rlazo's blog - python

What I've been doing? Gmail-sentinel update!

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:03:26 +0200

Well, long time without a single release... What happen with the release candidate? or even with my pretty schedule for the 0.2 version? Keep reading :)

After re-reading the book "Producing Open Source Software", I got from Google last year, I realized that I was introducing too few new features for a new release. My original plan was to introduce a new feature per release... but that's not all that funny :). So I created a branch on the git repository to start to work on a real feature: the plugin system

What's new then? the plugin system basically is done, the notification is now a plugin (so if you don't like the pop-ups, is now easier than ever to disable them), a real logging system has been implemented (using python standard-library facilities) and a few other little things.

What's the catch? Well, the code is still alpha, but I decided to push my branch to the public repository for anybody to see it. I'm thinking in using threads for the plugins, so a bad plugin doesn't kill everybody. The documentation is missing, the Makefile doesn't work with this version at all, and there are some rough edges.

If you want to take a look at the branch, here is the link.

gmail-sentinel 0.2 RC

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:37:25 +0200

A quick update. I missed the schedule by some days, but here is the release candidate for the 0.2 version.

Fixed bug #4
New TODO file, with ideas for new features. If you want to help and don't know where to start this is for you

Grab it while it's hot!

gmail-sentinel 0.2 beta 2

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 04:29:47 +0100

Wow!, Now it's time for a second beta release. The changes with the previous release are:

New translations: it (thanks to giacomomargarito) and sk (thanks to shamotj)
A new HACKING file.

I didn't expect to have translations so fast, and I have to apology because I didn't followed the issue tracker too close (I didn't configured the alerts). I hope the new HACKING file will make life easier to anybody who wants to contribute.

Here is the link for the new tarball

Warning: This is a beta version, it may kill eat your dog and steal your wallet. If you find a bug, please report it at our bug tracker

gmail-sentinel-0.2 beta release

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:48:03 +0100

Today I've made available for testing the 0.2_beta release of gmail-sentinel. Among the new features we have:

Ability to see all the new messages through the notification pop-up. Now gmail-sentinel features buttons on the notification itself so you can move forward and backwards to see all messages.
A "open" button that launches the configured browser and opens the selected messages. Your message one-click away
Other minor things...

If everything goes ok, I'll have a RC by Monday and a final 0.2 release by next monday. There will be no new features until 0.2 release, just bug fixes.

Here is the mandatory screenshot:

Announce: gmail-sentinel 0.1

nospam@example.com (Rodrigo Lazo) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 16:19:46 +0100

I'm glad to announce the first (yet alpha) release of GoogleMail Sentinel (gmail-sentinel).

From it's homepage: "GoogleMail Sentinel is a mail notifier for Google Mail (Gmail) that creates an icon in your Taskbar and features popup alerts when there's new mail in your GoogleMail (Gmail) account".

It's not yet ready for mass consumption but it's good enough for casual testing. And if you write python and want an easy project to start coding this is a great one. Very simple, few lines of code and a helpful upstream ;)

gmail-sentinel is my first publicly released piece of code that I wrote to scratch a personal itch. Although is not the first time I write some code, it's the first time I'm managing every single aspect of the process (finding hosting, writing an entry to freshmeat, etc.)