Cirkuit 0.4.2 release announcement

Version 0.4.2 of Cirkuit has just been released. Two major bugs have been fixed:

• the Upload example dialog was not working after a ‘Save As…’
• there was an issue with duplicated menu items when using a translation (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=285658)

and additional bugs that could lead to segmentation faults are also fixed now.

A part from bugfixes, there is one change in the user interface: the status bar has been removed. I remember reading a discussion on plasma-devel about status bars in general, and I realized that the status bar in Cirkuit was really sub-optimal. For example, error messages were displayed on the statusbar only and they could easily be unnoticed. Now, a KMessageWidget is used to notify the user of preview generation events. I think it is quite an improvement over the statusbar: the messages are much more visible now and the user is still not required to click anything to go on with his work.

A couple of screenshots showing Cirkuit without the status bar and with active messages:

As always, you can find the release announcement here and the sources here.

Qalculate backend merged

Yesterday the Qalculate backend for Cantor has been merged into master, which means that it will be included in the upcoming SC 4.8 release. Looking at the activity on the repository, it looks like the Scilab backend has also been merged, making Cantor even more versatile. The Qalculate backend offers interesting features like:

• customizable functions
• units
• arbitrary precision
• plotting

You are encouraged to refresh your Cantor build and test the new backends. Head over to the project page and get the sources.

Progress on Qalculate backend for Cantor

This is a follow-up of the previous post about the Qalculate backend for Cantor. Thanks to the work of Martin Kuettler, the backend is already in a pretty good shape for inclusion in SC 4.8. The majority of the supported extensions has been implemented.

In the screenshot below, you can see the “Variable Manager” in action, with a trivial example of unit conversion

Another extension that has been implemented is plotting.

Additionally, some calculus and linear algebra operations can now be done with the help of the GUI.

If you want to test, checkout the qalculate-backend branch from the Cantor repository.

And again, a big thank you to Martin for working on this!

Qalculate backend for Cantor

A very popular request on the Qalculate forums is a port of the KDE3 interface to KDE4. While there is no progress that I know of on this task, there is now an alternative for KDE users: using Cantor as a graphical interface.

As some you already noticed, I have recently pushed a new branch, called qalculate-backend, into the Cantor git repository. The backend was originally created by Milian Wolff and recently I have also been working on it. The main functionality of the backend is already implemented, as you can see from the screenshot below.

Some work on the help system has also been already done, but it’s not complete yet:

What is still missing, compared to the other backends already available, is the ability to support LaTeX output, variable management, linear algebra support (to guide the user in the creation of vectors and matrices), syntax highlighting and tab completions.

If someone is interested in contributing, please leave a comment below! The target would be to implement most of these features before SC 4.8 and merge the backend into git master.

Cirkuit 0.4 released with many new features

Hello planet,

it’s been quite a long time since the last post, I’ve been extremely busy at work lately. I am pleased to announce a new version for Cirkuit. I’ve been using it quite a lot lately and I think it’s ready for public consumption.

Here’s a showcase of the main new features:

• the preview widget has been completely reworked. Now it is possible to zoom in/out the preview or you can ‘Zoom to fit’ like in the previous releases of Cirkuit. This can be useful when you work on large figures and you want to work on some small details. Now you can zoom in the desired area and track the changes there easily. Additionally, the generation of the preview has been optimized and should be now much faster than in previous versions. The resizing of the widget is also now smoother and faster.
• The templates used by Cirkuit to generate the preview are now editable. They can be configured with the new ‘Template manager’, which supports Get Hot New Stuff so that you can share and download new templates. This feature is mostly interesting if you want to use some LaTeX package inside your figure. You can now simply edit the template and add custom \usepackage instructions.

• Are you particularly satisfied with the figure you just created with Cirkuit? You can now share it with the community via the built-in GHNS support. You can also download the diagrams shared by other users.

  

• The keyboard shortcuts and toolbar are now fully configurable, so you can now redefine the shortcuts to generate the preview, export it and so on.
• Especially interesting for developers, a new backend system (similar to the one used in Cantor) has been implemented. This means that it’s fairly easy to generate a new backend and add it to Cirkuit. As an example. a new PSTricks backend has been created and added in this release.
• The help system has been also improved, providing the correct documentation for the currently used backend (if the backend supports it)

In addition to these new features, several bug fixes and minor improvements have been also implemented. So, get the sources here, test the application thoroughly and file bug reports and wishes at bugs.kde.org. The source code is hosted on git.kde.org.

New features for Cirkuit

Good news everyone!

a major update of Cirkuit is approaching with a lot of bug fixes/improvements on existing features and of course a whole bunch of new features.

Improvements:

• a much improved preview widget with variable zoom levels
• manuals and examples of each backend can be accessed in the main interface
• improved multi-threading -> Cirkuit generates the previews faster
• improved parsing of log files and error handling
• increased usage of K* instead of Q* classes for a better integration with the KDE environment
• redesigned configuration dialog

New features:

• a new backend system (heavily inspired by Cantor) which will make it much easier to write new plugins for your favorite graphic tools
• new template system with GHNS (Get Hot New Stuff) support
• you can now share your figures with the rest of the community via GHNS (the idea would be to create something along the lines of Tikzexamples)
• configurable keyboard shortcuts and toolbars

Just a screenshot to show off a new feature:

In the coming days/weeks I’ll add new posts to explain the new functionality in detail. In the meantime, you can compile latest master from git.kde.org and try the new features yourself. For any bug/wish, please use http://bugs.kde.org. Stay tuned!