Doxyqml 0.4.0

After almost two years, here comes a new version of Doxyqml, the QML filter for Doxygen. This new version adds a new command-line option: --namespace to wrap the generated C++ in a namespace, and makes the parser more robust. Nothing ground-breaking, but some nice changes nevertheless. What's interesting with this project is that I don't use it these days, but it still receives contributions from time to time. This puts me in the unusual position (for me) where most of my contributions to the project are reviewing code, cleaning things, a bit of infrastructure (I just added code coverage checks: 88%, not too bad) and release management. Surprisingly, I like doing this, I am happy to see this little tool remains useful enough that others keep it alive.

Plasma 5.12.5, Applications 18.04.1 and Frameworks 5.46.0 by KDE now available in Chakra

On your next system upgrade you will receive all the latest versions of KDE’s Plasma, Applications and Frameworks, in addition to several other package updates. For more details and the full changelogs on KDE’s software releases, you can read the official announcements: Plasma 5.12.5 Applications 18.04.1 Frameworks 5.46.0 Other noteworthy package updates include wine 3.8, skypeforlinux 8.20.0.9 and pypy 6.0.0.

SMTube review - Your train to Youtube

It's a no brainer. On the desktop, you go online, and you open a tab and you load Youtube, and then you play clips. But then, on mobile devices, you have dedicated applications, which usually offer a somewhat more efficient media experience. So, on the desktop, it's the browser way or the ... SMTube way? SMTube is a cross-platform Youtube player, which allows you to search and play videos from the popular media platform, with some additional search tweaks and filters, and extra download options, all this from the desktop, without having to keep a browser tab open. It's a convenient tool to use, and with the recent rewrite, it actually works, and it works fairly well. I decided to test to see what gives. [...] SMTube looks like a nice tool. It is not strictly necessary or needed, but it does allow you to have Youtube open and playing, even if you're not currently using your browser, i.e. you can use it like any other media player. This is nice, plus you get a clean and intuitive interface, decent search and filter options, and it's easy to change settings and configure additional players. You also have the option to download clips. I don't know where SMTube stands when it comes to Google, Youtube, but ordinary users will surely appreciate the extra flexibility they get with a media player rather than just a browser tab. Of course, you're not signed in, you don't get recommendations, comments or playlists, and such, so I guess there are benefits to going directly to Youtube. But if you're only after what Youtube can play without any socializing, SMTube is an excellent choice. It's had a rough ride, it never quite fully worked for me in my various distro reviews, but this new version is stable, robust and works well. At the very least, it's worth testing. Choo choo.

GNOME Development/Developers

• Nautilus Ability To Launch Binaries Or Scripts To Be Reverted, Might Be Implemented Differently

  It looks like the decision to remove the ability to run binaries and scripts from Nautilus file manager will be reverted. The change comes after some use cases appeared that the developers agreed they need to support, "especially for enterprise and content creators". One such use case that was mentioned as a reason for reverting this is a small "if then that" script for building HTML and PDF files, which uses Zenity to display a dialog, as well as notifications to display the progress. I find the use case being used as an example a bit weird because that's certainly not something common, like a self-extracting game script for instance.

• Stickers in Riot

  The matrix.org protocol is flexible so this is a good example of how to add new features to the clients that uses matrix without the need to change the protocol. This is not a core feature because you can send images, but I think this is great and add a simple way to show reactions for the users, so as I was reading I thought that we can add this to Fractal, so I started to read how we can add support for this.

• Talking at GPN 2018 in Karlsruhe, Germany

  Similar to last year I managed to attend the Gulasch Programmier-Nacht (GPN) in Karlsruhe, Germany. Not only did I attend, I also managed to squeeze in a talk about PrivacyScore. We got the prime time slot on the opening day along with all the other relevant talks, including the Eurovision Song Contest, so we were not overly surprised that the audience had a hard time deciding where to go and eventually decided to attend talks which were not recorded. Our talk was recorded and is available here.