[New Fedora Package] Tagaini Jisho – A Japanese dictionary and study assistant

Dear fellow Japanese language students, rejoice. I've been using the app in title for a while, but I finally got around to do a proper Fedora package and push it to Fedora ;-) So installing is now super easy.

• For Rawhide:
  su -c 'yum install tagainijisho'
• For Fedora 17 and Fedora 18 (I decided not to support Fedora 16 as it's going to be EOLed shortly):
  su -c 'yum install tagainijisho'

Tagaini Jisho is a cool piece of software, an irreplaceable tool for anyone learning Japanese. You can use it not only as a Japanese-%{your-language} dictionary/kanji search tool, you can also use it to learn the words, and to learn the Japanese characters. Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji – all included, and with animated stroke order diagrams! More info on www.tagaini.net. Some screenshots bellow:

Update 2013/02/21: Tagaini Jisho has been tagged to stable repos for Fedora 17 onward. The issue with dictionaries mentioned in comments is also fixed in that push. Enjoy!

MPlayer2 Experimental Package

Yesterday I came across a fork of mplayer called simply mplayer2. When I read it supports ordered chapters, I knew I had no other choice but to build it (as there does not seem to be any other distro package for than for gentoo). To my surprise, the build itself takes about 10-15 minutes so apart from figuring out and installing all the deps it was pretty fast process. The resultant SPEC file used to build the package can be found on my fedorapeople space. It uses same executable name, so it cannot coexist with mplayer and I didn't bother working around that.

Some of its killing features include:

• Ordered Chapters (finally is this Matroska feature supported on linux!)
• Dynamically loads system libraries, including ffmpeg and libass (which among other things means that when ffmpeg is build with multithreading support, mplayer2 is prepared to take advantage of it)
• Uses libass for rendering subtitles by default (yay, finally vertical Japanese subtitles are rendered properly)
• Does not unpause paused movie when e.g. switching to/from fullscreen, seeking, etc.

Plus it seems at first sight that frame-dropping works without any problems (I always had problems with it in mplayer).

So, I'd like to add, if you want to try it, here's your chance but I warn you that it's not your usual high-quality package you are used to in Fedora ;-) Plus, it does not include gmplayer and mencoder as the devs decided to drop these from the codebase (you can read more about that on mplayer2 faq page)

And on a almost unrelated note, first thing I watched using mplayer2 was 君に届け [Kimi ni Todoke, Reaching You], the live action movie version. I have to say I liked it a lot (I admit that despite being healthy boy, I have a soft spot for East Asian romance often found in shoujo manga) and starting today I have new favourite actress :-D Her name is Renbutsu Misako (Renbutsu is surname), she's twenty and she played Chizuru (one of the main protagonist's best friends, see the picture bellow). For those not being able to read Japanese: she's from Tottori Prefecture (west part of Honshu, about 200km north-east from Hiroshima), she likes guitar and drawing picture books and her special skills are piano and karate. Quite an ideal woman for me :-D



Update: I've been reminded that fedorapeople is bound by the same rules as fedoraproject with regards to forbidden stuff, so until I find a better location you can find only SPEC (that AFAIK does not qualify as redistributing patent encumbered software) there – you should be able to download the source from upstream directly and build the package, right ;-) Have I already said that I hate software patents with a passion?

Update (2011/04/08): I've updated to final 2.0 release. Apart from that the update contains a fix for debuginfo package build, disables mp3lib build (which was producing broken audio for me) and contains a config file (I shamelessly stole the config file laying in source and edited it for fedora needs) which sets pulse as default audio output (alsa isn't performing 100%, sometimes mplayer2 refuses to "unpause" with alsa audio driver).

F15 Alpha Wallpaper — Package Review Needed

So, it's the time of year again, alpha freeze approaches and first version of wallpaper is being packaged and thus I need someone to do a quick review. I could do a swap review if desired.

And here's an obligatory screenshot (yes, it is rawhide and no, it is not gnome, it is xfce).


Comments on the wallpaper are welcome (as well as pointers on how to make it appear in xfce background chooser other than adding manually).

EDIT: Thanks to Tim Lauridsen the package is now reviewed :-)

Fedora 14 Laughlin Wallpaper Ready

I've just finished packaging the latest editions of F14 wallpaper done by Máirín and filled an update ticket. The changes include additions of time of day animations for the gnome version (AFAIK other DEs does not support this feature). As the final freeze approaches and as we'd like to verify it actually works everywhere we need your karma (even better if you log-in to bodhi before giving the karma points). So please test this update and give karma. Since there are about zillions of sub-packages here's a quick intro what is needed to test what:

• laughlin-backgrounds-single — contains single screen images, one per screen ratio (16:10, 4:3, 5:4). The image here is used as noon image in the time-of-day animation.
• laughlin-backgrounds-gnome — contains other images needed for time-of-day animation and stuff needed to be able to use it in Gnome. Requires laughlin-backgrounds-single.
• laughlin-backgrounds-kde — contains stuff needed to use it KDE. Requires laughlin-backgrounds-single.
• laughlin-backgrounds-extras-single — contains images for Supplemental wallpapers.
• laughlin-backgrounds-extras-gnome — contains stuff needed to use Supplemental wallpapers in Gnome. Requires laughlin-backgrounds-extras-single.
• laughlin-backgrounds-extras-kde — contains stuff needed to use Supplemental wallpapers in KDE. Requires laughlin-backgrounds-extras-single.
• laughlin-backgrounds — installs the default wallpapers both for Gnome and KDE, i.e. just requires laughlin-backgrounds-gnome and laughlin-backgrounds-kde.

After you'll install the package and set the background, you'll probably see something like this, which means it works (this screenshot was taken at 00:45 AM, so it depicts the night version of the wallpaper):

New Murrine in Fedora?

As requested in a bug report I'm pushing the 0.98.x series of Murrine Gtk+ engine into Fedora. With this we'll get support for the newest Murrina themes, however as there are lots of changes, I decided, after long thinking, that in accordance with our updates policy it would be acceptable to push it to F14 and onward, if I manage to squeeze it in before the final freeze. Which means — I need positive karma points for you to be able to use themes like these:

New Fedora 13 Goddard Backgrounds Comming!

UPDATE 1st May 2011: If you wonder why this rather old post appeared on fedora [design] planet, it's because I discovered a typo in one of the post labels and fixed it, and the planets think the post got updated... Sorry about the noise.

Yes, it's the time of the release cycle again. The time where new wallpaper comes to your machines. Well, strictly speaking not yet but the design-team decided on the default wallpaper for Goddard (Fedora 13) Alpha and I've packaged it, prepared a scratch build and put it up for review. The division this time is like this:

• goddard-backgrounds — installs everything (and a kitchen sink ;-P)
• goddard-backgrounds-gnome — the default wallpaper for Gnome
• goddard-backgrounds-kde — installs the default wallpaper for KDE
• goddard-backgrounds-single — contains images for single screens
• goddard-backgrounds-dual — not yet present but will contain dual screen images
• goddard-backgrounds-extras-{single,dual,gnome,kde} — not yet present but if we put together extras wallpapers this is where they'll reside; the division is same as for the default ones

I hope this division is final (I really feel we need naming guidelines for this stuff as so far with every release we used a bit different naming scheme :-( ) and will be used without problems for all future wallpaper releases as well. Oh and here's a screenshot of it in action:


Update: Oh, and... One of the magic ways how to install the gnome versions without much hassle is this:
Start terminal, then

$ wget 'http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/getfile?taskID=1994836&name=goddard-backgrounds-gnome-12.91.0-1.fc14.noarch.rpm' 'http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/getfile?taskID=1994836&name=goddard-backgrounds-single-12.91.0-1.fc14.noarch.rpm'
$ pkcon install-local *goddard-backgrounds*

The '*' are there because wget saves the package as getfile?taskID... :-( Don't forget to remove the downloaded packages afterwards.

Constantine Wallpapers Package

UPDATE: The packages are now in koji. Per frequent request I've moved Constantine Statue to default from extras.

I've just put together initial packages for Fedora Constantine release. Their contents is based on the initial feedback we received on the design-list. The packages are on my fedorapeople page and this is what will your background selector have after installing both of them:

Feedback welcomed preferably on the design-list, alternatively you can comment in this blog post. To further clarify, the two wallpapers (mosiaco and underwater mosaic) that are included in the main package are our current candidates for the default wallpaper. Please note that they are very early work and in the final release will look a lot better ;-) The rest that is in the -extras package are wallpapers that we are considering as extras – in Fedora 12 we are going to include four additional wallpapers targeted at specific audiences.

The mess that libass is

With 'recent' inclusion of proper ASS/SSA subtitles support into gstreamer via libass, it became a necessity to package this library separately. There seems to be one official upstream at sourceforge, but mplayer ships it's own patched version of libass, vlc as well and to make the mess even bigger, there's greg's version... As I've taken upon myself the task to provide this package for fedora, I'm trying to find the best solution to this but I don't have a single clue what the best approach would be there. Also, we seem to be on the head of separate packaging of this library separately (I've found debian, ubuntu and gentoo packages) and it would be probably good to solve this issue before other big distros start to package it and make the mess even bigger...

The gentoo package seems to be 0.9.6 unpatched, debian includes mplayer's batch patch against 0.9.6 and ubuntu is pretty much identical to debian...

Now vlc's patches seems to be taken from mplayer + one or two other fixes, however the greg's version deviates further from the official 0.9.6 version and is not API compatible with previous versions. All of those include critical, as well as non-critical, fixes and feature enhancements. Now the question is what to do about this mess? Yes, I could do the same as gentoo and just wait till 0.9.7 is released (and who knows how long will it take), or I can follow debian and just add the mplayer patch and make a note in the spec file where it originates from. That would be both an easy workarounds leading practically nowhere.

I could also review in full all the changes that the patches/greg's version carry, try to understand what does what and back-port fixes as well as submitting the (smaller) patches upstream.

I could also switch to greg's version in rawhide and hope it will not break anything... It seems almost all development is happening there, but on the other hand I'd rather not use git snapshot... Although after quick look at his changelog, it seems he might be releasing 0.9.7 soonish...

Ideally vlc and mplayer would switch to system libass, greg's version merged with upstream and do a release and everyone would be happy...

Now the basic question, are there people willing to help in any way with solving this issue?

UPDATE: The mess is beginning to clean up now. The official page now suggests Greg's git as the main version and I have been told that mplayer has plans to link dynamically against this version as well and vlc is switching over to this one as well. This means that I'll switch to greg's version in Rawhide in near future as well and if it works well, I'll use it also in stable releases.

Echo - New package releases, first echo-add-icon script bug

Luya just hit first echo-add-icon script bug - it adds incorrect file references in the build scripts if the folder is empty (sans Makefile.am) before the commit (in this case it added system-root-password.svg.png to 256x256/status Makefile.am). I fixed the commit as well as the bug in echo-artist script.

New releases

echo-icon-theme-0.3.3 (built for F-8 and F-9)
latest git snapshot built for Rawhide
echo-artist-0.1.1 (built for F-8, F-9 and Rawhide)

Please update the echo-artist package as soon possible (even though the
chances of hitting the aforementioned bug are rather small).

Also, for the F-8/F-9 packages - please test them and post your results to Bodhi (the fedora update system, it's referenced above for the releases).

Fedora 10 Artwork

OK, it's around Beta Freeze and as usual we need some feedback for the artwork that's gonna be in Fedora 10. I'll start with Echo icons and follow to the traditional release-dependent things (wallpapers, etc).

Echo Icon Theme

As some of you already knows, echo-icon-theme has been approved as Fedora 10 Feature under the condition that we achieve good enough coverage. First we need to know *what* exactly is good-enough coverage, especially given that the current default has lot of gaps too... The consensus seem to be that we need to cover about the same icons as the current default on the Desktop Live Spin. So, I booted F9 Live and examined which icons are needed. I came up with this list [1]. Based on this list, I counted that the current coverage of what we need to have done for F10 is about 89 %.

Prior to that we focused our efforts at filling the Gnome Menu Bar. We have pretty good coverage of the first level menus and just ending with coverage of second level menus in the System menu. The improvement in System->Administration is vast, since there were about three or four different icon sets used and many of the icons were blurry...

Join Us!

We still need to create about 35 new icons for Fedora 10 and many more after then, also there are lots of icons that might profit from refinement/rework and icons that have missing various sizes. But there are only 2 people actively working on Echo currently which basicaly means we are overwhelmed by work. Therefore it would be great if more people joined the efforts. Creating an icon isn't that much hard. To get started you just need basic skills with inkscape, we'll help you with the rest.

If you are interested to join, pick up some icon to create/modify, tell us (one the fedora-art-list) that you are interested in it and start working on it following the guidelines [2] and first step of the Adding New Icon Set how-to [3]. After you are done send us a notice on the art-list and work with us on further improvements (if we have some suggestions). Once we accept the icon, we'll tell you what to do next :)

F10 Themes

Yesterday I've created, imported and built the themes that made it to Round 3. Install them by
yum --enablerepo=rawhide install gears-backgrounds invinxble-backgrounds neon-backgrounds solar-backgrounds, select them in your wallpaper preferences and give us some feedback on the art list. We still haven't decided which one will be in F10 final, so your opinion might help us decide :)

The candidates are:

Gears [4]

InvinXble [5]

Neon [6]

Solar [7]

References

[1] https://fedorahosted.org/echo-icon-theme/wiki/ToDo/BaseSet
[2] https://fedorahosted.org/echo-icon-theme/wiki/Guidelines
[3] https://fedorahosted.org/echo-icon-theme/wiki/AddingNewIconSet
[4] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F10Themes/Gears
[5] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F10Themes/InvinXble
[6] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F10Themes/Neon
[7] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F10Themes/Solar

Fast Package Review for F10 Themes needed

Hi,

As per request from Mo I've packaged Round 3 themes for Fedora. The most finished one is Solar, so it has the traditional 4:3 and 16:9 wallpaper with daylight changes, Gears have two different wide-screen wallpapers, InvinXble has one wide-screen wallpaper and Neon has one 4:3 wallpaper. In order to get it to F10 beta, we need to have it in repos as soon as possible, thus request for fast review:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=461818
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=461819
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=461820
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=461821

Update 1: Spot has just reviewed the packages (my thanks goes to him), so now I'm waiting for the CVS Admin procedure to be done.

Update 2: Warren and Tibbs have just done the CVS admin procedure (my thanks goes to them), and the packages are already built.

gears-backgrounds-0.0.1-2.fc10.noarch.rpm
invinxble-backgrounds-0.0.1-2.fc10.noarch.rpm
neon-backgrounds-0.0.1-2.fc10.noarch.rpm
solar-backgrounds-0.0.1-2.fc10.noarch.rpm