Meeting Log (08 March 2007)
(02:04:25 PM) boyd: orph, cps, purple_cow, sandy|away: http://live.gnome.org/Tomboy/DevMeeting08Mar2007
(02:04:56 PM) boyd: everyone present/ready?
(02:05:27 PM) cps: I'm here
(02:06:10 PM) boyd: hey cps! 
(02:06:17 PM) cps: hi
(02:07:14 PM) boyd has changed the topic to: Welcome to the Tomboy Developer Meeting - http://live.gnome.org/Tomboy/DevMeeting08Mar2007
(02:07:39 PM) orph: me too
(02:07:58 PM) boyd: orph: not exactly sure how we run one of these, but glad those who are here are here!
(02:08:19 PM) boyd: first of all, congratulations everyone for all the awesome work for 0.6.x !
(02:08:36 PM) boyd: cps, you rock! bulleted lists! I hear constant praise from people about that.
(02:08:49 PM) boyd: lots of positive comments in general
(02:08:59 PM) cps: he he
(02:09:00 PM) orph: ya, i tried to implement them so many times. i gave up some time ago.
(02:09:43 PM) boyd: anyone get a chance to watch that google tech talk video?
(02:09:55 PM) cps: no I didn't
(02:10:24 PM) boyd: sandy|away and I talked about it a little bit (how to avoid poisonous people in your open source project) ...
(02:10:40 PM) orph: i haven't yet, but i will
(02:10:43 PM) boyd: one of the things that we thought was important for us to always have in mind is a direction of where tomboy is headed...
(02:10:51 PM) boyd: so that when people come in with cool ideas...
(02:11:05 PM) orph: though removing myself from the project probably removed the most poisonous person 
(02:11:12 PM) boyd: heh!
(02:11:13 PM) boyd: no.
(02:11:27 PM) orph: you all have done an amazing job. really.
(02:11:27 PM) boyd: basically the idea was to make sure that we have a clear direction of where tomboy is headed
(02:11:37 PM) boyd: so that we can keep us on track
(02:11:46 PM) boyd: and not deepend
(02:11:52 PM) boyd: ...with what limited time we all have to participate
(02:12:09 PM) cps: that sounds like a good idea
(02:12:27 PM) boyd: so...
(02:12:39 PM) boyd: like I said in the email earlier, I think "simple" is pretty subjective ...
(02:12:56 PM) boyd: but I think it's important that one of tomboy's biggest strengths is that it is just plain simple to use
(02:12:59 PM) boyd: and always "works"
(02:13:24 PM) boyd: there are lots of ideas on PlaceForNewIdeas that would make tomboy slice bread
(02:13:37 PM) boyd: do we need to change that focus/idea at all?
(02:14:06 PM) orph: i think encouraging new frontends to tomboy for people that want advanced stuff is the way to go
(02:14:49 PM) boyd: that'd be interesting to see
(02:14:52 PM) boyd:
(02:15:10 PM) orph: e.g. like those who want a heirarchy or notebook system that would require some real interaction changes
(02:15:34 PM) boyd: right
(02:16:12 PM) boyd: it's always tricky I guess because we don't want to stifle people and their cool ideas
(02:16:13 PM) orph: so i think a good was to substantively define "simple note-taking" is to say "always easy to write down a new idea"
(02:16:36 PM) orph: which in a way dictates the simplistic tray mode thing
(02:16:39 PM) cps: yeah, you have to be able to bring up a new note and start typing as quickly as possible
(02:17:00 PM) boyd: I like that
(02:17:11 PM) boyd: I think it carries over to searching for notes too
(02:17:33 PM) orph: perhaps
(02:17:37 PM) boyd: so we don't get too carried away building some super-complex notebook thingy
(02:17:56 PM) boyd: someone should be able to come in, search for a note, and quickly find it
(02:18:22 PM) orph: but it could be argued that a thicker UI or notebook system would aid searching... but i think they violate the "first rule" of writing something quickly.
(02:19:16 PM) cps: in a way the search window is a bit like that
(02:19:39 PM) boyd: yeah, I think what we have is pretty good
(02:20:01 PM) orph: making the search window into a more traditional menubar'd window was a really good idea from boyd
(02:20:29 PM) boyd: not my idea...;) someone else's I stole from placefornewideas and then just coded
(02:21:08 PM) orph: awesome. i love seeing credit given where it is due!
(02:21:22 PM) sandy|away: boyd,orph,cps: I'm kinda here
(02:21:28 PM) orph: sandy|away: sweet
(02:21:30 PM) boyd: anyhow, I think we're good with the overall direction of tomboy; keep it simple and quick to write down new ideas
(02:21:36 PM) boyd: moving on?
(02:22:11 PM) boyd: so big question...what's next? what should we plan to accomplish for 0.8.0 ?
(02:22:31 PM) sandy|away: has anyone actually used Conduit yet?
(02:22:39 PM) boyd: nope, not yet 
(02:22:44 PM) boyd: at least not me
(02:22:46 PM) orph: Sync is huge, but i'm a little worried about the reliance on and complexity of conduit
(02:23:10 PM) boyd: yeah, the biggest problem I see is there are a million and one different options
(02:23:32 PM) sandy|away: Sync is probably the number one most requested feature
(02:23:39 PM) orph: after bullets
(02:23:40 PM) ***boyd nods
(02:23:43 PM) sandy|away: heh
(02:23:50 PM) ***sandy|away thanks cps
(02:23:56 PM) cps: np
(02:24:02 PM) boyd: I can't tell you how many people I talk to who claim they don't use tomboy because of sync
(02:24:24 PM) orph: i kinda think tomboy should just hack it's own thing to set the course.
(02:24:25 PM) cps: if we do use conduit what has to be done to Tomboy to make that happen?
(02:24:43 PM) boyd: cps: not really much at all
(02:24:48 PM) sandy|away: cps: I think nothing, he just uses dbus
(02:24:52 PM) boyd: that's right
(02:25:00 PM) sandy|away: I'm concerned about note fidelity when synced to some other medium
(02:25:07 PM) orph: me too
(02:25:08 PM) sandy|away: Do I lose my note links, etc
(02:25:24 PM) boyd: yeah, that's a good question
(02:25:27 PM) orph: though syncing to/from an ipod would be huge for people
(02:25:39 PM) cps: you probably would, but I believe that some of the syncing is only one way
(02:25:44 PM) sandy|away: and a larger sync problem, regardless of Conduit: what happens when my plugins don't match between Tomboy instances and I sync?
(02:25:55 PM) boyd: we started looking at synching to ipod at the boston summit...didn't look too hard
(02:25:58 PM) tbf [~mathias@ip-80-226-0-1.vodafone-net.de] entered the room.
(02:26:48 PM) sandy|away: orph: can you edit notes on an ipod?
(02:26:51 PM) boyd: I've asked john stowers (conduit author) to give us (tomboy devs) an early cookbook of instructions on how to see conduit in action
(02:27:01 PM) boyd: sandy|away: no, you can only view them
(02:27:08 PM) orph: sandy|away: no, but i bet that'll change on the iphone
(02:27:11 PM) sandy|away: well, that's a pluss. it's just an export, then
(02:27:33 PM) boyd: I expect within the next week to see something from conduit in terms of alpha instructions
(02:27:43 PM) orph: does conduit have utility libraries outside it's UI that we could use to instrument syncing ourselves?
(02:28:18 PM) boyd: orph: not sure. though I've talked with john abt. being able to manipulate the configuration from tomboy and he seemed to think that would be supported
(02:28:48 PM) boyd: if conduit meets its goal, it will be *the* sync solution for the GNOME destkop
(02:28:59 PM) boyd: not sure how far out that is though
(02:29:01 PM) orph: i dunno. it's too complex.
(02:29:16 PM) boyd: and from what I understood, GNOME doesn't want to accept it in until ...
(02:29:26 PM) boyd: it takes care of a LOT of programs (not just tomboy)
(02:29:54 PM) boyd: we definitely should see how far along it is and what it actually does
(02:30:09 PM) orph: what we really need is someone to pony up storage space to simplify this process immensely
(02:30:09 PM) boyd: but I do fear that it's too complex...especially for a typical end-user to configure
(02:30:19 PM) sandy|away: if conduit sucks... I generally like boyd's proposed sync infrastructure
(02:30:37 PM) orph: where is the proposal?
(02:30:40 PM) boyd: we do need to rip out the idea of sharing for the moment ... like orph suggested to me earlier
(02:30:54 PM) orph: ya, sharing is a real ratnest
(02:31:01 PM) sandy|away: orph: somewhere on l.g.o/Tomboy...
(02:31:06 PM) orph: it's better done on the web, frankly
(02:31:32 PM) sandy|away: Sync seems like a more pressing need than sharing
(02:31:36 PM) cps: Tomboy it pretty much a personal note taking application
(02:31:38 PM) orph: ya
(02:31:42 PM) orph: exactly
(02:32:05 PM) boyd: I like the idea of staying away from sharing
(02:32:14 PM) cps: sharing as in publishing might be okay, but not collaborative editing
(02:32:14 PM) boyd: it muddies the water immensely
(02:32:15 PM) orph: so maybe adding "personal" to the mission statement is worthwhile
(02:32:23 PM) ***boyd notes that
(02:33:00 PM) sandy|away: orph: are you suggesting we run our own Tomboy note sync service?
(02:33:30 PM) sandy|away: as in, a website where you can register to sync your Tomboy notes?
(02:33:36 PM) orph: sandy|away: nah, but the gnome foundation running a free, sponsored large-storage space for gnome users would be nice
(02:34:04 PM) boyd: accessible via ftp or something ... and that we write something that ties into that?
(02:34:06 PM) orph: sandy|away: we could run a service certainly, but it takes money and time
(02:34:07 PM) sandy|away: add "secure" to that list...
(02:34:19 PM) orph: ya, really hard basically
(02:34:30 PM) orph: so this is what i suggest re: syncing
(02:35:30 PM) orph: 2 modes: enter storage URL, and use webdav/ftp to do really simple async background syncing
(02:35:38 PM) orph: that's the first mode
(02:36:15 PM) orph: second is using avahi to do automatic sync between nearby computers
(02:36:17 PM) ***sandy|away wants second mode to be avahi
(02:36:24 PM) ***sandy|away wins a prize
(02:36:38 PM) ***boyd implemented some prototype code for avahi/mdns: http://live.gnome.org/Tomboy/NoteSharing
(02:36:56 PM) boyd: we've at least got some reference code there
(02:37:05 PM) boyd: it's checked-in in a branch in svn
(02:37:08 PM) sandy|away: orph: that sounds great
(02:37:23 PM) boyd: orph: I like that idea too
(02:37:43 PM) boyd: if we built it generically, people could use whatever ftp/webdav server they could get access to (fairly easy to come by)
(02:38:03 PM) sandy|away: if our emphasis is on *personal* note taking...
(02:38:09 PM) boyd: right
(02:38:10 PM) sandy|away: then we shouldn't have to worry about conflicts/merging
(02:38:21 PM) boyd: I think we would still have to deal with that ...
(02:38:24 PM) sandy|away: right now we automatically save
(02:38:36 PM) boyd: if you end up editing the same note on multiple machines at the wrong times...
(02:38:36 PM) sandy|away: that seemed scary when I started with Tomboy, but it's perfect
(02:38:42 PM) boyd: or one machine is offline for a while/etc.
(02:38:53 PM) sandy|away: boyd: I agree it's possible
(02:39:07 PM) orph: interestingly, we could make tomboy run a very very simple webdav server, then just use avahi to advertise the address, and use all the same sync code
(02:39:19 PM) boyd: supposedly, john stowers (conduit) claims that he's dealt with how to handle conflicts specicially for tomboy notes, but I haven't seen it yet.
(02:39:30 PM) boyd: orph: good point
(02:39:44 PM) sandy|away: I think merging could be overkill
(02:39:56 PM) orph: so i have a trick for merging
(02:40:03 PM) sandy|away: in case of conflict, show the user the two versions and let them pick
(02:40:15 PM) boyd: in my implementation, I advertised a .NET webservice via mdns
(02:40:33 PM) boyd: or just import the conflicting note with a modified name
(02:41:36 PM) orph: nah, in case of conflict, you keep the local note, create a new note containing the foreign content, then just append a link to the top of the local note linking to the foreign note
(02:41:42 PM) orph: ya
(02:41:57 PM) orph: boyd is much more succinct
(02:42:01 PM) cps: sounds like a sensible idea
(02:42:17 PM) cps: then we won't get bogged down in the ugly details of merging things
(02:42:17 PM) boyd: ah, cool, I didn't think about adding the link. that'd be good.
(02:42:19 PM) sandy|away: if we get this done reasonably early in teh cycle
(02:42:27 PM) sandy|away: users will let us know if conflicts/merging is an issue for them
(02:42:32 PM) orph: ya
(02:42:39 PM) orph: good point
(02:43:10 PM) sandy|away: orph,boyd: agree with your conflict/merge handling ideas
(02:43:16 PM) boyd: woot!
(02:43:48 PM) boyd: so, what abt. the NoteManager interface stuff that (can't rememeber who) came in as part of storing notes in SVN
(02:43:51 PM) sandy|away: I may have a bad case of NIH (or really want this to work on Windows), but I think a custom solution would be best
(02:44:04 PM) orph: we can probably just ignore clock skew between machines, and trust the <last-change-date>
(02:44:09 PM) boyd: I think it would be useful in dealing with sync ... and scaling (whoops jumping ahead)
(02:44:37 PM) orph: scaling meaning large amount of notes?
(02:44:50 PM) boyd: sandy|away: good point. if we build our own, it wouldn't be tied to conduit (i.e., linux specific now)
(02:45:03 PM) boyd: orph: yeah. we've got a prob. right now dealing with too many notes
(02:45:16 PM) cps: conduit can probably hook into our syncing system
(02:45:19 PM) boyd: all the watchers get too busy as to make typing almost imposible
(02:45:27 PM) boyd: cps: likely so, yes.
(02:45:29 PM) orph: ya
(02:45:44 PM) boyd: I believe we still at startup time, load *all* notes into memory
(02:45:47 PM) boyd: (ouch)
(02:46:02 PM) orph: we shouldn't
(02:46:53 PM) boyd: don't we load each note into memory and have an instance of plugins/watchers load for each note?
(02:46:55 PM) orph: actually ya, we load them for title/timestamp reasons but don't parse the content or create text buffers until they're needed
(02:47:26 PM) boyd: but as soon as someone does a search over all the notes, we're loading all the content into memory, right?
(02:47:35 PM) boyd: I admit, this is an area I am not an expert in.
(02:47:48 PM) orph: no, the content is always in memory
(02:48:14 PM) boyd: we should change that, shouldn't we?
(02:48:27 PM) boyd: ...i guess this doesn't have anything to do with sync though
(02:48:30 PM) orph: dunno. is memory usage causing slowdown?
(02:48:36 PM) boyd: prob. not.
(02:48:52 PM) cps: I think it's the watchers mainly
(02:48:55 PM) boyd: I need to ask nat friedman/guy lunardi ... they've got hundreds of notes and have commented abt. it a few times
(02:49:10 PM) cps: it seems to slow down when a note gets long
(02:49:11 PM) boyd: seems like there's an open bug abt. the watchers.
(02:49:19 PM) orph: ya, i have several hundred on my home machine
(02:49:43 PM) boyd: ...and once we have sync, you'll have those several hundred on all your machines
(02:49:57 PM) orph: we could remove them from memory after some timeout
(02:50:06 PM) orph: and reload on demand
(02:50:16 PM) sandy|away: how can we measure this?
(02:50:27 PM) sandy|away: I know we can do memory stuff with heap-shot
(02:50:35 PM) sandy|away: but what about this event/watcher whatever slowdown?
(02:50:52 PM) tb1 [~mathias@ip-80-226-0-1.vodafone-net.de] entered the room.
(02:50:58 PM) orph: so i don't really understand the watcher slowdown you guys are talking about
(02:51:22 PM) cps: you probably need to try using tomboy on a slower computer
(02:51:45 PM) tbf left the room (quit: Ping timeout: 600 seconds).
(02:51:59 PM) orph: only the NoteLinkWatcher connect to external events like note delete/rename/add. Most of the others don't connect anything until a note is opened.
(02:52:31 PM) orph: it's easy enough to track down the slowness
(02:52:40 PM) orph: remove plugins one by one
(02:52:57 PM) boyd: yeah. let's note this as a "take care of me" for 0.8.0
(02:53:04 PM) boyd: ...and move on for now
(02:53:12 PM) orph: then start commenting out the stock plugins from PluginManager
(02:53:21 PM) sandy|away: we skipped tagging?
(02:53:28 PM) boyd: sandy|away: no
(02:54:06 PM) orph: so you guys want web2.0-y tagging?
(02:54:28 PM) boyd: something where you can categorize your notes
(02:54:31 PM) boyd: ...but simple
(02:54:36 PM) sandy|away: tagging for search purposes doesn't make much sense to me
(02:54:39 PM) boyd: because once you get into the hundreds of notes...
(02:54:52 PM) boyd: it's just nicer to view certain ones
(02:54:56 PM) orph: or do you think a simpler single-label based approach might work?
(02:54:57 PM) boyd: for searching/organizing
(02:55:14 PM) boyd: tbf started experimenting with some ideas there
(02:55:44 PM) boyd: orph: do you mean to be able to only tag a note with one tag?
(02:56:22 PM) orph: boyd: kinda: what about a bunch of colored labels in a menu, each with a name. then a configurator dialog to add more labels to the menu and change names/colors?
(02:56:39 PM) orph: one label per note
(02:57:11 PM) boyd: something like that might possibly work
(02:57:37 PM) boyd: I think the idea behind this was to provide some way of grouping your notes together ... organizing them.
(02:57:39 PM) orph: then a dropdown in the search dialog to limit to a specific label
(02:57:45 PM) boyd: kind of like the notebook idea that you were talking to be months ago
(02:57:46 PM) orph: might be too simplistic
(02:57:54 PM) boyd: but withouth having to implement notebooks
(02:57:55 PM) sandy|away: orph: agree that color is important. Could show notes with different color icons in drop-down instead of all yellow
(02:58:13 PM) orph: sandy|away: interesting, ya.
(02:58:15 PM) atk: If you don't mind me cutting in, I'd just like to say I'm in favour of multiple tags. The only problem is that I have tags for f-spot, evolution categories, blog tags, etc. while I could survive with just one set of tags/categories
(02:58:45 PM) orph: ya. tagging is a mess desktop-wide.
(02:58:50 PM) ***boyd nods
(02:59:02 PM) cps: yes I think the main thing with tagging or labelling is how to actually use the tag to do something useful
(02:59:14 PM) boyd: so what are those uses...
(02:59:24 PM) sandy|away: not search?
(02:59:25 PM) boyd: maybe that'll help us figure out how/why we'd want them
(02:59:34 PM) sandy|away: I think search is already pretty good
(02:59:35 PM) orph: it's part of what i wanted to do with gimmie... give each "thingy" a representation on the desktop so you could tag it, delete it, or print it, for example.
(02:59:36 PM) boyd: I think search is a part of it.
(02:59:59 PM) boyd: - print all my "meeting" notes
(03:00:12 PM) orph: people don't really search tags though. they click on the tag cloud/list to filter
(03:00:13 PM) sandy|away: boyd: do they all have the word "meeting" in them already?
(03:00:14 PM) boyd: - export to HTML all of my "cars" notes
(03:00:16 PM) cps: if it just picks it up in a search you could today just write the keyword somewhere in your note and it would find it
(03:00:37 PM) orph: ya, or prefix note titles
(03:00:37 PM) cps: yeah you want someway of filtering notes based on tags
(03:00:42 PM) orph: which is what i usually do
(03:00:42 PM) boyd: sandy|away: yeah, but if it's just a string search, you're likely to pick up way too many notes (all those that have the word meeting)
(03:01:29 PM) boyd: orph: if we could translate what you do with the prefix into tagging ...
(03:01:36 PM) orph: so like, we have some options:
(03:01:41 PM) boyd: perhaps we'd help people more with making tomboy more useful
(03:01:52 PM) boyd: instead of just a big-ol' flat list of notes
(03:02:26 PM) orph: 1) heavy-weight, add a text entry/tag UI to the bottom of each note. do autocompletion, etc. also show a tag cloud as a sidebar in the search dialog
(03:03:17 PM) tb1 is now known as tbf
(03:03:31 PM) orph: 2) opt-in, by adding things to a special "Tags: " line somewhere in the note, or it gets added automatically
(03:03:57 PM) orph: same search sidebar probably, but probably no autocompletion
(03:04:48 PM) boyd: the only reason why I wouldn't like #2 is that it's not easily discoverable. seems like we'd implement #2 only if we couldn't find a clean way to do #1
(03:05:12 PM) orph: 3) single tag or "label" for each note. search dialog can be really simple and just have a column for sorting by label
(03:05:36 PM) orph: and maybe a dropdown to restrict the search
(03:06:20 PM) sandy|away: see, that's kind of what I was afraid of
(03:06:39 PM) boyd: I like #3 as a starting point. should be pretty clean. and we could likely expand it at a future point, right?
(03:06:42 PM) sandy|away: 1) to me is the only useful way to have tagging
(03:06:51 PM) cps: yeah I think the single tag would be the easiest to use
(03:07:35 PM) orph: single tag thing kind of sucks because creating a new tag has more overhead
(03:07:36 PM) sandy|away: boyd,cps: again...if we do it early enough in the cycle...people will let us know if one label is too restrictive
(03:08:27 PM) cps: yeah it probably only easier from the search window point of view
(03:09:10 PM) orph: we could have a tag sidebar
(03:09:32 PM) orph: on notes, click to toggle the tag, with an entry at the end to add a new one
(03:09:45 PM) orph: in search click to filter by tag
(03:09:56 PM) orph: maybe have a preference to turn it on/off?
(03:10:06 PM) cps: like f-spot used to have?
(03:10:13 PM) orph: just another view for option (1)
(03:10:56 PM) orph: MS OneNote does the labelling drop-down meny thing
(03:11:02 PM) orph: lemme find a screenshot
(03:13:39 PM) boyd: hehe ... here's a screenshot of OneNote ... Tomboy looks so much cleaner: screenshot
(03:14:21 PM) ***sandy|away vomits
(03:14:24 PM) sandy|away:
(03:14:44 PM) cps: where is the labelling in the screenshot?
(03:14:53 PM) orph: onenote has some huge amount of MS revenue these days
(03:15:24 PM) cps: is it that yellow box with "alloy" in it
(03:16:46 PM) orph: bah, i give up
(03:16:48 PM) orph: anyway
(03:17:20 PM) boyd: anyone disagree about the usefulness of some sort of tagging?
(03:18:00 PM) boyd: we don't have to figure out the whole solution today...
(03:18:07 PM) boyd: just whether we want it to be a main goal of 0.8.0
(03:18:11 PM) cps: no I think it will be useful, but making it useful to the largest number of people is the hardest part
(03:18:33 PM) boyd: agreed. we can have future discussions/email threads/proposals
(03:18:41 PM) orph: sounds good
(03:18:44 PM) sandy|away: +1
(03:18:49 PM) cps: yep
(03:19:02 PM) boyd: we can skip scalability
(03:19:13 PM) boyd: it's something we'll treat more as a bug and just do, right?
(03:19:29 PM) sandy|away: yup
(03:19:30 PM) cps: yeah just need to find out what is making it slow and fix that
(03:19:53 PM) boyd: okay...
(03:20:07 PM) boyd: anyone have anything specifically to bring up abt. moving to gtk+-2.10?
(03:20:37 PM) boyd: if I were to vote on it today, I'd say let's wait, but then again, that's just me.
(03:20:40 PM) orph: is the next gnome going to depend on gtk 2.10?
(03:20:43 PM) sandy|away: just that libegg and our gedit printing stuff isn't exactly supported
(03:21:00 PM) sandy|away: I thought 2.16 depends on 2.10?
(03:21:01 PM) cps: 2.10 has some new pieces on the TextBuffer which makes dealing with copy and paste easier
(03:21:14 PM) orph: cps: ooh, like what?
(03:21:31 PM) sandy|away: but I sympathize with dave_largo's needs
(03:21:35 PM) cps: you can register serialize and deserialize formats
(03:22:04 PM) cps: which are then advertized on the clipboards
(03:23:16 PM) orph: oooh
(03:23:20 PM) orph: that sounds hot
(03:23:20 PM) sandy|away: pro: free cross-platform implementations of statusicon and printing
(03:23:24 PM) cps: I've got HTML copy and paste (into anther program) mostly working with gtk 2.8
(03:23:40 PM) sandy|away: con: still no gtk-sharp-2.10 in Mono/Windows installer
(03:24:08 PM) ***sandy|away apologizes for interjecting so frequently
(03:24:18 PM) boyd: looks like gtk+-2.10 is being included in GNOME 2.18
(03:24:26 PM) cps: but there are some slightly nasty things I had to do to keep the internal textbuffer copying working
(03:24:31 PM) sandy|away: only like 5 people responded to my questions of what gtk+ version they have, but they all had 2.10
(03:25:07 PM) boyd: GNOME 2.16 also uses gtk-2.10
(03:25:15 PM) cps: where as with the way that 2.10 works it happens automatically
(03:25:47 PM) ***boyd needs to just upgrade his machine
(03:26:03 PM) boyd: dave_largo: anything to add here?
(03:26:35 PM) sandy|away: oh, upgrading to at least 2.8 lets us handle most of ForcedPresentWindow in managed code
(03:27:25 PM) everaldo [~everaldo@201-74-78-239-so.cpe.vivax.com.br] entered the room.
(03:28:11 PM) boyd: I think what dave_largo was telling me earlier is that while GNOME moves quickly, most places who've actually rolled-out distros are a few versions behind on everything. so when we come out with the cool new hot stuff, they can't use it at all. (maybe this prob. is too obvious)
(03:28:37 PM) boyd: easy for us devs to upgrade our machines though, so we rarely see that problem.
(03:28:40 PM) cps: yeah that's true
(03:28:42 PM) sandy|away: well, we've made some feature goals
(03:28:55 PM) sandy|away: does upgrading gtk+ support those goals?
(03:28:57 PM) dave_largo: back.
(03:29:05 PM) boyd: sandy|away: not necessarily
(03:29:14 PM) orph: i suspect that gtk2.10 will be a requirement of the next gnome anyway
(03:29:16 PM) dave_largo: The problem we have is that supported operating systems are always far behind the latest and greatest.
(03:29:23 PM) orph: though it would be nice to have verification on that
(03:29:42 PM) boyd: how 'bout this...
(03:29:46 PM) dave_largo: I had to stop upgrading Tomboy a while back because it no longer built on Suse 9.3
(03:30:02 PM) boyd: if it's a requirement from GNOME, we'll have to change, but if not, we'll stick back with 2.8 for the time being?
(03:30:46 PM) sandy|away: http://www.gnome.org/start/2.16/notes/en/rnbackend.html
(03:31:07 PM) sandy|away: GNOME 2.16 depends on GTK+ 2.10 according to those release notes
(03:31:58 PM) boyd: true
(03:32:04 PM) sandy|away: but that doesn't change the fact that deployments like Largo are stuck with old gtk+
(03:32:05 PM) orph: yep, sounds like we're stuck, for better or worse
(03:32:15 PM) orph: not that it matters much until gtk# updates
(03:32:20 PM) boyd: right
(03:32:44 PM) dave_largo: Well, we are moving to SLED
(03:32:45 PM) sandy|away: orph: confused. lots of distros ship gtk# 2.10
(03:32:49 PM) dave_largo: Sled 10
(03:33:00 PM) boyd: ...which is gtk+-2.8
(03:33:02 PM) dave_largo: So we are again building...but the point was that previously I had to stop upgrades
(03:33:21 PM) boyd: I imagine that at some point, the same thing may happen
(03:33:26 PM) dave_largo: Right
(03:33:31 PM) dave_largo: But the longer the better.
(03:33:33 PM) boyd: I'm not sure that we can prevent moving
(03:33:36 PM) dave_largo: and SLED SP1 will be around for a while.
(03:33:47 PM) dave_largo: Right, maximize the time is all I am asking.
(03:34:01 PM) dave_largo: It's not an issue of throwing a new distro on a laptop like a home user.
(03:34:12 PM) boyd: the 0.6.x branch will continue to support Gtk+-2.8.x
(03:34:33 PM) boyd: but no guarantees for 0.8.x ...
(03:34:47 PM) sandy|away: from my pov...
(03:34:59 PM) sandy|away: let's say we moved printing to gtk+ 2.10, for example
(03:35:00 PM) dave_largo: Hit me up tomorrow if I can help, time to get outside. 80 and sunny 
(03:35:03 PM) dave_largo: later all
(03:35:03 PM) dave_largo left the room (quit: Client exiting).
(03:35:20 PM) sandy|away: we could say that certain features require gtk+ 2.10
(03:36:02 PM) boyd: I guess that could always be an option
(03:36:09 PM) sandy|away: bleh
(03:36:25 PM) boyd: too much work though, imo to set that up in the configure script
(03:36:29 PM) boyd: might as well just move
(03:36:34 PM) boyd: to 2.10
(03:37:43 PM) boyd: cps: you up for building numbered lists in 0.8.0 ?
(03:38:10 PM) cps: yeah I'll give it a go
(03:38:15 PM) boyd: k
(03:38:27 PM) boyd: sandy, anything to say abt. windows port...?
(03:38:36 PM) boyd: or just that it's going on?
(03:39:14 PM) sandy|away: sorry, was away for a sec
(03:39:16 PM) boyd: np
(03:39:25 PM) boyd: ...just trying to move things along...
(03:39:40 PM) atk left the room.
(03:39:41 PM) sandy|away: I think I'll need someone to review some of the stuff I was trying
(03:39:48 PM) sandy|away: factoring out gconf is interesting
(03:40:03 PM) boyd: sandy|away: maybe someone on the mailing list would be helpful?
(03:40:17 PM) sandy|away: sure
(03:40:36 PM) boyd: anything else to add as a main focus item for 0.8.0 ?
(03:40:38 PM) sandy|away: basically, if people are okay with some of the refactoring, I'd like to be able to get it in
(03:40:45 PM) sandy|away: so that building win32 is just a compile-time switch
(03:40:56 PM) boyd: sandy|away: I think we'd be okay with that (I personally am)
(03:41:07 PM) boyd: ...so long as it doesn't break things or make it too complicated
(03:41:15 PM) sandy|away: right
(03:41:23 PM) sandy|away: when it's more mature, I'll do some measurements and send something to the list
(03:41:32 PM) boyd: k
(03:41:36 PM) sandy|away: that is all
(03:41:43 PM) boyd: now that we've branched for 2.18 ...
(03:41:58 PM) boyd: I think that as soon as you have refactored things ready, let's try to get it into trunk
(03:42:07 PM) boyd: ...so we don't have to maintain so much of both
(03:42:13 PM) sandy|away: yes, please
(03:42:41 PM) cps: are there any other ideas we should look at on the ideas page?
(03:42:43 PM) sandy|away: I guess we can discuss details later
(03:43:07 PM) boyd: cps: that was my attempt in the "agenda"
(03:43:11 PM) boyd: but I could have missed things
(03:43:26 PM) boyd: sandy|away and I were talking about Google SoC a few days ago
(03:43:43 PM) boyd: I've listed some of th epossible ideas on the agenda
(03:43:47 PM) sandy|away: orph: any comments on last year's SoC?
(03:44:04 PM) orph: ya, but none of them positive :-/
(03:44:44 PM) ***boyd was just going to say that
(03:44:49 PM) sandy|away: well, so we don't want to have them working in trunk
(03:45:01 PM) boyd: I'd recommend that if we do anything with SoC that we suggest things that we aren't planning to do ourselves anytime soon
(03:45:13 PM) boyd: ...and not something we'd want to rely upon in the short-term
(03:45:52 PM) orph: sandy|away: the SoC dude wrote a lot of trivial cleanups but no guts and disappeared half-way through, and WSOP disappeared for two months and came back with a port of a .NET 2.0 web server class
(03:46:31 PM) boyd: so maybe just a drain on our time?
(03:46:33 PM) sandy|away: ouch
(03:47:08 PM) orph: well, maybe more clearly defined small goals
(03:48:12 PM) sandy|away: if we get good apps, do you think we should give it a try again?
(03:48:41 PM) sandy|away: it would be cool to have someone experiment with encrypted notes, for example
(03:48:52 PM) orph: your call. i don't have the time to mentor, unfortunately.
(03:50:24 PM) boyd: I'll likely be too busy as well
(03:50:26 PM) sandy|away: well, we could put up some ideas. We don't have to accept anyone
(03:50:46 PM) boyd: sandy|away: if you'd got the time, that'd be cool.
(03:50:46 PM) sandy|away: I don't have the experience of the rest of you, but I'm willing to mentor
(03:51:05 PM) boyd: I'll back you up when needed.
(03:51:29 PM) sandy|away: cool
(03:51:35 PM) boyd: so unless there's anything else that we want to add to the 0.8.0 goals...just a couple non-coding things
(03:51:55 PM) boyd: atk's been doing a pretty good job w/ the end-user website .. I haven't had a ton of time to polish it up
(03:52:02 PM) boyd: the wiki could use a little bit of work
(03:52:08 PM) boyd: but ...
(03:52:09 PM) orph: ya, the new website is awesome
(03:52:14 PM) boyd: one thing before we quit...
(03:52:27 PM) boyd: orph: can we turn off allowing posts to the mailing list by non-members?
(03:52:36 PM) boyd: the spam is increasing by the dozens!
(03:52:53 PM) orph: err, they aren't passed through to the list
(03:53:01 PM) sandy|away: I haven't gotten any...
(03:53:15 PM) orph: boyd: you're set as an admin
(03:53:24 PM) boyd: I know
(03:53:28 PM) boyd: just making sure
(03:53:29 PM) boyd:
(03:53:42 PM) boyd: that's the plan
(03:53:48 PM) boyd: then. I'll fix that.
(03:54:02 PM) boyd: cleaning up the wiki can just be an ongoing thing
(03:54:11 PM) boyd: anyone should feel free to jump in there!
(03:54:12 PM) sandy|away: so the wiki is really for developers?
(03:54:20 PM) sandy|away: and technical users, other people who want to contribute?
(03:54:27 PM) orph: we need to move tomboy-list to gnome.org
(03:54:38 PM) boyd: it should be for anyone who's technical and wants to help
(03:54:40 PM) boyd: I agree
(03:54:49 PM) boyd: orph: I can take care of that...eventually
(03:54:55 PM) boyd: (moving the list to gnome.org)
(03:56:13 PM) boyd: whew! pretty much finished?
(03:56:16 PM) boyd: action plan...
(03:56:32 PM) boyd: let's get the RoadMap updated with the 0.8.0 goals...
(03:56:58 PM) boyd: would it be best for future sync/tagging/etc. discussion to create a separate wiki page with links from the RoadMap?
(03:57:16 PM) boyd: we can also discuss further here and the mailing list.
(03:57:17 PM) sandy|away: boyd: makes sense
(03:57:36 PM) boyd: but basically whenever a decision is made abt. what we will do/architecture/etc. let's get that on the wiki
(03:58:05 PM) boyd: I'm not as comfortable adding people's names as being "assigned" to certain tasks on the RoadMap anymore...
(03:58:17 PM) boyd: because it seems like that is almost an exclusionary/territorial move
(03:58:52 PM) boyd: any suggestions re: that?
(03:59:05 PM) sandy|away: just a question: what about assigning wrt bugs?
(03:59:13 PM) cps: the idea I suppose is to try and prevent duplicate work
(03:59:17 PM) sandy|away: I mean, there should be a bug for each of those features
(03:59:32 PM) boyd: sandy|away: good point. that could also work.
(03:59:39 PM) boyd: we've got too many ways to do things.
(03:59:51 PM) sandy|away: well, and the bug is assigned to someone...or should it be?
(03:59:53 PM) sandy|away: same question
(03:59:54 PM) sandy|away: heh
(03:59:58 PM) boyd: right.
(04:00:26 PM) boyd: I guess the only problem is that ... at least for me ... since this is an open source project, none of us can really guarantee that we'll always have the time to work on a feature
(04:00:42 PM) boyd: so if the assigned person isn't able to get around to it...
(04:00:51 PM) boyd: we don't want to discourage others from stepping in to help
(04:01:24 PM) boyd: at the same time...duplication of effort doesn't help
(04:01:38 PM) cps: that's the dilemma
(04:01:41 PM) boyd: maybe keep the assignee around as the champion of a specific effort?
(04:01:54 PM) boyd: and somehow make it more clear that it's open for discussion/help/review/etc. ?
(04:02:16 PM) sandy|away: ah. makes sense. a "go-to" person for each feature
(04:03:03 PM) boyd: go-to person(s) ... no reason it couldn't be multiple people; so long as they're working together on it.
(04:03:21 PM) cps: yep
(04:03:45 PM) boyd: anything else for today?
(04:04:34 PM) cps: the only other thing I can think of right now is reviewing the uncommited patches sitting in bugzilla
(04:05:24 PM) boyd: cps: suggestions?
(04:06:26 PM) cps: we should go though them and commit the ones which work properly
(04:06:39 PM) boyd: hehe
(04:06:45 PM) boyd: agreed
(04:07:20 PM) orph left the room (quit: Remote closed the connection).
(04:07:31 PM) boyd: doh! oprh...we miss you
(04:07:38 PM) boyd: anyhow
(04:07:42 PM) boyd: thanks everyone for attending today
(04:07:55 PM) sandy|away: yeah, I lucke dout
(04:07:57 PM) boyd: you all are awesome and tomboy would not be where it's at without you!
(04:08:14 PM) boyd: I'm excited about what's ahead
(04:08:19 PM) cps: hehe, no you are awesome
(04:08:26 PM) boyd: please keep in touch and involved
(04:08:38 PM) boyd: cps: you are the rock star!
(04:09:42 PM) cps: you'll give me a big head
(04:10:12 PM) boyd: orph is gone now, but I'm curious if anyone else here would be interested in helping out with rolling the tarballs
(04:10:20 PM) boyd: ...being a co-maintainer
(04:10:43 PM) boyd: I know when I talked with orph a few months ago, he had envisioned there being a few maintainers of the project to help out with all of that
(04:11:10 PM) cps: what does it entail exactly?
(04:12:17 PM) ***sandy|away is curious, too
(04:13:19 PM) boyd: well, I guess being a maintainer, you help direct the project, similar to what you are already doing
(04:13:29 PM) boyd: plus ...
(04:13:35 PM) boyd: help roll the tomboy releases
(04:13:43 PM) boyd: takes about 1hr to do
(04:13:49 PM) boyd: I need to write down the process in a wiki page
(04:14:26 PM) boyd: basically update the NEWS file, roll a tarball, submit it to gnome, bump the version in configure.in, send out a mailing list announcement, update the website.
(04:15:02 PM) boyd: maintainers can also give others developer rights in bugzilla so they can modify bugs
(04:15:28 PM) boyd: I wouldn't mind the help every now and then rolling new releases
(04:15:55 PM) boyd: though the set up we currently have isn't too shabby in some respects.
(04:16:08 PM) cps: yeah
(04:17:44 PM) boyd: anyone volunteer to type up a summary of what we discussed today and post it to the mailing list?
(04:18:46 PM) cps: I'll do it
(04:20:26 PM) ***sandy|away is back
(04:20:32 PM) boyd: cps: awesome! like I said, a true rock star!
(04:20:54 PM) sandy|away: yeah, I'd like to learn more maintainer stuff
(04:21:02 PM) sandy|away: so I'd be glad to help
(04:21:17 PM) sandy|away: I can take care of branching/tagging :-P
(04:21:53 PM) boyd: sandy|away: you'd definitely do better than me on that!
(04:22:33 PM) sandy|away: just teasing
(04:22:53 PM) sandy|away: oh, crap
(04:22:59 PM) sandy|away: I forgot something I wanted to discuss
(04:23:07 PM) sandy|away: MonoDevelop
(04:23:26 PM) sandy|away: I think it would be cool to have a MD solution that we maintain
(04:23:43 PM) boyd: sandy|away: DEFINITELY!
(04:23:53 PM) boyd: I just haven't taken the time to do that myself
(04:23:59 PM) sandy|away: it's easier to do that now with the autotools plug-in. And the svn plug-in makes it ridiculously easy to make ChangeLogs/commit messages
(04:24:00 PM) boyd: someone at boston summit 2006 was going to do that for us
(04:24:20 PM) sandy|away: we get people sometimes asking why we don't have one... newbies who want to explore the code
(04:24:21 PM) boyd: if I could only coax myself away from using eclipse as my general-purpose editor
(04:24:32 PM) boyd: it would help tremendously!
(04:24:35 PM) sandy|away: I'm addicted to jEdit myself
(04:25:06 PM) sandy|away: I can put in a semi-functional MD solution that I have
(04:25:49 PM) sandy|away: our makefiles dont' sync up perfectly with MD
(04:26:04 PM) sandy|away: so the solution will require some updates when we add/remove/move source code
(04:26:22 PM) sandy|away: but otherwise it seems to work well; when you do a build it just runs make
(04:27:09 PM) sandy|away: I'll commit it this weekend if that's cool
(04:28:01 PM) boyd: that'd be great.