Peter Lavender

For those of you who may notice such things, you might see that Padre's version number has jumped two numbers since the last stable release.

This development cycle we introduced a new versioning system whereby the odd number 0.71 was the development version with 0.72 the stable release version.

The reason we have done this is to accommodate development and changes to the plugin subsystem during the development cycle. We'll track how this goes and make changes where it needs to be made.

For much of this release, and I'll have to admit quite a few before, I've really been off doing other things, but I follow the irc logs for #padre to keep an eye on how things are developing within Padre.

However in saying that I have to say when it came time to roll out this release, the number of fixes and improvements in the Changes file blew me away. Admittedly it was a longer than normal period between releases, but still, there are some serious fixes in 0.72.

As mentioned previously Adam Kennedy has done a lot of work rewriting the first generation Task API, along the way breaking and then fixing various parts of Padre's core. This cycle Adam has been busy putting the final touches on items like the Directory Tree widget along with finally wrapping up the move from ack to Padre's own Search implementation:

    - The directory tree search now prints each directory it is
      searching in the status bar. This helps you see where the
      search is up to, and identify when it is finished (ADAMK)     
    - Bumped PPIx::Regexp to 0.011 removing 2 dependencies (ADAMK)
    - Bumped Format::Human::Bytes to 0.07 removing 8 dependencies (ADAMK)
    - Upgraded Find in Files to use Task 2.0, replacing the original
      ack-based implementation (ADAMK)
    - Removed ack dependency, and related File::Next dependency (ADAMK)
    - Purged all code and mention of ack from the Padre codebase. Thanks
      a ton for getting us through our first couple of years Andy, but
      we've outgrown it now (ADAMK)
    - Save Intuition now understands that modules named t::Foo are for
      testing, and will save them into your t/ directory (ADAMK)
    - Find in Files now integrates with Project Intuition. The same
      manifest/ignore/skip logic used to generate the directory tree is
      also used to prevent Find in Files searching into your version
      control, build/make/blib files, and anywhere else your project
      doesn't like. (ADAMK)

As mentioned already, the number of fixes in this release is more than I have seen in a long while. It's great to see old names back again making important incremental changes to the stability and overall usability of Padre. It's always hard to just name a few when many are involved, but you can't go past the recurring names in this release, great work Zeno and Ahmed!

    - Recognize XML files by their content, without knowing the filename
      extension (ZENOG)
    - Fix #749: Recognize shell/Python/Ruby/Tcl scripts from shebang (ZENOG)
    - Fix #898: "Find in Files" dialog: buttons too small (ZENOG)
    - Fix #1007: Output window buffering issues (GARU)
    - Fix #947: Toggling comments does not work for XML (ZENOG)
    - Fix #579: (Un)commenting comments the last unselected line (ZENOG)
    - Fix: deactivate menu entry "File->Save as" when there are not open
      files (ZENOG)
    - Fix #988: Recent files menu contains currently opened files (ZENOG)
    - Fix #1010: Grey out comment toggling in menu if necessary (ZENOG)    
    - Fixed an "Open Session" crash when there is not any session (AZAWAWI)
    - Fixed crash when closing the debugger panel (AZAWAWI)
    - Fixed crash of "Join Lines" feature on an empty document (AZAWAWI)
    - Fixed #1002: "Quick fix" feature on plain text document leads to
      error output on console (AZAWAWI)
    - Fixed #1006: F2 help does not know about 'given' (AZAWAWI)
    - Fixed key bindings dialog to remember cursor position when setting,
      deleting or resetting a shortcut (AZAWAWI)    
    - Fixed key bindings dialog to highlight overriden shortcuts with a
      bold font (AZAWAWI) 
    - Fix #926: Escape key does not always work in the regex editor (ZENOG)
    - Fixed keyboard (tab) navigation in the regex editor (ZENOG)
    - Fix #452: focus order in Replace dialog (ZENOG)
    - Always load the shortcut from its configuration setting otherwise we
      will have false duplicate shortcut warnings (AZAWAWI)
    - Reflect both changed key shortcuts when overridden (AZAWAWI)
    - Removed the extra warning about duplicate keyboard shortcuts for a
      Padre action (AZAWAWI)
    - Fixed the shortcut overriding logic to actually work as
      expected (AZAWAWI)
    - The help search dialog now uses the latest perlopquick.pod instead
      of the old perlopref.pod (AZAWAWI)
    - Make the use of external window for running scripts the default. (SZABGAB)

This release also see the following addions and changes to Padre:

    - Mime type for C# added (CHORNY)
    - Additional refactoring shortcut: Change the style of a given variable
      lexically from/to CamelCase with two clicks. (SMUELLER)
    - Add "Create directory" and "remove file" to the directory browser. (SZABGAB) 
    - Add "Goto Last position" (SZABGAB)

And finally Translations, the key to having your application in the widest possible use:

    - 'Quick Menu Access' and 'Advanced Preferences' dialogs now completely
      translated (ZENOG)
    - Updated German translation (ZENOG)

Overall, a very busy and productive period since the last Padre release.

A huge thanks to all contributors, both the coders and to those of you who drop by the channel with bugs, suggestions or complaints. It all makes a difference to how Padre shapes up in the future.

As always, feel free to drop on by the #padre channel on irc.perl.org. For those of you who have just installed Padre or are stuck and looking for some assistance, please drop in and ask your question(s), but also be patient, Padre has a number of regulars in the channel spread around the world, however we all aren't watching the channel 24*7, so it may take some time to get around to answering your question. You never know though, you might be lucky and get a response immediately.

For those of you who have tried Padre and would like to contribute but don't want to code, documentation is always something we can do with more of. For many first time users of Padre, it could be the first time someone has had to use the cpan client in a meaningful way - I know it was for me, if you have ever documented a Padre install via cpan, then this is the sort of documentation that can go a long way in helping someone else.

Well, that's it for this release. May all your codings be bug free, or at least had Padre politely warn you before anyone really knew!