Now this is interesting, as one of the big coders for Padre is Adam Kennedy ( Alias ), and he wanted to use the remaining release version numbers to get various bits and pieces of housekeeping in order before hitting the big 1.0.

However, it seems that Adam is moving (has moved by now) to the US, and to date, seems modus incommunicado, and lots of work has been done by Kevin Dawson (bowtie) and Ahmad Zawawi (azawawi) and as such I have been asked to roll out a new Padre 0.96 for the world to enjoy.

So given the last release was at the beginning of the year, and clearly from the Changes file for this release a lot has been done, it was well and truly time to don my Release Managers hat and get on with getting Padre out the door.

In saying that, I really should be sacked from the job, I've so far been distracted by pretty much anything else than get the new release done, I've even picked up my guitar for the first time in months and strummed a few chords while it was building and testing only to come back hours later with sore fingers and a tar ball waiting to be tested for installation.

Sheesh.... it's now midnight and I'm writing up the release announcement... must focus!

Software doesn't write itself, an IDE like Padre doesn't magically get an inbuilt debugger, you don't get the latest editor widget by just wishing for it, and all the internal guts and gory bits don't refactor themselves.

This happens because Kevin Dawson, Ahmad Zawawi and Adam Kennedy some how find time to do this.

Even though we haven't seen much of Adam of late, he committed a fair chuck of changes to Padre for 0.96:

    - The "Todo" or "To Do" or "To-do" or "TODO" list has always been a
      problem when it comes to naming. Renamed to "Task List" to align
      with Microsoft Visual Studio's solution to this problem (ADAMK)
    - Removed borders from the Outline tool elements (ADAMK)
    - Clicking a file in the Replace in Files output opens the file (ADAMK)
    - Added Padre::Wx::Role::Idle and moved all tree ctrl item activate
      events to use it to evade a item_activated event bug (ADAMK)
    - Added Padre::Wx::Role::Context and changed most panel tools to use
      it for generating context menus (ADAMK)
    - Added proper POD documentation for Padre::Cache (ADAMK)
    - Delay clearing the outline content so it doesn't flicker so heavily
      all of the time (ADAMK)
    - Added a dozen or so new file types to Padre::MIME, including
      several that we explicitly do not support (ADAMK)
    - Added Padre::Comment to hold a registry and abstraction for the
      different comment styles in supported documents (ADAMK)	
    - The Evaluate Expression dialog now has a "Watch" feature (ADAMK)
    - Added Padre::SLOC for calculating Source Lines of Code metrics (ADAMK)
    - Completed right click relocation of panels for the main tools (ADAMK)
    - Added Padre::Locale::Format for localising the display of numbers,
      and datetime values (ADAMK)
    - Inlined the small amount of code we use from Format::Human::Bytes and
      remove the dependency (ADAMK)	  
    - Migrating to new ORLite 2.0 API (ADAMK)
    - Added COCOMO modelling to the project statistics dialog (ADAMK)

Kevin Dawson pushed on with the Debugger:

    - Update Debug2 to use SQL parameter markers (tome, BOWTIE)
    - disable Debug2 tool-bar icons against unsaved files (tome, BOWTIE)
    - Debug2 now shows margin_marker breakpoints on file load (tome, BOWTIE)
    - tweaked on load to include reload and only once (BOWTIE)
    - Debug2 now checks for perl files more thoroughly (BOWTIE)
    - Added display variable data from click in debugger panel (BOWTIE)
    - Added BASH support to default.txt theme (BOWTIE)
    - Variable data now shown in corresponding colour (BOWTIE)
    - Padre::PluginHandel was only checking for error, 
      not handling return = 0, it is now (BOWTIE)
    - Re-enable outline panel to display MooseX::Declare Method modifiers
      (BOWTIE)
    - Convert p-p-xx-yy -> p-p-xx in P-Plugin making getting config easy 
      (BOWTIE)
    - Update Debugger, tests and dependencies to use Debug::Client 0.18 as this
      is now Perl 5.16.0 ready (BOWTIE)
    - Make show_local_variables default in Debug2 (BOWTIE) reverting
    - perl5db.pl needs to be given absolute filenames (BOWTIE)
    - Debug2 now shows display_value on selection (BOWTIE)
    - change Status-Bar 'R/W' to 'Read Write' (BOWTIE)
    - add +1 to Current Line so % is display correctly in Status-Bar (BOWTIE)
    - bumped Debug-Client requirement to 0.20 (BOWTIE)

Mark Dootson worked some Wx magic:

    - Switching to the thread-safe Wx::PostEvent when sending events from
      the background, which should dramatically reduce segfaults (DOOTSON)

Ahmad Zawawi, keeps the Scintilla widget tracking along with some of the latest versions from the Scintilla project, as well as a new project a Mojolicious plugin called Pedro. Like one editor isn't enough to work on! :)

    - Padre::Plugin::unload(@packages) now works (AZAWAWI)
    - Notify plugins when either a save-as (possible mime-type change) or new
      document event occurs (AZAWAWI)

Gabor Szabo, the marketing machine, trainer and producer of the fantastic Perl Weekly gets a mention:

    - Require 5.010 as an experiment. (SZABGAB)

A big thanks to the translators who both updated Padre's languages during development ( zeno - German ) and once branched ( zipf - Spanish ).

Of course all of this is in the Changes file, but who reads them and how SEO are they???

I'd like to say a big thanks to the active contributors to Padre and those who pop in and do their small bit to the overall greatness that is Padre, the Perl IDE.

I had need to write a Perl script on the weekend, first time in ages, and it was just such a pleasure to use what was then the head revision, it's amazing how good Padre has become. I keep telling myself I need to get back to the code, but sadly, I have a camera and a desire to be outdoors capturing light.

It's a phase I'm sure will pass in time.

As always, #padre on irc.perl.org is a great place to drop in and say hi and thanks to the great people of Padre itself. If you have a question, or a suggestion, or even a bug fix, this is your place to be.

Until the next release, just that one step closer to 1.0, I remain your humble Padre Release Manager.

It has been a while since Padre, the Perl IDE version 0.92 was released. The last release was november last year!

It became clear that Padre would not be ready for a pre-Christmas release, Adam Kennedy wanted more time to work on the bits of Padre that needed work. Looking at the Changes file, there was plenty.

This release should really be dedicated to Adam, the Changes file is testamony to this.

I asked Adam in IRC what the main items for this release were:

• Search and Replace is far better than it was before,
• File type filtering and the MIME sub system has been reworked,
• The user interface got some polishing,
• Focus control has been improved,
• Version control improvements,
• Preferences dialog improved,
• and the debugger GUI.

Speaking of the debugger, Kevin Dawson kept polishing the internal Debugger, and it's said that the Debugger is just that little bit better for this release.

With Adam finally happy enough with trunk, it was decided to get 0.94 released and uploaded to CPAN as it meant that another side project, the Form Builder Plugin, could be released.

It does mean that translations for 0.94 is not as high as it normally is.

It's planned for 0.96 to have translations higher with a string freeze and work to be done around performance of Padre as we run up to 1.0.

Hopefully by now your local CPAN mirror has the new Padre, I'm still waiting on mine, so if you find any problems please don't hesitate to drop by the IRC channel #padre on irc.perl.org and let us know.

It wasn't enough to just get the module sorted out, but Ahmad went on to really improve the functionality of the editor itself. Check out just some of the goodness to come.

Adam Kennedy has again been deep into the core of Padre and its API's. It takes a lot to commit yourself to knowingly go into a code base break it and then commit to making all things work again.

Kevin Dawson has stuck around and continues to prod and poke at the code base, improving the dialogs using the new FBP process to create better dialogs ( another of Adam Kennedy's major efforts out side of Padre ).

Kevin has also introduced patch editing. In Kevins words:

Patch tries to auto select the correct file in each list where relevant.

the techie one liner Action, Against, Select File-1, Select File-2 if appropriate and then Process.

So this is just a quick update of where things are at as of this moment.

This is not the Padre 0.92 release announcement, we're just letting you know that the next release of Padre, the Perl IDE is on its way.

Keep in mind that Padre 0.92 will be released as part of our run up to 1.0 with major refactorings and changes to the code base that may introduce bugs, but for the most part most of us use trunk to do Padre development so most bugs to get a chance to show up and get fixed.

Keep an eye out for the actual 0.92 release announcement and check out the new and cools enhancements when Padre lands on your CPAN mirror.

Padre 0.90 comes with a few bug fixes from the 0.88 release, one that I found early on after upgrading to 0.88 myself, but already fixed by the time I got to asking about it in the #padre channel.

Given the lack of time tonight, I really want to get this announcement out quickly, with a follow up about what's changed when I get back home later in the weekend.

So with that, if you have upgraded Padre to 0.88, it's highly recommended that you upgrade to 0.90 when it's available to you.

Thanks to the translators for 0.90:

dolmen for the french
Zeno Gantner for German and some Spanish.

A full wrap up of what's changed will be forth coming when I get home.

This is the culmination of quite a long development cycle since the last release. This was made longer than it should have been due to the discovery of a bug not long after I had branched version 0.88 from trunk.

The release was then held up while people got to sorting out the problem at the time, which in turn saw more work done and more of the internals changing until it got to the point that it made sense to merge all changes in the branch ( all of them translations by our hard working translators ) back to trunk with a new branch taken for the 0.88 release.

Normally in the release announcement I take you through the changes and bugs fixes to be found in the release at the time, this is typically done by taking the Changes from the Padre distribution and grouping together various changes people have made to give a "face" to the name.

As the release manager and tasked with making the announcements that go with the upload of Padre to CPAN, it's my chance to highlight the work of others who freely give up their time improving a tool that I like to use whenever I want to write Perl, well Perl that isn't done at work, that's done using a syntax highlighting text editor. I really miss Padre's functionality when that happens.

However Padre 0.88 has a lot of changes from 0.86, too many changes to break out as I normally do, so instead, I'll cover off on things from a "higher view".

First off is a hello and welcome to Padre to Tom. He's rapidly becoming our Mac Man, hot on the heels of Padre 0.88 came a dmg for Mac OS along with a call to Mac using Perl coders for comment's bug reports etc.

Tom has taken on the significant task of finally getting a working and easy to install Padre for Mac OS.

Ahmad Zawawi got married during this release, congrats Ahmad!

What blows me away is that his contributions continue to roll in. Ahmad has taken it upon himself to port the later versions of Scintilla, released on CPAN as Wx::Scintilla, in such a way that if you have Wx::Scintilla installed and you set the feature in Padre's config, you get the new Scintilla as the editor.

Now this was something we covered off in the previous release announcement,however Ahmad has now gone further and is now tracking the latest Scintilla.

Another "new name", not really but since I need the segue I'm taking liberty here! Kevin Dawson is proving that you don't have to commit lots of code to make a real difference. bowtie, as he's known in irc is proving to have a real knack of keeping the developers on their toes, with just the right mix of nag and persistence. It's a pleasure to watch!

He's also done a lot in terms of documenting Padre design and features via a series of "cookbook" style entries on the Padre wiki which should assist with introducing new programmers to Padre's workings for the plugins.

This is work that always needs to be done, documentation really is the hardest thing to do in projects like this.

Adam Kennedy ( Alias ) has already noted the significant changes in Padre's internals. The "we" in his blog post is really very gracious, the truth is Adam continually puts his hands into the gory guts of Padre and always seems to come away with some memory saving or some performance improvement, along the way breaking a few things, which in turn need further fixing which in turn sees Padre's memory foot print or performance improve again.

The Changes file exemplifies the work that Adam continues to find time for, along with keeping up some fitness for his second job as a roller derby umpire. Seriously, a geek surrounded by crazy women on roller skates, the imagery in my mind is priceless! I just hope they treat him gently, he is one of our alpha coders for sure, but when it comes to skates, mad women, a confined ring and contact sports.... where's a geek got to run when you make a bad call as a ref??

Chuckles aside, Andrew Bramble popped in after a long absence, with a young family it's always hard to find time to waste on outside things, and finished off/cleaned up, the initial work to get Padre to store parts of it configuration "in the cloud".

Code named Madre, you sign up to the server, set Padre up to sync parts of your config to it, so when you move to a different computer you can sync those settings back, keeping Padre's setting the same no matter where you are.

This is still early work but quite functional, however if you want to know more, drop by the #padre irc channel for more information, if you are brave enough though, you will find the "feature_sync" setting in Padre's Advanced settings dialog. Go to Tool -> Preferences.

Gabor committed a few bug fixes and changes for this release. All of this on top of normal work, Perl advocacy, Perl screencasts and generally being an all round busy perl guy.

Thanks to the translators who some how managed to figure out my link to the release branch was in fact wrong and updated Padres languages for 0.88.

Overall this release represents a lot of improvements to Padre, along the way fixing bugs and suboptimal implementations, improvements to functionality and usefulness in your coding work flow.

As always you can find most of us in the #padre channel on irc.perl.org. Feel free to stop by and say hi, or request a feature or complain about a bug or something not working as you'd have expected it to. Keep in mind that the #padre channel has people in there from all parts of the globe, so some of us may be sleeping or working, so if you have a question, please hang around long enough to allow someone to respond.

Thanks to everyone, whether mentioned directly here or not, who has contributed to making Padre what it is today, a very capable Perl IDE. If you haven't got years of memory muscle trained into your wrists for your editor of choice and are looking for a Perl IDE to write code, you won't go too far wrong with Padre,the Perl IDE.

0.86 comes with a warning that there are still some lumps to be smoothed out, but with that it also comes with a newer version of Scintilla which means better support of Perl.

Thanks to the efforts of Ahmad Zawawi and Mark Dootson, who you often see in the Perl Wx mailing list, this version of Padre now supports an updated version of the Scintilla text editor/control. You can enable the new Scintilla by setting the feature_wx_scintilla configuration parameter in Padre's Tools / Preferences / Advanced dialog.

During the time Ahmad was trying to get Wx::Scintilla compiling he mentioned in the #padre irc channel on irc.perl.org, that he wasn't seeing enough tests come through and provided a link to set up Testing/Reporting. After following the link and about 10 minutes reading and setting up, I'm now contributing a little more to the Perl ecosystem by sending reports from each module I install. With the addition of perlbrew allowing you to install more than one version of perl on your system, this is a great opportunity to give back to the community.

So it's with great pleasure, and a mild sense of awe that all these people can find time to contribute in such a meaningful way, the list of changes for Padre 0.86:

Sebastian Willing committed a number of fixes and improvements over the last few months. Padre now has a fast find dialog that opens up in the bottom of the editor window, it's a bit like the fast find you get in Firefox. There is still some work to be done ironing out the finer points of the current implementation, which we should see in the next release - no, it won't be as long as this release was.

    - Handle corrupt padre.db in SessionManager (SEWI)

    - Add a test plugin and first tests using that plugin (SEWI)

    - Add plugin hooks (SEWI)

    - Extent Ctrl-left-mouse-click to modules and files with path (SEWI)

    - Fix #1122: Save intuition recognizes more tests (SEWI)

    - Add File->Delete menu option (#1179) (SEWI)

    - Fix #1182: Crash when enabling a plugin (SEWI)

    - Ctrl-F launches the quick search (bottom pane), 2nd time Ctrl-F

      launches regular search and 3rd time Ctrl-F launches find in files

      which will loose it's own shortcut Ctrl-Shift-F in the future #1223 (SEWI)

    - Set focus to editor window if search bar is closed (SEWI)

    - Set focus to editor after switching panes/tabs (SEWI)

    - Add File -> New -> Copy of current document (SEWI)

    - Fix "last update" timestamp for sessions (SEWI)

    - Share one search termin between FindFast (panel), Find (dialog) and

      Find in files (SEWI)

    - ESC now closes the find dialog (1st ESC) and the output window (2nd) (SEWI)

Adam Kennedy as always manages to get things done no one else is doing, or is too scared to do!

    - Avoid running pointless syntax checks for unused documents (ADAMK)

    - No longer need a different editor class for the Preferences dialog (ADAMK)

    - Reverted commit 13860 which tried to fix ticker #1141 but broken the

      directory list at startup at the same time (ADAMK)

    - The Preferences dialog now translates options in drop-down boxes (ADAMK)

    - Moved various Perl 5 related config options into a unified config

      namespace lang_perl5_* (ADAMK)

    - Moved various Perl 5 Preferences dialog elements into a single Perl 5

      specific tab in preparation for additional future tabs (ADAMK)

    - Fixed bug where the Function List scanner was incorrectly matching

      __DATA__ or __END__ anywhere in any statement (ADAMK)

    - Config file entries referring to values which are not in the valid option

      list for a setting will use the default, but not overwrite (ADAMK)

    - Upgraded Padre::Wx::Dialog::Text to wxFormBuilder (ADAMK)

    - Find and Find in Files now save search options again (ADAMK)

    - PluginManager now checks for a defined ->VERSION in plugins to help

      make sure they are real modules and don't have mismatching package

      statements or similar weird problems (ADAMK)

    - Upgraded Padre::Wx::Dialog::Bookmarks to wxFormBuilder (ADAMK)

    - Shrunk the code needed to support the "Convert Encoding" commands and

      moved it to Padre::Wx::Main, removing the need for a dedicated

      "Convert Encoding" dialog (ADAMK)

    - Moved all Module::Starter options into module_starter_* (ADAMK)

    - A bug in the EOL Mode setup when opening Windows-mode text documents

      while the default line endings are set to Unix was resulting in the

      corruption of documents into mixed newline (ADAMK)

    - Expanding the coverage of "apply" handlers in Padre::Config in

      preparation for Padre Sync (ADAMK)

    - Unify terminology for the Firefox-like search box to "Find Fast" (ADAMK)

    - Fast Find resets term correctly across multiple uses (ADAMK)

    - Padre::Project::Perl detects project-wide version correctly (ADAMK)

As already mentioned, Ahmad Zawawi has given Padre a more up to date Scintilla, the most notable reason mentioned in the #padre irc channel was that // is now properly handled, however that's not the only reason, as with all software, updates and improvements come along and being stuck with a slow release schedule ( yes slower than Padre's ) meant that it would take a long time before the Scintilla text control would be updated in wxWidgets, or is it Wx... I never know.

What's most notable though is this was all done while also getting things sorted out for married life, it wasn't unusual to see Ahmad in irc and then having to head out to do furniture shopping with his bride to be, or other important shopping that needs to be done before a wedding. I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing Ahmad well in surviving the pre-marriage trials, at least we got a new Scintilla though!

    - Bumped Wx dependency to 0.9901 to fix the Wx::Button::GetDefaultSize

      build bug (AZAWAWI)

    - Padre can now use Wx::Scintilla if feature_wx_scintilla is enabled.

      This fixes #257: Backport Scintilla Perl lexer for wxWidgets 2.8.10?

      (AZAWAWI)

    - About dialog displays now the Wx::Scintilla version if it is being used

      by Padre (AZAWAWI)

    - Padre can use Wx::Scintilla's built-in Perl 6 lexer if Wx::Scintilla

      is being used by Padre (AZAWAWI)

Gabor Szabo managed to commit some fixes and improvements between really helpful screen casts. Go check them out while you install Padre.

    - Add list of escape characters to the Regex Editor (SZABGAB)

    - Fix #510, #704, #1178 Closing DocBrowser crashing Padre (SZABGAB)

    - Move Outline building to PPIx::EditorTools::Outline 0.12 (SZABGAB)

    - Add menu options in View to Fold All and Unfold All (SZABGAB)

    - Add menu option to Fold/Unfold where the cursor is now (SZABGAB)

    - Move the standard PPILexer to PPIx::EditorTools::Lexer 0.13 (SZABGAB)

    - Allow spaces in the path and filename of Perl script and still

      be able to run them. #1219 (SZABGAB)

    - Regex Editor: Substitution can be toggled and it is off by default (SZABGAB)

Zeno Gantner chipped in

    - Fix #1124: 'Description' column not displayed when all descriptions empty

      (ZENOG)

    - Open Resources: do not match path for .t files (ZENOG, found by SZABGAB)

As did a number of others, whose names I haven't committed to memory or have seen for the first time:

    - Migration of Style Settings from Menu to Preferences window (CLAUDIO)

    - Disable overlay scrollbars on linux (CLAUDIO)

    - "toggle comments" button doesn't require text selection (GARU)

    - Updated perlopquick.pod (Perl 5 operator quick reference) to latest

      version (COWENS, AZAWAWI)

    - Fixed wxWidgets 2.8.12 wxAuiNoteBook bug: the window will not carry

      updates while it is frozen (MDOOTSON, AZAWAWI, ADAMK)

    - Fix #1138: Padre single instance server not working (MJ41)

So a big list of changes for Padre 0.86, it's been a while coming and most of that can be laid at my feet, as the the worlds worst player in multiplayer COD Black Ops, I have to admit that any time there was a slight reason NOT to roll out a release I'd slink off and be handed humiliation on the big screen.

Thankfully that addiction is starting to wear off and I have promised to be more pushy with the releases.

A big thanks to everyone who contributes to Padre, the Perl IDE, whether it be directly by committing changes to the code base or writing document or simply just dropping by the IRC change on irc.perl.org #padre.

This release continues down the path of improvements, bug fixes and translations. The changed release process seems to have improved the translations committed to Padre prior to release, which is a big win for Padre in the multilingual stakes. The efforts of the translators are greatly appreciated by the Padre team, and I'm sure all speakers of a language other than English when they see their Perl IDE of choice in their native language.

Working on a large project, and Padre is certainly that, you appreciate the efforts of those who contribute a lot and those who contribute a little, it all makes a big difference. What we don't always see is the persistence of some of the contributors to actually make a big difference in the ultimate release that makes it to CPAN.

We have seen a couple of new names pop up, again, with out any mapping table to speak of, I'll list some names that are either CPAN names, names in IRC, or full names when I know them, so please, if you find you name in lights in an announcement and you want your full name, then feel free to introduce yourself to me in the #padre channel on irc.perl.org.

fenderson - brother of SawyerX of Dancer fame - is one such name that arrived some weeks back who has been working on testing the GUI more thoroughly than the automated tests can do prior to each release.

Watching him wrestle with svn, branches, building etc is testament to his commitment to make a difference, Gabor Szabo's patience in the IRC channel explaining things doesn't go unnoticed! :)

Oren Maurer - I know by name as we have had a few emails pass between us this week - also showed that somethings aren't as simple as we think they are, but again showed tenacity and patience while we stepped through the process of switching an svn working copy to the release branch to commit changes to the he.po for the Hebrew language in Padre. Thanks Oren!

Our list of translators for Padre for 0.84 are:

zipf for Spanish,
jagd for zh-cn - Chinese,
thecrux for Russian,
meorero for Hebrew and
Zeno Gantner who updated the German language file just before the release branch was made.

Changes for this release are again broken out and grouped by who made the commit, not by chronological or commit order.

Zeno Gantner has been busy this release with changes in various parts of Padre:

    - Function and TODO list: also handle Esc when focus is on the list (ZENOG)
    - Function and TODO list: remove unnecessary EVT_KILL_FOCUS handler (ZENOG)
    - Outline: simplify method 'select_line_in_editor' (ZENOG)
    - Fix #967: Reset Focus (ZENOG)
    - Add tooltips to "Open Resource" dialog (ZENOG)
    - Fix #1078: 'Open Resource' should find things like 'Wx::Dialog' (ZENOG)
    - 'Open Resource': set focus to text field on character input in the list
      box, fix tab order (ZENOG)
    - Rename 'Open Resource' to 'Open Resources' to reflect the fact that it
      can open several files at once (ZENOG)
    - Remove unnecessary file deletion in Document::Perl::Syntax - this is done
      automagically by File::Temp (ZENOG)
    - Center the highlighted search term so that the context is visible (ZENOG)
    - Fix #1153: %p, %f, etc. do not work for in window title (ZENOG)
    - Update German translation (ZENOG)

As ever, the industrious Adam Kennedy found improvements to Padre, along with his current kick for Roller Derby and who knows how many other side projects:

    - Added Padre::Task::File to allow non-blocking deletion of temporary

      directories in the background once they are of no further use (ADAMK)

    - The Recent Files menu now supports UNC paths on Windows (ADAMK)

    - The Recent Files menu is now generated in a background task to prevent

      long IDE blocking, such as when checking -f over a network mount (ADAMK)

    - Padre::PluginHandle will parse_variable the version of crashed or

      incompatible plugins rather than return '???' (ADAMK)

    - The PluginManager dialog can now correctly distinguish between broken

      plugins and merely incompatible plugins (ADAMK)

    - The ProjectManager won't shortcut the file->project detection for

      previously intuited projects without secondary evidence such as a 

      padre.yml file or a Makefile.PL (ADAMK)

Sebastian Willing and fenderson worked on a bug that caused Padre to crash:

    - Padre crashed on error in TODO list regex, fixed (FENDERSON, SEWI)

Sebastian also fixed the regex editor

    - Fix #1140: RegEx editor reversed flags when inserting (SEWI)

Gabor also found time to work on the code in Padre:

    - Eliminate crash in PPI Standard Syntax highlighter #1109 (SZABGAB)
    - Eliminate crash when opening recent file #1148 (SZABGAB)
    - Stop jumping to first character when Goto "string" #1149 (SZABGAB)
    - After the making changes in the Advanced Preference Editor
      apply those changes. (fixing #1150) (SZABGAB)
    - Add configuration option main_statusbar_template to allow the
      user to fine tune the status bar #1104 (SZABGAB)
    - Find the cpanm also if it is "only" in the PATH. 
      e.g. when using local::lib (SZABGAB)

And finally Ahmed Zawawi gets a mention:

    - Fixed #1136: The syntax checker often marks the wrong line in a package
      (AZAWAWI)

What you don't see here though is the start of some very exciting work by Ahmed, which if all goes well will get more coverage in future release announcements, and likely in blogs around the net.

So "that's it" for this release, plenty of people making a big difference.

As always, feel free to drop on by the #padre channel on irc.perl.org to say hi, ask questions or just hang out because you have nothing better to do, we really don't mind.

Adam Kennedy is by far the most prolific contributor for this release, clearly there are a few things that need scratching.

It seems though that this release was rolled out just in time for him to injure his wrist skating, not sure if it was roller skating or roller blading, so we may see a slow down from Adam for a while. Time will tell of course:

    - Added a dwell timer via Padre::Wx::Role::Dwell (ADAMK)

    - The directory tree search box now has a 1/3rd second dwell (ADAMK)

    - Find in Files results convert tabs to 4 spaces to avoid the ugly

      squares in the results (ADAMK)

    - Delay loading some modules and removed some other entirely, reducing

      startup memory cost and IO by 10-15% when few features are on (ADAMK)

    - Upgraded Plugin compatibility detection to avoid having to load the

      dependencies and read variables from the files instead. Saves 2-3meg

      of RAM and allows better scaling of the plugin system (ADAMK) 

    - Fixed Padre::Util::parse_variable so we no longer need to make use

      of ExtUtils::MakeMaker and ExtUtils::MM_Unix->parse_version (ADAMK)

    - Support for more extensive Padre::DB customisation via ORLite 1.48

      and its new shim => 1 option (ADAMK)

    - Completed first-generation Portable Perl support for Padre (ADAMK)

    - Add support in Padre::Project for intuiting project versions (ADAMK)

    - Prevent history boxes writing a history entry for every character

      instead of every search in Find/FindInFiles dialogs (ADAMK)

    - Port the Find Dialog as is to wxFormBuilder (ADAMK)

    - Prevent directory tasks running on bad or missing paths (ADAMK)

    - Found a workaround to weird Win32 window Raise/Lower bugs, so now

      Padre always raises to the foreground correctly when using the

      single instance server (ADAMK)

    - Save Intuition is disabled in null projects to prevent creating files

      like ".../My Documents/lib/Foo/Bar.pm" (ADAMK)

    - The Task Manager will now attempt to maximise background worker

      specialisation so we need to load less total modules, hopefully

      reducing memory consumption (ADAMK)

    - Closing files is faster (and the task manager is stressed less) as

      we no longer accidentally do a full refresh twice when closing

      documents other than the last one (ADAMK)

    - Restored radio select indicator to Style and View Document As...

      menus, they were lost in the move to the ActionLibrary (ADAMK)

    - Fixed #1093. The natural zoom of a scintilla window is around the wrong

      way, hijack ctrl-scroll and reverse it to the right way (ADAMK)

    - Find in Files directory recursion now happens ordered (ADAMK)

From the list of things from Adam we can see more work done to reduce Padre's memory footprint with delayed module loading, and some task trickery to reuse worker tasks that have run before and are idle and available, along with bug fixes in the Save Intuition, which if you aren't aware of it, Save Intuition will look at the module you are working on and from that intuit where to save the file.

For example if you have been working on module Foo::Bar, it will save Bar.pm under the directory Foo in your project. A nice touch when you get used to it, and as someone said "you really miss it when you don't have it".

Apart from the commits from Adam, the Changes for this release of Padre include a fix from Gabor to reduce warnings, the German translation being kept up to date and a quick enhancement from me that warns when saving a file without a file extension:

    - use Text::FindIndent 0.10 to eliminate some warnings #1089 (SZABGAB)

    - Update German translation (ZENOG)

    - Enhancement, ticket #1027 When saving a file without a file extension 

      you are now prompted and provided a list of suitable extensions to 

      name your file. (PLAVEN)

Padre 0.80 is presently uploading and moving through pause to a cpan mirror near you.

As always swing on by the #padre channel on irc.perl.org and say hi, raise an issue or just plain lurk to see what's going on, you never know, you might find yourself hacking on an interesting project that makes coding perl fun.

I've been rather slow getting back into the swing of things after the Christmas break, so after rolling out the release, I promised to myself that I'd get the announcement done the following night, only to become distracted with pretty much everything and anything else.

So for those of you who actually track changes to Padre via these announcements, my apologies for my apathy.

To be honest, I really thought that development might have taken a bit of a back seat over the break, however the Changes file indicates this isn't the case, even with Adam Kennedy being busy coding on a project in SDL that Kartik Thakore some how goaded him into. ;)

So the quick summary for Padre: "Making Padre play nicer when working with projects on locally mounted remote filesystems" - Adam Kennedy #padre.

Given the summary belongs to Adam, following are his changes for this release:

    - The nytprof.out and nytprof HTML report directories are added to the
      default ignore logic for Perl project (ADAMK)
    - On a slow filesystem where the directory browser is slow to fill
      directory expansion controls, the fill will no longer be aborted if
      you quickly expand a subdirectory. Both will occur in parallel (ADAMK)
    - FindInFiles was using path objects incorrectly when communicating
      between the task and the parent (ADAMK)
    - FindInFiles was trying to use a directory node, but wasn't merging the
      file nodes together under it. Removed directory nodes until a better
      implementation is written (ADAMK)
    - Created Padre::Wx::TreeCtrl::ScrollLock to abstract the workaround
      you need to use to update trees without them snapping to nodes
      that you ->Expand, and applied it to the directory tree and
      the Find in Files result tree (ADAMK)
    - When closing panels that do background tasks, do a last-minute task
      reset operation to cancel any active background tasks (ADAMK)
    - The Find in Files and directory tree background tasks now supports
      cancel messages properly, both per-directory and per-file (ADAMK)
    - The directory tree background search now correctly clears the status
      bar when it is cancelled (ADAMK)
    - Additional fixes for maximise-at-startup issues on Windows, which
      now should FINALLY work properly everywhere (ADAMK)
    - When shutting down the task manager, force-empty the queue early and
      send a 'cancel' message to any workers still actively running before
      we send the final 'stop' message (ADAMK)
    - Fixed a massive performance bug in directory tree ->refill method,
      which was triggering one background thread for every expanded tree
      node. This was leading to thread storms, major leakage, and hanging
      of the editor when changing between projects (ADAMK)
    - When exiting directory tree search mode, we now restore the tree
      correctly from the stashed results instead of scanning again (ADAMK)
    - If open selection finds a Module/Name.pm in the lib of your current
      project, it stops looking for other possibilities since the version
      in your project is almost certainly the one you want. (ADAMK)

Ahmed also chipped in with a few fixes:

    - Fix #833: Syntax error crash padre when trying to debug (AZAWAWI)
    - Perl error diagnostics is properly shown in a help panel instead
      of being a child of an issue (AZAWAWI)
    - Open selection can now find executable programs in the current PATH
      (AZAWAWI)

Sebastian fixed a crashing bug:

    - Fix a rare crash condition when TaskHandle had no task (SEWI)

And Zeno kept the German Translation up to date:

    - Update German translation (ZENOG)

Oh, and Zeno also gets a mention for reminding me to get the release announcement done. It wasn't that I'd forgotten, it was just something I'd managed to keep putting off. I promise not to be so slack for the rest of the time I hold the job of doing the releases, which might come to an end sooner rather than later if I keep running late for the announcements!

So that's "it" for this release. Pretty amazing really given that I'd thought that things would be much more quieter over the break.

It's fair to say that for the most part development has slowed somewhat, so we'll see how it goes as the new year proceeds. Adam has already said in #padre he wants to spend time rounding out implementations within Padre that aren't fully cooked, that's always a good thing.

Gabor continues to make noise and raise interest in Perl and its community, so we'll see how he goes with time slicing with Padre development.

If you're a perl hacker and looking for an interesting project, Padre is certainly a good place to check out. I made my initial start picking low hanging fruit. While there isn't as much as there once was there are plenty of outstanding tickets against Padre, feel free to check out the outstanding tickets: http://padre.perlide.org/trac/report/1?asc=1&sort=ticket&USER=anonymous, drop by the #padre channel on irc.perl.org ask questions, write code or documentation or even update translations, there is always plenty to do.

Well, that's it for this release, I'll do much better next time with being in sync for the 0.80 release.

0.76 once again sees a lot of work done by two main contributors, Ahmed Zawawi and Zeno Gantner.

It also sees a great response from the translators with a late call for translations by Zeno just prior to release.

I have so say that the most marked change I noticed when I fired up 0.76 for the first time was the changes to the Syntax Check tab done by Ahmed. This is a much needed improvement to one of my more used features of Padre. Great work Ahmed and thanks!

OK, so what's come through this development cycle:

Zeno made a number of changes, improvements and fixes:

    - Fix #636: Filter too strict (Padre CPAN module installer) (ZENOG)
    - Fix #1032: Regex Editor: Escape sequences don't work in
      "Result from replace" (ZENOG)
    - consider script and interpreter parameters when debugging Perl scripts
      (ZENOG)
    - Fix #814: Find-in-files result window, clicking on filename does not do
      anything (ZENOG)
    - Document::get_command now has two named arguments: 'trace' for diagnostic
      output, and 'debug' for enabling a debugger. Plug-ins that use
      get_command(1) need to change this call to get_command({ trace => 1})
      (ZENOG)
    - remove configuration option 'find_quick' (not used any more) (ZENOG)      
    - Regex editor: insert complete substitution operator, including modifiers;
      underline match results so that matching whitespaces are also highlighted;
      add tooltips to modifiers; only update regex description if visible (avoid
      require if not necessary) (ZENOG)
    - Fix #922: Regex editor keeps first language after language change (ZENOG)
    - Fix #957: Syntax Check should use perl given in Preferences (ZENOG)    

Ahmed blitzed the commits for Padre with a swathe of bug fixes and improvements:

    - Next/previous file now use Ctrl-Page Down/Up instead of Alt-Right/Left
      (AZAWAWI)
    - Find in Files results panel now uses a tree instead of a text area and
      clicking n a result opens the file at the specified line number
      as expected (AZAWAWI)
    - Updated the experimental Padre wizard API and integrated it with the
      wizard selector dialog. This is still disabled by default and can be
      enabled by the 'feature_wizard_selector' configuration setting (AZAWAWI)
    - Fix the bug of lost user selection when searching a big project directory
      and typing fast in "Open Resource" dialog (AZAWAWI)
    - Fixed "Open Resource" and "Quick Menu Access" dialogs to display recently-
      used resources by last usage being first instead by filename (AZAWAWI)
    - As the user types the search term in the "Find in Files" dialog, make
      sure the find button enabled status is correct (AZAWAWI)
    - Fix #1051: Syntax checker does not return the correct error message 
      (AZAWAWI)
    - By removing -Mdiagnostics (which enabled 'use warnings') from syntax
      checker, we now get a more correct syntax checking behavior (AZAWAWI)
    - Removed custom parsing of Perl's standard error in syntax checker and
      reused Parse::ErrorString::Perl to get better error parsing and diagnostic
      information via perldiag (AZAWAWI)
    - "Error List" window has been removed since it is redundant to
      "Syntax Check" window (AZAWAWI)
    - In "Open Resource" and "Quick Menu Access" UP arrow shifts focus to
      the results list when the focus is on the filter field (AZAWAWI)
    - Moved from the simple 0 and 1 age of error 'severity' to the actual way
      Perl classifies errors as in perldiag. The syntax task now passes upon
      completion a reference an array of Parse::ErrorString::Perl::ErrorItem
      objects (AZAWAWI)
    - "Syntax Check" window is now a tree instead of a list. First-level nodes
      represent the error/warning messages and the second-level nodes are the
      perldiag diagnostics for them (if available) (AZAWAWI)
    - "Select Next Problem" is now working again after it was broken since Padre
      0.57. Removed Copy Selected/All features until requested again (AZAWAWI)
    - Removed "Errors" window and moved its only useful feature: Perl
      diagnostics help to "Syntax Check" window (AZAWAWI)
    - Removed tooltip from margin error markers as it was broken since Padre
      0.65+ (AZAWAWI)
    - Fix #1059: Padre 0.74 build failure on 5.8.9 (AZAWAWI)
    - Added feature_restart_hung_task_manager configuration setting to enable
      automatic restart of the currently hung task manager. This is enabled by
      default (AZAWAWI)
    - Fix #1068: Padre Task manager fails to run tasks after stress testing it
      (AZAWAWI)
    - No more redirecting words under the cursor that are Perl symbols to
      perldata help topic (AZAWAWI)
    - Changes or Changelog files are now detected as text instead of CSS files
      (AZAWAWI)
    - In F2 help search, core module since-Perl-version string is now a v-string
      (e.g. v5.8.9 instead of v5.008009) (AZAWAWI)

Adam Kennedy corrected a start up bug:

    - Correctly start up maximized if we were closed maximized (ADAMK)

Some fixes are a combined effort, again Mark Dootson pops in and offers support and assistance when needed:

    - Fixed #881 "Find In Files" results window should be prettier 
      (AZAWAWI, ZENOG)
    - Fix #1064: Build failures on Padre 0.74 Perl 5.8.9 
      (AZAWAWI, ADAMK, MDOOTSON)      

And finally a big thanks to our translators for again keeping Padre up to date with translations:

    - Update German translation (ZENOG)
    - Update Italian translation (SBLANDIN)
    - Update Dutch and Spanish translation (CLAUDIO)
    - Update Russan translation (Vladimir)

As you can see things are still moving along at a fair clip, even with some of the key contributors busy with other aspects of life, be it personal, professional or just plain taking a break.

Improvements and bug fixes are part and parcel of any software application, it's even cooler when it's in a language you know and you are welcome and even encouraged to work on it yourself.

So as we head towards the time of year many of us take a break from working lives, recharge your batteries and if you find you have an itch to scratch, drop on my the #padre channel on irc.perl.org, say hi get a commit bit and scratch away.

Don't worry if you don't have the desire to trawl through pages of code, drop on in any time to say hello, ask a question or discuss things that you would like to see in Padre, either as a new capability or as an improvement to existing functionality. If you're lucky, it might be something that bugs one of the developers enough to get their attention, just like the Syntax Check changes made by Ahmed this release.