Thread: [perl-win32-gui-hackers] Plans for a 1.06 release

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Time is well overdue for a new release.  I had hoped to do this around
September of last year, but I have spend the last few months adjusting
to living on a new continent.

I think I am finally able to spend some time looking at Win32::GUI.
I have a few outstanding changes in my local repository to commit,
which I will do as soon as I am happy that they are OK.  Once I have
done that I will make a new release - hopefully sometime in Feb.

The code is in pretty good shape.  I spent some of today compiling it
in different environments:

(1) WinXP(SP2), VS98/VC6 (Sp6 with Feb 2003 SDK).  Perl 5.6.1, 5.8.8, 5.10.0
- I have a small change to the BitmapInline changes I made recently to
make them work properly on 5.6.1

otherwise build and test all loks clean.

(2) MinGW 5.1.3.  Perl 5.6.1. 5.8.8, 5.10.0
runtime=mingw-runtime-3.13.tar.gz
w32api=w32api-3.10.tar.gz
binutils=binutils-2.17.50-20060824-1.tar.gz
core=gcc-core-3.4.5-20060117-1.tar.gz
gpp=gcc-g++-3.4.5-20060117-1.tar.gz

- build and test is clean with the exception of perl 5.10.0:
Activestate build 1001 is fine, but there is a non-fatal warning
thrown up in AS build 1002 during the NotifyIcon tests.  It appears to
be that Win32::GUI::GetDllVersion() doesn't see the list context, and
returns the string variant.  This needs further investigation, as it
would be a bad thing if this manifests itself elsewhere.  It's OK with
the Microsoft compiler, so I assume its a perl problem and not a
Win32::GUI problem ....

(3) VC7 free C++ 2003 toolkit version and VS2003 (VC8) express edition
These distributions do not have any MFC/ATL support, and so can't
build AxWindow, and possible other modules.  I'm seeing test reports
from testers using the full versions (VS2003/VS2005/VS2008) that there
are errors with the ATL stuff.  I'm a bit out of my depth in the
modules that use it, and don't have the environment (or the wish to
purchase such an environment) to fix these problems.

Does anyone with the know-how and environment wnat to look at these
problems?  Alternative does anyone have a full version of Visual
Studio 2005 or 2008 that they'd like to donate to me to look into
this?

I need to think about what to do here - but if nothing else I should
write up what can and what can't be built with the various tools.

(4) I haven't looked at cygwin at all, but am assuming that as Reini
is (relatively) quite all is well there - I will try to do get an
environment set up this week.

Further issues:

I am still sat on Reini's CustomDraw patch.  It is too big for me to
review and understand everything.  I think I will just apply it, but
not until after a 1.06 release.

It is my intention to release 3 binary builds: 5.6, 5.8, and 5.10.   I
intend to stop supporting perl 5.6 after this release.

The more time I spend working on this code-base the more I find that I
want to change - there is too much simple stuff that just doesn't
happen easily, and adding features is brittle, as the modularisation
is not right.

I have in the past talked about a completely new code-base, and I
expect to devote some time to that this year.  As such I don't expect
to be spending quite so much time on the active code-base.  I'll write
more on this in the coming weeks.

Regards,
Rob.