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Our feature article for October is the shipping of openSUSE 10.3. This latest version of the openSUSE family comes with many new features and improvements in many of the existing components. This month we will also take a look at GNOME 2.2 For Developers, how the Bandit Project is gaining traction and in the Developer Toolbox Spotlight, REALbasic 2007.
And there are so many new and improved features that to cover them all would take the entire newsletter, so we'll cover the highlights with the emphasis on features that will be of particular interest to developers. By making use of the standard distribution repositories and the community repositories you gain access to a wealth of applications and tools. Once you configure the repositories, 1-Click Install handles all the requirements for installation for you, making building up your development environment very easy.
Updates to both KDE (3.5.7 as well as a first look at KDE 4) and GNOME (2.2, but more on that in another article) will have developers seeking the best ways to take advantage of improved interfaces in both. A new GTK+ interface to YAST has helped to improve the look and feel of YAST, regardless of whether you use KDE or GNOME. This is an great example to developers of what can be done developing on Linux.
Another very cool feature that developers will like is the new YAST module front-end for the openSUSE buildservice the KIWI imaging system. Now you can build test environments very easily in whatever form you need, CD, DVD or virtual image. The build service handles a lot of the back-end work for the developer and helps open your application up to users on many platforms.
These are just a couple of the features of openSUSE 10.3. For much more and links to obtaining this release go to http://news.opensuse.org/?p=400 .
GNOME 2.2 continues in the tradition of providing stable, consistent and well documented developer interfaces to the GNOME platform. Version 2.2 delivers improvements and bug fixes to GTK+, Glib, Pango and Glade. Also included is the new Accerciser Accessiblity Explorer, a tool to help you insure that you application will work with accessibility tools.
You'll also find many new improvements in the GNOME documentation located at http://library.gnome.org .Here you'll find in-depth developer documentation and tutorials to help you better understand the workings of GNOME. You'll also find links to tools and other documentation to assist you in building good GNOME applications.
At the Digital ID World Conference in San Francisco the Novell-led Bandit Project launched "Control Your Identity" Campaign. This campaign is designed to provide information and knowledge about information card technology. To quote the press release:
Recognizing that millions of people who access Internet services each day are frustrated with entering identity data and managing passwords at multiple Web sites, the Bandit Project has launched an initiative to give users access to “Bandit Cards” – digital identity cards for use in Web transactions. To easily manage their Bandit Cards, visitors to the campaign Web site can obtain the Bandit Project's open source Linux* and Macintosh* cross-platform DigitalMe® information card selector and Microsoft Windows* CardSpace selector.
Given today's security environment, more and more consumers are looking for better ways to control and manage their identity information and with this project and the many others that it integrates with, you as a developer can create applications that provide what these users want.
You can read the complete "Control Your Identity" Campaign press release at http://www.novell.com/news/press/novell-led-bandit-project-launches-control-your-identity-campaign/ and learn more about Bandit at http://www.bandit-project.org/index.php/Welcome_to_Bandit .
If you are looking for a tool to help you write desktop applications for Linux you really need to check out REALbasic 2007. And not only do you get a ability to create native Linux applications, you can also use REALbasic 2007 to create native applications for Windows and Macintosh. REALbasic 2007 has very strong built-in support for database applications and uses native controls on each platform so your applications look like all other applications.
REALbasic 2007 excels at database support, from its built in REAL SQL Database to REAL SQL Server for multi-user application you can create powerful database applications using the exact same interfaces for both. REALbasic 2007 also supports other major databases via REALbasic plug-ins, so you can build and deploy applications that access your existing data.
You also have access to a very nice tool that will convert existing Visual Basic 6 applications to REALbasic projects. The converter doesn't do everything, but it can handle a significant amount of the porting for you. With literally thousands of applications written in Visual Basic, this opens up multiple platforms to those applications that were only available on Windows.
Don't let the "basic" turn you away, REALbasic's only connection to the BASICs of old is the name. REALbasic is a modern, fully featured and well supported programming platform. Take it for a spin, a 15 day demo is available for all platforms and the Standard Edition for Linux is free, so you have nothing to lose.
This newsletter (containing current articles, code samples and anything else that might be of interest to developers) is sent monthly. The purpose of this newsletter is to help developers become proficient in the use of key technologies on the Linux platform and to provide current content on Novell technologies to aid you in creating business solutions.
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