I added numeric formatting to Glom, so you can have currency symbols, fixed decimal places, and avoid thousands separators.

For the list of currency symbols, Glom now depends on iso-codes, which provides the symbols and names, and gettext() translations for them. There are country and language names too.

This also reminded me how unpleasantly obscure numeric formatting of streams is in C++. But I got it working.

Now I am looking again at the calculated fields, thinking of integrating the python libgda bindings with my C++ code, so I can pass some of Glom's libgda objects directly to the embedded python interpreter.

I am also exploring the C++ boost::python library instead of using python's C API directly. The API is unstable, so I must copy a huge number of boost files into Glom itself. So far it looks quite odd (lots of preprocessor macros), but I'll be happy enough if it works.

I've mostly dealt with another big to-do item for Glom. I added Users/Group administration, with per-table access rights for each group of users.

The changes touch most of the code, so that all parts of the UI just do the right thing, so I'm sure that I've introduced several bugs. After all this work, I will reward myself with a few more episodes of West Wing.

I implemented another important feature in Glom – related fields, which allow you to see, and edit, a field in a related table. And the related record for the related field can be created automatically when you enter data into the related field. This should be very familiar to FileMaker users.

So what's next? Maybe numeric field formatting options, or user administration, or maybe making python-calculated fields really work.

I put out another Glom version, 0.8.14, fixing up the inline related records portal. This should be familiar to Filemaker users. And I'm starting to make the layout design a little more usable, though it needs a full Glade-like UI.

I made some updated screenshots with explanations.

Hacking on Glom is fun, and the code is become gradually less hairy. I'm feeling very productive.

For the last week or so, I've been herding the GNOME 2.10 release notes together, with much help from Davyd Madeley. The wiki was a really good way to get the initial information. As before, we use docbook for the actual text, and that lets us use Danilo Segan's xml2po magic to translate them just like people would translate GNOME applications, without suffering chaos when the original changes.

I've never found a good solution for multi-language web sites, so xml2po is the best reason I've ever seen to use xml as the original format for website content.

Luis Villa is taking care of the press release today, so it can be translated too.

GNOME's translators are incredibly effective, and this let's the 2.10 release show that.

I thought I was immune, but the 'flu got me too, knocking me out over the weekend and a bit extra. I seem to be OK now though.

This morning I had the first stage of having a crown put on one of my teeth, after it broke a few weeks ago. That wasn't fun either.

Back in August 2004, The C/C++ User’s Journal editor asked me to do an introductory article on libxml++, but has not replied to my emails since, or paid me for the delivered work.

So now it is online here instead as the libxml++ manual. At least now I’ll be able to correct any errors.

I just got my Dell laptop working with my new external flat-screen monitor as multi-head, more or less. I enjoy so much moving windows gradually from one screen to the other.

However, the Nvidia graphic cards don't seem to support the regular “Xinerama” way of doing multi-head. Instead they have TwinView, which I think makes X-Windows think that it has one big screen instead of 2 screens. I had to set this up manually in xorg.conf. I tried using the multihead options in Fedora's system-config-display, but that made xorg crash when starting.

I think that on a true multi-head system, secondary windows would open on the same screen as the application, but I think mine open wherever the cursor is. However, the GNOME panel is clever enough not to be wider than one screen.

And XINE gets confused. It squashes movies vertically, and I don't know how to stop that.

Note: In GTK speak, I might mean “display” when I say “screen” above. I get confused.