News
November Roundup
Andew has posted the first look at Lx-Viewer version 2 to the developers mailing list and the sourceforge file release page. Oh, and I've installed Debian in order to check out some of these "Lx-Viewer can't be installed on Debain" problems. I think the main problem is to have installed the full Qt development environment wich seems to come in quite a few different packages on Debian.
October Roundup
All quiet on the outside (website and stats) but Andrews beavearing away on version 2
17th September
Where to start... lots of progress. The pythonCAD team are developing a DWG library which could be interesting, I've donated a section of the site and a fair amount of effort to help Art with the testing of his code. Autodesk have helped Andy with the DWF implementation and generally been quite helpful. There's
also a lot of discussion about starting a new, modular, OpenGL rendering version of Lx-Viewer that can run with or without out the OpenDWG libraries
15th August
Functional Design Specifications for Lx-Viewer are going up this week. These should make bug finding easier and give better reference documentation for developers.
13th August
Asked alt.html.critique what they thought of the website. They pointed out lots of errors in the html. These should all be fixed now.
7th August
Updated the website to fix an error or two and update the text to reflect recent changes
1st June
Hi all,
I know things have been a little quiet lately, but the complete version 1.0
release of LX-Viewer has just been posted to SF.
22nd May
News from Autodesks© Lee Harding:
It took a while, but you might want to take a look at the agreement associated with DWF 6 (versus the old one on DWF 5).
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=823771Thanks for your help.
Autodesk Technology Initiator
Office of the CTO
I did look, and it's beautiful. I'll be pestering Andy to put DWF support in using this.
1st May
We've all been very busy recently but I did get the chance to update a few pages on the website.
31st March
I just updated the files od_interface.cpp and layermanager.cpp to remove the
potential "strcpy" security hole.
16th March
I just posted to SF the source code for version 0.99g. This version has bug
fixes for several of the bugs listed in the tracking system. Additionally you
can now cancel out of several time consuming functions (use the ESC key).
Most significantly I have also adapted the OD_FAST_READ functions to work on
linux - drawings now seem to load and display much faster.
This version should be compatible with the OD2.010 libraries, but I have not
checked this thoroughly since this version of OD requires a newer glibc than
exists on my old computer. If someone has a system with a recent glibc and
could test this out for me it would be appreciated.
28th Feb
I finally managed to string together 30 minutes or so and have just uploaded
new sources to SF. I have called this the 0.99f release. Added is batch
plotting and batch converting (both command line and internal) plus plot
window and plot extents.
This is one of the least tested releases I have done so there may be some
errors. I in particular need checking on the plotting, especially the plot
to scale. With my setup all I can test with is a plot to file so I can't
really tell if the drawings scale properly.
17th Feb
just a quick note to let you know that things are moving with the program-
but at a reduced pace. Batch plotting is almost complete (I would estimate
98% to 99%). I can and have processed a whole batch of drawings, but there
is still some fiddling with plotter settings that I need to do to make it
right. I will try to post another version to SF for bug checking as soon as
the batching is complete.
17th Feb
Just to say that there's a install guide underway (one you can print
off). it'PDF (80k - 16 seconds on modem)
It's not complete yet but not bad. RPM instructions are done but I haven't finished the source install instructions. I'm also going to add a description of setting up the qt paths when compiling.
If anyone wants to re-write sections of it, download the word format file (link follows), use OpenOffice or MS office to edit, and send it as an attachment to my email address (not list) I'll add/edit and convert it to pdf.
Word Document (210k - 42 seconds on modem) from http://lx-viewer.sourceforge.net/lx_viewer_installation.doc
12th Feb
Re-wrote testing.php There's still plenty of gaps and better explanations needed but it
should be a lot more structured and meaningful (+helpful). I've done a
quick Requirements Specification which isn't quite correct just yet, and
the testing_tools page needs re-writing
10th Feb
Things have been moving along a little from my end
also. I have made the following changes in this past week:
1) The plot dialog rewritten so that it is now under layout manager control. This means that you can stretch or shrink it and the inner parts grow and shrink to fill the allowed space. Most useful for the expanding the listview on the second tab.
2) I have "plot extents" working. I am also working on the plot window.
You can now pick a window to plot, but I still need to convert this picked
area into something the plotter can use.
9th Feb
Submitted some bugs to the Sourceforge tracker, they're
all pretty minor so they're marked them as low priority.
- an error in the zooming history
- an error in tabbing/keyboard nav in the command alias dialog
- extra unneeded buttons in one of the dialogs
8th Feb
well I found the trigger to the problem and it's not good. Peter's drawing
will open and display fine using OD 2.008, but will crash using OD 2.009. It
may be something on our end with the interface between viewer and OD, and
I'll try to check those few areas out later today. I'll keep you all posted.
6th Feb
New OpenDWG libraries cause a crash! If you have the 2.008 OpenDWG libraries, keep them! The newer 2.009 libraries
seem to cause a segmentation fault in with certain files.
26th Jan
Not a great deal has happened with the program from my end in the last week or so.
I did manage to get the batch convert (both internal and from the command line)
feature up and running. Next on the hit parade will be batch plotting. Have a good one.
20th Jan
Fabrice Pierre has joined the project as a French translator. Any questions on the French translation, just ask away.
19th Jan
There's now an RPM of Lx-Viewer 0.99e available from
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=30996
If you get any errors at all installing this RPM please let us know. The
RPM should work on Mandrake 9.0 and probably Redhat 8.0 and similar
systems. The package is designated i586 but this may be an error, it may
be for a i686. If someone could test it on a i586 (Pentium, K6 etc) then
that would be a great help. If it works fine a small email with your
distribution and processor would be great if you have the time.
17th January
I've been doctoring screenshots with an eye to putting together some ideas for beautifing the program.
Check out the screenshots.
15th January
Joao Soares Veiga has joined the project, probably as part developer, part translator.
Also Paul has released the Windows version of Lx-Viewer 0.99e which is available for download now. Please consider this a Windows 2000/XP only release for now, due to problems with Windows 9x
If you're using the Windows 0.98a version it will be worth upgrading, we could also do with any feedback you might have as this is expected to be perhaps the last release before version 1.0
Major new features: SVG support, command aliases, improved interface.
11th January
The latest version for Linux of Lx-Viewer, 0.99e , has been posted to sourceforge. Major changes are:
- pan up, down, left, right now available.
- option to select white background available.
- Batching from command line completely updated (currently implemented only for reporting).
- Progress bar now displays what it is measuring.
- new icons added to various menu's.
Things that really need to be checked are the new batch processing method
(help manual is up to date on how to do it), the appearance of the icons, and
any user manual errors.
Also goodbye to Jacques Mony today, who had been working on the French translation of Lx-Viewer
but had run out of spare time. Thanks for the work to date Jacques. I've added a SourceForge request
for a French translator and asked on the cad-linux mailing list.
8th January
I've been looking a the batching feature and also trying to reduce memory
consumption in the program. I think I may have knocked a meg off the usage
tonight, I need to run a few more tests to make sure.
5th January
Minor reworking of the website, using a bit of influence from the SourceForge website
1st January
Hi all, first off happy new year. Hope this one is a great one for everyone. Now on to business:
I just posted 0.99d to SF. Major changes are the totally new locations for /pcp and /fonts directories under the users home directory. Also the lxv.pgp file for command aliases is now stored there as well.
I also fixed the whitewash problem with the command bar, and added a visual command history record to the bar. When you start the program the command bar looks the same as it always did, but now if you pull up on the top of the bar it opens up to display a history. Also fixed - unrecognized commands are flagged in both the text window and this new command history window. I went back and forth on what information to put into this window, so if you think there is too much or not enough being presented please let me know. The hard part was adding the widget, it is fairly easy to write to it.
Finally the misc. menu re-arrangements and adding the lx icon have been done.
As always - let me know what you think.
27th December
I just posted up to SourceForge version 0.99c. The major change is that
command aliases are now functional and a dialog has been added to edit and
assign these aliases. I have also cleaned up the behavior of the program if
you start it from a command line and give it a drawing name that does not
exist.
One note on the alias feature. If you run "make install" you may need to
give yourself write permission in /usr/local/bin so that viewer can write the
pgp file.
Command alias are the
typed commands programs such as AutoCAD recognize as shortcuts eg "zoom extents"
might become "ze". In AutoCAD the users aliases are stored in a file with a
pgp extension. What AJBIBB's done here is to enable you to drop your AutoCAD
PGP file into Lx-Viewer and use the command aliases that Lx-Viewer supports
in the same way that you did with AutoCAD.
17th December
Since Pauls joined the team we now have a Windows port of Lx-Viewer available for download. This is a port of
the stable 0.98 branch but since it is the first release for windows, there may be some issues to fix.
As ever, if you have any problems, let us know on either the forums or the public mailing list.
15th December
And a new version 0.99b is available for download. Added feature is additional command line
paramaters, and to have some of them (specifically -version and -help) available outside of the
main program.
7th December
I just posted to sourceforge a new release 0.99a. Biggest change is the
option to save the drawing as a scalable vector graphics (SVG) file. Output
is generated to SVG 1.0 (a fairly new version) and I needed to download a
newer plugin for my browser to display the files. If you get an error
message trying to display output generated by viewer look there first.
I could use some feedback on this option. Right now the program effectively
saves a snapshot of the drawing as it is currently rendered into SVG format.
It has occurred to me that perhaps an option to save as all black vectors on
a white background might be useful if people need to display an svg drawing
into an xml document. I don't do any of this sort of stuff in work so I am
not entirely sure what would be a useful option and what would be a useless
waste of time.
1st December
The 0.98b.tar.gz file now on SourceForge contains the new license, authors, and faq files.
Also the patch file issued for 0.98a has been incorporated.
29th November
Important: Ammended License Lx-Viewer is distributed under a modified version of the GPL license.
Because we link to a non-free library (the OpenDWG libraries) we have to put a small
ammendment on the GPL licence, which is then a modified version of the GPL license.
As soon as there's a GPL alternative to the OpenDWG libraries, we will use them instead. Under the OpenDWG library terms, you are only allowed to use Lx-Viewer for personal use and internal use. The limitation on commercial use applies only to selling a program based on the libraries. You can use the libraries in a company setting provided your company is not in the business of selling programs based on the OD (associate level) tool and viewkits. If that is not the way you understand it please let us know.
If you want to help make a GPL alternative to the OpenDWG libraries and help us make this and many other projects truely free, please get in touch. If you
can code C++ and you want to do something good, please get in touch
15th November
Lx-Viewer 0.98 has been released. This is the first "stable" version that uses the QT 3.0.5 and OpenDWG 2.008 libraries. Biggest new feature from 0.96 is the reporting (located under the file menu).
We have also removed the ability to save as an XPM format file and replaced it with a save to PNG format file. PNG files are very compressed where XPM are just the opposite.
There is also a reporting feature now available. The reporting can be set to open report on all drawing files in a directory using command line arguments.
10th November
I have posted the sources to 0.97e at SourceForge. Main changes are:
- Many minor improvements to the user interface.
- Audit should no longer hang on large drawings and is much faster
- The command line history using the up and down arrow keys is now functional.
2nd November
I just posted up the revised sources for version 0.97d. The help files for it are grossly out of date so it may be difficult to see what all has changed. Basically the report feature has everything (except a printed listing of annonymous blocks) working, plus batch mode report processing either interactive from the GUI or batch from the command line.
1st November
We've taken on a few testers and produced an install guide for the experimental 0.97c (qt3) release. The website has also been completly revamped to allow for better navigation and eventually a more professional apperence.
20th October
The LX-Viewer project has gained many translators with the aim being to convert the online user guide and program itself into many languages. Also there is now a development road map, to show what parts of the program are currently implemented, are being worked on, and are being considered for the future.
10th October
0.97c released, basic command line interface has been introduced. Not all commands are available now, but soon will be. Also first cut of the reporting feature is implemented .
4th September
The next release (0.97b) will be able to display a bitmap preview image of the drawing file in the file open dialog (assuming a bitmap was saved with the drawing originally). There is also a text file information preview available for all files with or without saved bitmaps. LX-Viewer will also be able to save a bitmap to a newly created drawing file. Other enhancements will include a function to check the drawing before loading, looking for corrupt data, and you will also be able to run an audit function on an opened drawing.
Old
I have managed to port LX-Viewer to QT3.05 and also to the OpenDWG library 2.008 (making it now possible to read AutoCAD 2002 files).
I have just posted up the sources to version 0.97a which should be QT3x friendly. With the jump to QT3x we now can also plot at a resolution suitable for cad work (up to 600dpi).