Hi!

This email is intended for those, who do not follow the discussion on IRC
and/or the development in the CVS tree and for those, who are looking
forward to the next libgii and libggi releases.


We are on the way to make one more bugfix releases of libgii (0.8.2) and
libggi (2.0.2). We plan to make the final bugfix releases (after some
release candidates) this year. Lots of improvements has been done to
increase stability (in particular for multi-threaded and/or multi-visual
applications) and performance. 
The deepest changes are the config.h fix [2] and the X-target [3] rewrite.
Both fixes require to update any other GGI extension. Further the build
system has been updated to work with recent versions of autoconf
and automake.



Common improvements for libgii and libggi:

- The build system has been updated to work with autoconf versions 2.13
  and 2.5x and automake 1.4/1.5/1.6.

- libtool has been updated to version 1.4.2, which contains fixes for
  cygwin, mingw, MIPS archs and *BSD systems.

- libtool has been patched with a fix from the KDE-on-Darwin project, to
  call gcc with the right options, so that libgii is built correctly.
  Recently, this patch has been accepted by the libtool developers and
  will be part of the coming libtool 1.4.3 or 1.5.



libgii improvements:

- libgii's sublib libgg has been ported to Darwin. [1]

- multi-threading fixes

- The kii-target has been updated to work with latest KGI/KII
  developments.
  But note: This target is still experimental. Use it at your own risk!


libggi improvements:

- The config.h file, which is created by the build system is no longer
  included from installed headers. It is included from the c-files
  now instead. [2]

- lots of gcc 3.1 fixes

- some work has been done for pixel-correct renderers

- The X-target has been rewritten. [3]
  Note, that the Xlib target is still in source tree but is being moved to
  attic, but that dga is still the target to use for DGA for now until
  there's a native dga helper.

- The KGI-target has been updated to work with latest KGI developments.
  It has even an ATI MACH64 accelerator. [4]
  But note: This target is still experimental. Use it at your own risk!

- The directfb driver of the fbdev target has been updated to work with
  directfb 0.9.12.

- An ATI Mach64 driver has been added to the fbdev driver. Read the README
  file before using it!

- Truecolor mode support has been added to the tele-target. Some drawing
  operations has been optimized for speed (i.e. crossblitting)


[1] Darwin is not aware of dlopen() & friends, so appropriate wrappers has
been implemented. The binding and loading system is crappy for the libtool
guys :), but it works more like a plugin system with support for error
handlers.


[2] This has broken all of other GGI libs like libwmh, libggimisc,
libgalloc, libbuf, etc. All of them has been updated to compile again.


[3] This has broken all X-targets of all GGI extensions (libgalloc,
libovl, libggimisc, libwmh and libxmi). The X-targets of these libs
still requires an update to work again.
The X-target rewrite was necessary to fix strange endianes issues and
a design flaw in it. The design flaw forces everyone to write a completely
new libggi target just to make use of yet another X-extension.
The new X-target just requires a new X helper target using the X extension.
The helper target can be seen as a plugin for the X-target.
The X-target makes better use of hw accelerated Xlib functions, which really
speeds up drawing operations.


[4] In KGI, there's a new ATI Radeon driver. So, it is only a question of
time, when a Radeon accelerator will follow...



All users are encouraged to test the latest CVS versions and report any
problems.


Q: How to get the CVS version?

A: Anonymous CVS access is available. Check
out http://www.ggi-project.org/download.html for instructions.



Q: I don't wanna risk to destroy and reinstall my current working GGI
installation!

A: Follow this instructions:
mkdir $HOME/ggiroot
autogen.sh
configure --prefix=$HOME/ggiroot
make
make install
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/ggiroot

To uninstall them later simply remove the $HOME/ggiroot directory and
reset LD_LIBRARY_PATH to the original value.



Q: What's coming next then?

A: Depending on the issues people will report us, we will make a libgii
2.0.3 release
or we go ahead to libgii 2.1.0.

Brian is working on a patch for libggi, which speeds up the software
rendering by using MMX and SSE for x86. VIS for Sparc and Altivec for PPC
are planned.

I will write MacOS X-targets for libgii and libggi.

Other planned stuff is mentioned in their TODO files.



Q: How to become a GGI developer?

A: Provide some patches and we will offer you to get CVS write access :)
Documentation is available at http://www.ggi-project.org/documentation.html
If you need any assistance, just contact us
(http://www.ggi-project.org/contact.html)

-- 
CU,

Christoph Egger
E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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