OpenStep, GNUstep Archive

During FOSDEM 2007, a live CD using the Etoile desktop environment was demonstrated, and this live CD can now be downloaded (screenshots inside the link, boys and girls). Etoile is a desktop environment based on GNUstep. "This is the 0.2 prerelease that we worked on at FOSDEM 2007. There's still quite a lot of problems on it (check the bugtracker), so we expect the final 0.2 release in about a month. In the meantime, feel free to download the iso and to play with it."

The GNUstep project has recently elected a new Chief Maintainer. Gregory Casamento has taken over as the new chief of the project and has posted to his blog a set of goals which spell out the direction the project will take in the future.

The GNUstep project released new versions of its frameworks: Base 1.13, GUI 0.11, along with a new version of the Graphical Interface Builder for GNUstep, Gorm (1.1). The new version of Base adds new classes for NSPredicate, better url management, as well as improving support on Windows. On the GUI side, among the noteworthy changes since the previous release (0.10.3, march 2006) is the new support for key encoding in all gui classes - which means you can now load and save OS X nib files.

Gregory John Casamento just announced the release of Gorm 1.0 on the gnustep mailing lists. Gorm is the GNUstep graphical interface builder which let you easily create GUI applications.

The latest version of GNUStep's StepTalk was recently posted. StepTalk is a language independent scripting framework providing access to GNUStep's functionality, including the ability to dynamically load modules, utilize various programming languages, and other good stuff. This version contains a few additions and subtractions from the previous one.

Objective Modula-2 (or ObjM2) is an extension to Modula-2 which follows the Objective-C object model and retains the bracketed Smalltalk message passing syntax introduced in Objective-C. Like Objective-C, Objective Modula-2 is a reflective, object oriented programming language with both static and dynamic typing. It is intended as a safer alternative to Objective-C for Cocoa and GNUstep software development.

Following the NeXT tradition with mixed case, GNUSTEP is a livecd/distribution while GNUstep is an implementation of the OpenStep API. GNUSTEP is based on morphix, and use the GNUstep libraries and GNUstep-based applications to provides a NeXTSTEP-like environment that people can easily test and use. This new release comes 8 month since the precedent 0.5 release, and brings a lot of new GNUstep applications with it, as well as an upgrade of the GNUstep libraries and the development tools.

This flash demo shows how to create a GUI application with GNUstep.

Yes, the legendary GUI design study which has never been officially released by NeXT in the past and you will hardly find any information on the web - except of a single screenshots and some info on the newsgroups. Well, I did a small video running NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP 4 BETA on Virtual PC 2004.

GNUstep is a cross-platform, object oriented environment composed of frameworks, tools, and servers (daemons). In the new version, An NSXMLParser class was added. Runtime discovery of the library version is now possible. NSArrays makeObjectsPerformSelector now iterates in same order as Mac OS X. The designated initializers for NSArray, NSDictionary, NSSet, and NSString were changed for Mac OS X compatibility.

Today, the OpenStep API celebrates its 10th anniversary. What started out as a joint adventure of NeXT and SUN to define an application development standard that would run on all machines, making "write once compile everywhere" a reality, is still unfolding within the vivid and active community of GNUstep, old NeXT and Apple lovers.

Gnustep features a rearranged printing kit, LessTif now supports wheel mice and it builds as Motif 2.1 clone, while Fox had a recent development release too (1.3.12). Some of Fox's flagship applications include Xfe, ReZound & Goggles which look great in AA (screenshot). Elsewhere, gtk2-perl released a bug fix package of the GladeXML module while the Gnome developers are now discussing the possibility of adding Python (pygtk, part of Gnome Bindings) to the core Gnome release.

In GNUstep 0.9.3 spell checker has been reimplemented using libaspell. There is a new NSComboBox implementation. NSToolbar is much improved. There are binary incompatibilites from ivar additions in NSView and subclasses, a number of W32 window event enhancements, and art backend glyph drawing with alpha enhancements. On other toolkit news, the C++ Fox Toolkit 1.2.4 was released.

There is a new version of the GNUstep LIVE CD, version 0.5. All GNUstep was software updated, and alot new GNUstep software added. New game: Supertux. Debian GNU/Hurd K6 mini iso included. LaTeX, TeXmacs, Emacs added. TV software. Web browsers are dillo and links2. QTParted.