Notices

A beta test of the next update of GPE for Maemo is available (for OS2008 users only at the moment). If you use GPE on Maemo Diablo or Chinook, please install this update and report any problems (preferably in bugzilla but, if not possible, as replies here) as this is the basis of the next update to be released as a stable release for the Maemo community.

Beta versions for bora and gregale will be available soon (I will announce their availability here). If no major problems are found, I expect to release the stable update in a few weeks. If you do not fancy beta testing please wait for the stable release.

Although the stable update will be made available in the Extras repository, this beta release is available in the "extras-devel" repositories. To see the update you should add a catalogue to the Application Manager as:

Catalogue name: extras-devel
Web address: http://repository.maemo.org/extras-devel
Distribution: your distribution name: gregale, bora, chinook or diablo
Components: free

Note: even if you already have this repository set up, it is essential that the Application Manager gets the latest list of packages. To force this, open up the repository entry as if you are going to change it but just click on OK. When you Close the Catalogue list the application manager will say it is "checking for updates".

After refreshing the package list and checking for updates, the application manager should offer to update whichever of the the GPE applications you have installed: gpe-calendar, gpe-contacts, gpe-filemanager, gpe-timesheet, gpe-todo, gpesummary, gpesyncd or starling. The version should be 2.8+maemo+svn20080720-1 or later. You may want to disable the extras-devel repository again after you have done the upgrade as it contains unreleased versions of many programs.

I recommend rebooting after installing the update. That will make sure the latest versions are running and is the only way to load the latest version of gpesummary.

It would be really useful to me if everyone who installs this beta test could just reply briefly here telling me they installed it, which OS they are using (diablo, chinook, bora or gregale), and which applications they have installed/upgraded.

This update is mainly bug fixes, although it includes the following new features:

o gpesummary (the homepage plugin) watches for alarms and starts gpe-calendar to handle displaying an alarm whenever one fires. This means that gpe-calendar no longer needs to be running for alarms to fire. This feature (and related changes and bugfixes to gpesummary) are most in need of testing.

o gpe-calendar no longer iconises when the close button is pressed. Instead it gives the user a choice of iconising or closing and the choice can be remembered for the future. The close option is most useful if you also use gpesummary so that it can open gpe-calendar when necessary to show alarms.

o Several translations have been improved or added.

Many bugs have been fixed. Notable bugfixes include:

o The crashes and other problems when switching to/from the agenda view when the sidebar is disabled have been fixed.

o gpesummary only runs once per minute, to avoid running the battery down

o Sidebar calendar works

o Several improvements in import and export to/from pe-calendar, gpe-todo and gpe-contact, including support for 8-bit characters, better support for recurring events and support of the birthday field in contacts

o Several bugs which could cause alarms to be repeated even after they have been acknowledged have been fixed. There may be a few unexpected repeats for the first 24 hours but this should be fixed after that. If anyone sees alarms still repeating after they have been acknowledged, please report the circumstances

Graham

Hey Graham,

It's too bad the Sunday/Monday start patch didn't make it into this release. I think having it default as Monday and have people override it to Sunday if they wish is better than nothing. I unserstand wanting to default to the correct start day for the locale, but surely having the same default behaviour and an override is better than no option whatsoever.

Thanks Graham, for this post and the news of an updated gpe-suite. I rely on these tools and appreciate your work on keeping them current.

Beta testing report: let's see...I am running Diablo; my version of gpe suite is 2.8+maemo+svn20080722-1

Apps I have installed: gpe-calendar, gpe-contacts, gpe-filemanager, gpe-timesheet, gpe-todo, gpesummary

A brief test revealed but one minor problem. In to-do, the "show:" box at the bottom was not 'showing' anything. Otherwise, all went well. I like the improvements to the calendar. No more crashes, thanks!

I've updated gpe calendar and summary.
activating the gpe summary applet, occasionally white screens my N810 and comes back with all my applets gone from my desktop.
Where can I post this bug?

I see the same thing, except it isn't "occasionally" for me, it's always. As a result, I've removed GPE Summary from my desktop.

More info here

Thanks for the reports.

If possible, please use the the GPE bugzilla at http://bugs.linuxtogo.org/ to report bugs. However, if you don't want to use the bugzilla please add a reply here: I will be watching this thread for the time being.

DistantFire and antikx, thanks for your reports. I am sorry you are having problems: this is exactly the problem I was most worried about. I have done quite a lot of testing of the changes to gpesummary but the problem is if something goes wrong and gpesummary crashes, it takes the whole desktop environment with it (which then gets automatically restarted without any applets).

Unfortunately, debugging the problem is also hard and I may need to ask you to send me your database files. But before I do that, can I please ask you, and anyone else who sees this desktop crash, to try a few things:

1) Reboot the tablet and try again. I mean really reboot (e.g. by shutting down with no power connected or running the reboot command as root).

2) Check which version of libeventdb2 is installed. To do this, start an Xterm window and enter the command:
The correct version should be 2.8+maemo+svn20080722-1

3) Post the contents of the file /home/user/.gpesummary (which shows me the options you have enabled).

If I can't reproduce the problem I will contact you by PM.

Beta testing report...I am running Diablo n810:

No issues of yet, everything is still running smoothly without any issues, which I was not having any previously. Here are the installed applications:

abiword
Advance backlight
Agps-ui
Bash2
camera
canola tuning
canola2
canola cleanup
countdown
Diablo kernel
easyroot
ermining
gnumeric
Gpe – cal
Gpe – sum
Gpe – todo
Gpe – contacts
Load-applet
maemodrac
map
mc
mediabox
mplayer
omweather
Openssh-client-server
Personal-menu
Python2.5 -all
skype
Statusbar-clock
Usb-otg-plugin
xournal

Do not install the other beta applications... (e.g., Abiword, gnumeric, mc and xournal). If one of those cause a problem how will you know if it was them or GPE....?

Graham said previously:

I do not recommend installing any of the other applications you find in the extras-devel repository as these are normally test versions of those applications. I also recommend disabling or removing the extras-devel repository after you have updated/installed the GPE applications so you do not get confused later.

Suggestion: add GPE to the name as there is/are other cal/contact, also an "about" choice...which gives the version, etc.

Keep up the excellent work...

FYI, the GPE summary update two days ago also 'crashed' and wiped my desktop and status bar icons. However the update yesterday seems to have fixed the problem and the summary is much better (it actually shows todo entries which the previous version didn't).

I see I have both your repository and Maemo Extras Devel in my catalogues - presumably the GPEsummary update was in one (or both) of those which is why I got the two sequential updates mentioned above. I will try the updates of the other apps and then disable the devel repo after install. Should I remove your repo as well?

Thanks Graham for this great suite of apps. I use them daily.

I think I know what happened, at least in DistantFire's case (although we are still working on it, to be sure). If you already had the extras-devel repository set up, the application manager may decide that it doesn't need to re-check the repository list of packages. If it last checked the repository after the buggy gpesummary package was created, but before the fixed package was created (about 24 hours I think) it might download the bad package and not realise there is a newer update.

A similar problem can happen to other packages: the application manager may just decide that there are no updates available!

So, if you want to install this beta release you need to force an update. The easiest way to do that is to open the extras-devel repository in the Catalogue list as if you were going to change it, but then just click on OK. The Application Manager will then re-download the list of packages.

In particular, before updating gpesummary, please check the version that is going to be installed. It should be 2.8+maemo+svn20080722-4 (or later). In particular, it should NOT be 2.8+maemo+svn20080722-1, which can cause crashes.

Graham

BINGO! Problem solved. It was a matter of updating the lib file as Graham has said. THANKS again Graham, not only for the very useful program, but for helping me get it back on my desktop again!

DF