GNUe Traffic #62 For 4�Jan�2003

Editor: Peter Sullivan

By Arturas Kriukovas �and� Peter Sullivan

Table Of Contents

• Printer-Friendly Format
• Text Format
• XML Source
• Introduction
• Threads Covered

  1.	25�Dec�2002		Parsing XML with GNUe's GParser
  2.	25�Dec�2002		Translating error messages in python
  3.	27�Dec�2002	(1 post)	Christmas songs applied to GNUe Supply Chain
  4.	26�Dec�2002		Basic Front End for the AppServer API
  5.	28�Dec�2002�-�29�Dec�2002	(4 posts)	GNUe and Bayonne at eGovernment Conference?
  6.	28�Dec�2002	(3 posts)	GNUe in New York and Australia
  7.	28�Dec�2002	(1 post)	Red Hat Packages (.rpm) for GNUe
  8.	28�Dec�2002	(1 post)	GNUe Tools and Packages
  9.	27�Dec�2002		Primary keys in AppServer
  10.	30�Dec�2002	(1 post)	Trigger editor in Designer
  11.	29�Dec�2002		GNUe Reports functionality
  12.	1�Jan�2003	(1 post)	Running GNUe on Apple iMac

Introduction

This Cousin covers the three main mailing lists for the GNU Enterprise project, plus the #gnuenterprise IRC channel. Kernel Cousins GNUe is now group-authored: if you'd like to join the team, let us know.

1. Parsing XML with GNUe's GParser

25�Dec�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 26 Dec 2002"

Summary By Arturas Kriukovas

People: Daniel Baumann,�Jason Cater

Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) was interested how "to import a module from gnue.common" . He wrote some tests and they could not find gnue.common or objects module either. Daniel wanted to find some other way than simply "doing sys.path.append('/usr/local/gnue/lib/python/index.html')" . Jason Cater (jcater) offered instead of running python somefile.py execute ~/bin/gcvs somefile.py. This "basically does the sys.path.append" .

Daniel said that he had parsed 859 line file with GParser-based parser and that was pretty zippy.

2. Translating error messages in python

25�Dec�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 26 Dec 2002"

Summary By Arturas Kriukovas

People: Jason Cater

Jason Cater (jcater) said for the record: "raise _("xxxxx") (...) doesn't do any translation, and also doesn't do string interpolation, so our error messages are showing nothing meaningful we need to find a new way to handle that" . Later Jason offered doing:
msg = _("Stuff....")
raise msg
this should work.

3. Christmas songs applied to GNUe Supply Chain

27�Dec�2002 (1 post) Archive Link: "The 12 days of GNUe-mas?"

Summary By Peter Sullivan

Topics: Supply Chain

People: Peter Sullivan

Peter Sullivan wondered what sort of messages the "GNUe Workflow System Mail Gateway" might generate from the "GNUe Supply Chain Management package" if users tried to order a "Partridge in a Pear Tree (quantity: 1)" , "French Hens (quantity: 2)" , "Turtle Doves (quantity: 3)" and so on.

4. Basic Front End for the AppServer API

26�Dec�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 27 Dec 2002"

Summary By Peter Sullivan

Topics: Application Server

People: Reinhard M�ller

Reinhard M�ller (reinhard) said he had been doing some tidying up in the Application Server code, and had "started on a python program called "frontend.py" - which is a program that lets the user access the api" . This was "a very-low-level frontend - but good to test the api and maybe a good tutorial for api usage" . He said it was "sorta menu-driven" , giving an example. The user input the class name, property to read and number of objects to return, and the frontend.py would return the results.

5. GNUe and Bayonne at eGovernment Conference?

28�Dec�2002�-�29�Dec�2002 (4 posts) Archive Link: "Another opportunity to publicize GNUe"

Summary By Peter Sullivan

Topics: Why GNUe?

People: Derek Neighbors,�Stan Klein,�Neil Tiffin,�Jason Cater,�David Sugar

Further to Issue�#59, Section�#3� (5�Dec�2002:�GNUe and Bayonne at eGovernment Conference?) , Derek Neighbors said "There is interest most definitely" in presenting GNUe at a Washington D.C. conference on "Open Source for National and Local eGovernment Programs in the U.S. and EU" "However, I am not sure we can get anyone to the DC area" . Stan Klein said "I'm local to DC. I think Neil Tiffin is also." He could do a demo himself, with some help authoring, and could do a presentation "on challenges and lessons learned in developing a security framework for a multi-platform, multi-database project with a wide range of possible users." He could also present "on risk issues in the overall business case for free/open source software" , and "Dave Sugar could present on Bayonne and accessibility." It would also "be nice if Jason Cater could make a presentation on the extensive (and probably in some areas innovative) use of XML in GNUe." David Sugar confirmed he was interested, and Neil Tiffin said he could probably attend, but did not have "the time to prepare for speaking" .

6. GNUe in New York and Australia

28�Dec�2002 (3 posts) Archive Link: "Re: LinuxWorld New York"

Summary By Peter Sullivan

People: Derek Neighbors,�Mark Teale

Derek Neighbors said "It looks like we can not get a booth" at Linux World Expo in New York, "even though we are listed in the LWE guide (kind of funny)." Mark Teale suggested running "a Birds of a Feather (BOF) at linux.conf.au" in Perth. Derek asked if there were "any GNUe folks in Western Australia" interested.

7. Red Hat Packages (.rpm) for GNUe

28�Dec�2002 (1 post) Archive Link: "Re: probably a stupid question"

Summary By Peter Sullivan

People: Erik Jarvi,�Derek Neighbors

Erik Jarvi said "I have rpms of all the gnue packages" , warning that they "still need some work" . Derek Neighbors asked "Can you please publicly post your rpm's? Also if you can send us the 'spec files' and such we can put them in cvs. This will help ensure that packages are kept up to date." Also, "We would love a Red Hat packager. Are you willing to volunteer?"

8. GNUe Tools and Packages

28�Dec�2002 (1 post) Archive Link: "Re: short questions"

Summary By Peter Sullivan

Topics: Why GNUe?, Small Business

People: Derek Neighbors

Derek Neighbors explained that GNUe was called a "meta-project" as "there is a need for 'Enterprise' users to get at free software offerred by the GNU project in a central location" without having "to wade through tons of information about GCC, Emacs, TeXinfo and the likes." The focus of the GNUe project so far had been the tools - "Since packages are being built with the tools, it was pretty much a pre-requisite to have the tools to a moderate stage before the packages could begin." However, "We have started GNU Enterprise Small Business and have started implementation for smaller enterprises."

9. Primary keys in AppServer

27�Dec�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 28 Dec 2002"

Summary By Arturas Kriukovas

Topics: Application Server

People: Dmitry Sorokin,�Reinhard M�ller,�Jan Ischebeck,�ra3vat

Dmitry Sorokin (ra3vat) asked whether "_id_ field is mandatory for app server?" Reinhard M�ller explained: "every table will have a non-meaningful primary key. We call it _id_ for now but i don't think this name will stay, but yes this is mandatory as all references will go over that. On the other hand this shouldn't be a problem as soon as we have the class definitions in appserver and appserver creates the tables automagically." Dmitry enquired whether "app server work with forms now?" and Reinhard answered that "it does not yet. We have to change the dbdriver to fit the new api. I *think*" Jan Ischebeck (siesel) "might be working on this."

10. Trigger editor in Designer

30�Dec�2002 (1 post) Archive Link: "Re: question on designer"

Summary By Peter Sullivan

Topics: Designer

People: Jason Cater

It was asked how to write code for events on an object - right-clicking on the object to activate the Events menu did not seem to work. Jason said that the 0.4.x versions of Designer had poor event support - "Most of us have opened the .gfd file in a text editor to add trigger code. I know, this is bad." This would be much improved in the upcoming 0.5.x releases, however. These were in pre-release as of time of writing. He pointed to a screenshot showing "the Trigger mapper in the lower left corner, and a trigger code editor in the lower right corner."

It was also noted that, in the property inspector, the property name was not displaying properly, showing only square blocks instead of the property name. This was probably a character set problem. Jason said "Our i18n team is working hard on improving font (and general encoding) support in the upcoming release, so I hope this is resolved."

11. GNUe Reports functionality

29�Dec�2002�Archive Link: "[IRC] 30 Dec 2002"

Summary By Arturas Kriukovas

Topics: Reports

People: Jason Cater,�Daniel Baumann

Jason Cater (jcater) had been working on gnue-reports format. When finished he expected to do a developers' guide for it. This should handle "tabular reports, letter-like reports, charting, cross-tabulation (aka, pivot tables) plus uses styles for formatting text/tables" . Daniel Baumann (chillywilly) asked whether designer would design reports and Jason said: "absolutely. I may or may not go insane implementing it but it'll have one" .

12. Running GNUe on Apple iMac

1�Jan�2003 (1 post) Archive Link: "[Gnue-dev] Re: Gnue forms on DarwinX"

Summary By Peter Sullivan

People: Neil Tiffin

Further to Issue�#58, Section�#11� (4�Dec�2002:�Running GNUe on Apple iMac) , Jesse London reported further problems trying to get GNUe to work on Mac OS X, trying both the wxPython and wxGTK user interface toolkits. Neil Tiffin had had similar problems, and had ended up doing a "Clean install of OS X then install everything with Fink." Fink always installed software to the /sw directory, whereas installs from source usually tried to use "the standard Linux directories (/etc /usr /bin /sbin /lib etc)" which did not work on Mac OS X/Darwin. The few packages that were not in Fink he had been able to install manually to /sw himself. He suggested "I would ask for help from the wxMac/Machopython group if you are going this direction. I have never installed this stuff and don't know how it might conflict."

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