Will's blog

Getting a job at PCF was a bit of a surreal experience. It was in July of 2007. I had just had a major health crisis, wrote a compiler, finished grad school, and got married. I bumped into Chris at a contra dance in Concord and on a lark and out of the clear blue sky, my wife asked if he knew anyone hiring Python developers. That's how I ended up at PCF.

That was a little over four years ago. It's been a really great four years. Working for PCF is pretty close to a dream job for me: I learned a ton of stuff, I worked on a lot of awesome software, and I worked with and met a lot of amazing people. The hardest part of the whole thing was that there were too many opportunities and I had to pick and choose between the ones I had time for. For example, I would have loved to continue working on the extension system, the fullscreen 10' interface, the text-based interface, DLNA support, dbus interface, ....

Thus, with so many things left undone, I'm kind of bummed that I'm leaving. Friday is my last day.

Next Tuesday, I start work at Mozilla in the webdev crew on the SUMO team.

It'll be weird to leave the desktop application world behind for the wild wild west of Internet applications. Having said that, you could say I'm returning to web development after a 10 year hiatus. A ton of stuff has changed since then (\cheapshot{except possibly Internet Explorer}). This time I'm working with people who know the HTTP related RFCs way better than I do. That's both exciting and daunting.

So if you're having Miro problems and send me an email, I'll probably direct you to someone else. Miro is a fast moving project and my knowledge of its dark secrets will ebb quickly.

The times they are a changing!

Miro status

• 4.1 roadmap
• We're working on Miro 4.1.

Will:

• talked with Janet about translations
• worked on gtk/gstreamer overhaul

Geoffrey:

• working on sharing feeds and podcasts--now merged
• fixed some bugs in Miro

Janet:

• testing devices
• talked with Nick about working out what 4.1 will look like
• worked on figuring out the future of the build boxes

Jonas:

• worked on WinSparkle-related changes

Kaz:

• fixing problems with the metadata extractor

Ben:

• away for a few days
• working on getting the gtk/gstreamer overhaul stuff Will did running. gstreamer on Windows seems to require directshow and that somehow requires 3d support which sucks on VirtualBox.
• will continue working on gtk/gstreamer overhaul
• will continue working on itemfilter branch

Order of business:

• We might do a 4.0.4, but only to fix issues with Miro Mobile.
• Talked about future of build boxes. Janet's been working on a wiki page for it at: http://develop.participatoryculture.org/index.php/BuildBoxHosting
• Talked about process questions:
  • moving the Miro repository to Github
    • Will and Paul will work on moving the Miro repository to Github
  • Ben wants to start doing one-on-one developer chats
  • we want to change workflows to require more peer review
    • Ben will create a peer review qiki page
• Miro is developed by a community of people including you! If you can't contribute your time and work to development, testing, and translations, please consider contributing funding by donating. Your money goes directly to ongoing development of Miro and related projects like Miro Community and Universal Subtitles. See http://pculture.org/about/ for more details on these projects.
• Did you know there's a Miro User Manual? If you haven't looked at it yet, it's worth taking a look at. You can find it at http://manual.getmiro.com/ .

Miro status

• 4.1 roadmap
• We're working on Miro 4.1.

Will:

• committed gtk/gstreamer overhaul changes
• fixed nightly build issues and tweaked scripts to be more similar
• planning to work with Ben on the rest of the overhaul stuff

Janet:

• Universal subtitles testing. Catching up on tests and things.
• Tested Miro device support and sync support.
• Tested WinSparkle changes for Windows XP issues.

Paul:

• Back from vacation.
• Continued working on installer changes.
• Worked on Puppet scripts for dev server for Miro Community.

Kaz:

• Continued working on metadata extractor/priority code.

Jonas:

• Continued working on WinSparkle support for Miro on Windows.

Geoffrey:

• Worked on sharing podcasts and bugfixes for sharing changes.

Ben:

• Worked on hybrid view bits.
• Worked on building a new Windows vm for Windows overhaul stuff.

Order of business:

• Miro is developed by a community of people including you! If you can't contribute your time and work to development, testing, and translations, please consider contributing funding by donating. Your money goes directly to ongoing development of Miro and related projects like Miro Community and Universal Subtitles. See http://pculture.org/about/ for more details on these projects.
• Did you know there's a Miro User Manual? If you haven't looked at it yet, it's worth taking a look at. You can find it at http://manual.getmiro.com/ .

Miro status

• 4.1 roadmap
• We're working on Miro 4.1.

Will:

• continued working on windows overhaul stuff
• should have my side of stuff checked in by the end of this week
• will create bugs for the outstanding issues

Janet:

• tested 4.0.3 for the 4.0.3 release
• continued to test Miro Mobile
• hoping to work on Miro 4.1 testing
• sounds like we're going to do a Miro 4.0.4 release

Jonas:

• working on winsparkle support for better seamless updating on Windows

Kaz:

• working on the metadata overhaul
• working on EchoNest support

Ben:

• worked on hybrid view functionality--almost done
• worked on separating columns for different views
• worked on podcast view
• worked on extension infrastructure to make it better

Order of business:

• We talked about the particulars of how WinSparkle deals with an unresponsive Miro.
• We talked about extensions and how we want to develop the infrastructure going forward.
• Miro is developed by a community of people including you! If you can't contribute your time and work to development, testing, and translations, please consider contributing funding by donating. Your money goes directly to ongoing development of Miro and related projects like Miro Community and Universal Subtitles. See http://pculture.org/about/ for more details on these projects.
• Did you know there's a Miro User Manual? If you haven't looked at it yet, it's worth taking a look at. You can find it at http://manual.getmiro.com/ .

Miro status

• 4.0.3 roadmap
• 4.1 roadmap
• We're working on Miro 4.0.3 and 4.1.

Will:

• Helped Rob with bugzilla upgrade tests--we're probably upgrading soon.
• Continued working on the Windows overhaul. Webkitgtk looks like a showstopper because it doesn't support Flash/plugins, so I'm going to pass browser upgrade work to Ben. I'm now working on the GStreamer upgrade and keeping gtk at the same version.
• Last day at the end of August, but I'll hang out on IRC.

Geoffrey:

• Fixed YouTube downloads.
• Implemented push notifications for client side for DAAP.
• Fixed some regressions for push notifications on the server side.

Ben:

• Worked on item filter branch.
• Got a new computer and is setting it up.
• Continuing to work on hybrid view.

Paul:

• ... (his skype was broken)

Order of business:

• Will will be handing things off to other people.
• 4.0.3 planning
  • YouTube fix, miro mobile fix
  • Will will take the release hat, build builds, write an email and get Janet to test tonight for a hopeful release tomorrow
• Miro is developed by a community of people including you! If you can't contribute your time and work to development, testing, and translations, please consider contributing funding by donating. Your money goes directly to ongoing development of Miro and related projects like Miro Community and Universal Subtitles. See http://pculture.org/about/ for more details on these projects.
• Did you know there's a Miro User Manual? If you haven't looked at it yet, it's worth taking a look at. You can find it at http://manual.getmiro.com/ .

Bugzilla stats for Miro for the last week:

• 13 bugs/feature-requests created
• 1 bugs marked WONTFIX
• 13 bugs marked FIXED

Miro status

• 4.1 roadmap
• We're now working on Miro 4.1.

Kaz:

• working on re-implementing metadata bits

Jonas:

• working on winsparkle support for Miro on Windows

Geoffrey:

• working on drag and drop enhancements

Paul:

• working on auto-fill options for device syncing
• working on getting new zugo installer into Miro on Windows

Ben:

• working on OSX Lion support
• reworked filename type code

Janet:

• working on adding and tweaking regression tests
• working on testing the Miro Mobile app
• working on testing Universal Subtitles

Will:

• built new linux build box
• working on gstreamer/webkit/gtk overhaul

Order of business:

• talked about 4.0.2.1 which will have OSX Lion support and will fix the French translation; we're hoping to get it out this week.
• Miro is developed by a community of people including you! If you can't contribute your time and work to development, testing, and translations, please consider contributing funding by donating. Your money goes directly to ongoing development of Miro and related projects like Miro Community and Universal Subtitles. See http://pculture.org/about/ for more details on these projects.
• Did you know there's a Miro User Manual? If you haven't looked at it yet, it's worth taking a look at. You can find it at http://manual.getmiro.com/ .

Bugzilla stats for Miro for the last week:

• 35 bugs/feature-requests created
• 3 bugs marked DUPLICATE
• 5 bugs marked FIXED
• 1 bugs marked INVALID

Miro status

• 4.1 roadmap
• We're now working on Miro 4.1.

Will:

• figured out gtk dll issues and continued working on upgrading the Windows dependencies

Paul:

• worked on auto-fill code; ui is mostly there, but still working on the functionality

Geoffrey:

• worked on usability issues
• worked on improvements to sharing

Jonas:

• worked on WinSparkle integration

Janet:

• worked on regression tests; adding new ones; augmenting existing ones
• worked on update testing

Ben:

• worked on hybrid view mode; pushed the branch to g.p.o.; it's sort of a proof-of-concept right now but looking good

Kaz:

• worked on metadata extraction and storage

Order of business:

• filename type overhaul: We should override FilenameType and PlatformFilenameType so they throw errors when used. That'll make it easier to find issues.
• Jonas is working on getting Miro to use WinSparkle, so we talked about how we use Sparkle on OSX and how we get the appcast file and move the data around to make it happy in Sparkle. We also talked about how to tweak the installer so that Miro passes to winsparkle which kicks off the installer and shuts down Miro. Then the installer shows a progress bar and kicks off the new Miro.
• Miro is developed by a community of people including you! If you can't contribute your time and work to development, testing, and translations, please consider contributing funding by donating. Your money goes directly to ongoing development of Miro and related projects like Miro Community and Universal Subtitles. See http://pculture.org/about/ for more details on these projects.
• Did you know there's a Miro User Manual? If you haven't looked at it yet, it's worth taking a look at. You can find it at http://manual.getmiro.com/ .

Bugzilla stats for Miro for the last week:

• 19 bugs/feature-requests created
• 2 bugs marked DUPLICATE
• 7 bugs marked FIXED
• 1 bugs marked WONTFIX
• 1 bugs marked INCOMPLETE

Note

I was on vacation and missed the last couple of dev calls, thus there aren't any notes.

Miro status

• 4.1 roadmap
• We pushed out Miro 4.0.2.
• We're now working on Miro 4.1.

Kaz:

• Working on metadata stuff.

Geoffrey:

• Working on 4.1 things. Merged in osx binary kit updates.

Ben:

• Released 4.0.2.
• Working on 4.1 things; working on hybrid view.

Paul:

• Working on 4.1 tickets related to device syncing/support issues.

Janet:

• Adding tests to our automated test suites.

Will:

• Undid the single-package work I did for Ubuntu packaging.
• Working on Windows overhaul.

Jonas:

• Working on winsparkle support for Miro on Windows.

Order of business:

• Talked about the things we want to refactor during this dev cycle. We can't refactor everything, so we talked about what's in the refactoring queue that affect things we're already working on for 4.1 and working on those.
  • (Will) move infoupdater stuff from widgets to portable
  • (Ben) 13182: filename unicode handling * switch all internal stuff to unicode strings. * rename unicode_to_filename method which sucks.
  • (Ben) 17498: itemlist filtering
  • (Kaz) 16783: refactoring widgetstatestore
• We need to figure out a better way to test translations for bogosity. We need to balance fragility of whatever it is we do with usefulness and effort it takes to implement/maintain. Janet will think about this.
• Miro is developed by a community of people including you! If you can't contribute your time and work to development, testing, and translations, please consider contributing funding by donating. Your money goes directly to ongoing development of Miro and related projects like Miro Community and Universal Subtitles. See http://pculture.org/about/ for more details on these projects.
• Did you know there's a Miro User Manual? If you haven't looked at it yet, it's worth taking a look at. You can find it at http://manual.getmiro.com/ .

Bugzilla stats for Miro for the last week:

• 30 bugs/feature-requests created
• 1 bugs marked WORKSFORME
• 13 bugs marked INVALID
• 9 bugs marked DUPLICATE
• 2 bugs marked WONTFIX
• 13 bugs marked FIXED
• 1 bugs marked INCOMPLETE

A couple of days ago while I was on vacation, the team finished up the changes for Miro 4.0.2.

There was a problem with the original 4.0.2 builds for people who were running Miro for the first time which we fixed yesterday. Thus, I re-tagged v4.0.2 and built a new set of 4.0.2 builds. The new set are identical to the old set except that the new set doesn't have the first time startup bug and it also has updated translations.

If you have the original Miro 4.0.2 and Miro starts up, then you don't need to "upgrade" to the new Miro 4.0.2 build.

If you don't know which version of Miro 4.0.2 you have, launch Miro, go to Help -> About in the menu and if the sha is e1cafdd1 (the v4.0.2 tag) or be096d8e (the rev in the Miro-4.0 branch that the v4.0.2 tag points to), then you've got the most recent v4.0.2.

Here are the md5 sums for the correct 4.0.2 builds:

8521a85eefbbe4d43e7d92d227249505  Miro-4.0.2.dmg
4d789791279be3dc4951e64aeae06be2  Miro-4.0.2.exe
8d32421082220579c1ee8f26a0032007  miro-4.0.2.tar.gz

Additionally, I pushed out packages for Ubuntu Lucid, Maverick and Natty about an hour ago.

See the release notes:

https://develop.participatoryculture.org/index.php/4.0ReleaseNotes

Download at:

http://getmiro.com/

For the most part, the team is now working on various projects that will land in Miro 4.1 or future releases. We have no plans to do a 4.0.3, but will do so if the need presents itself.

To see what we're working on, see the Miro 4.1 roadmap:

http://bugzilla.pculture.org/roadmap.cgi?product=Miro&target=4.1

Miro status

• 4.0.2 roadmap
• 4.1 roadmap
• we're going to keep working on Miro 4.0.2 for another week or two
• we're starting work on Miro 4.1

Ben:

• Worked on problematic bugs for 4.0.2.
• Hoping to have an RC on Thursday or Friday.

Janet:

• Working on regression tests and testing bug fixes that have been going in over the last couple of weeks.

Will:

• Moving along on the Windows overhaul. Took a step back to make sure I had all my ducks in a row in regards to knowing exactly the situation I'm in and what the options are.
• Spent some time looking at issues people were having.

Paul:

• On vacation last week.
• Worked on speed issues with device support.
• Worked on Miro Community bits.

Geoffrey:

• Worked on issues for 4.0.2.

Kaz:

• Worked on support for MusicBrainz/EchoNest.

Jonas:

• Worked on gzip support for feeds.
• Worked on some other things for 4.0.2.

Order of business:

• Talked about the 4.0.2 timeline.
• Talked about specifics of some issues people were having.
• Talked about MusicBrainz/EchoNest support.
• Miro is developed by a community of people including you! If you can't contribute your time and work to development, testing, and translations, please consider contributing funding by donating. Your money goes directly to ongoing development of Miro and related projects like Miro Community and Universal Subtitles. See http://pculture.org/about/ for more details on these projects.
• Did you know there's a Miro User Manual? If you haven't looked at it yet, it's worth taking a look at. You can find it at http://manual.getmiro.com/ .

Bugzilla stats for Miro for the last week:

• 58 bugs/feature-requests created
• 3 bugs marked WORKSFORME
• 1 bugs marked INVALID
• 7 bugs marked DUPLICATE
• 2 bugs marked WONTFIX
• 25 bugs marked FIXED