.org/esk-riddell.gpg

This release moves the library to use Qt 6. It is not compatible with older Qt 5 versions of the library so should only be packaged when KWeather is released or in testing archives.

Tuesday, 28 November 2023

In the third installment of Off-Theme, we cover Shades of Purple, a global theme with a rather striking set of shades that sets it apart from many other flat themes.