Yesterday we looked back on the last year. Today it is 2009 - really! We wish everybody a Happy New Year!

The eyeOS Team decided some New Year’s pledges and we want to start fulfilling one of them right now:

• Originally eyeOS 1.8 should be finally released today. But our eyeOS timeline is not fixed: The eyeOS Team aims to release a stable eyeOS version for all users and unless we cannot do it because of any known issue, we will not. eyeOS users get the highest quality as possible!

eyeOS 1.8 Preview 2

Because of some known issues we delayed the final release of eyeOS 1.8 a week. This preview fixes many problems, which were reported by our community. Some of them are:

• The desktop is working with Firefox 2.
• The Tree widget is working with Opera and Safari.
• Problems with translations are fixed.
• Problems with wallpapers are fixed.
• No need to empty the browser’s cache to change the theme.
• Many more fixes…

Please commit all new bugs you notice in this second preview at Launchpad. You can find more information about this release in its Release Notes.

Download it!

Download eyeOS 1.8 in ZIP format

Download eyeOS 1.8 in TAR.GZ format

Online testing…

If you do not want to install this preview at your own server, you can test it at preview.eyeos.info. Please note that you must create a new account on that server. The preview server will be removed right after eyeOS 1.8 is released. So please do not save any important data in it!
NOTE: The server will be updated to the revision we used for the packages soon!

We are proud to announce the first preview of eyeOS 1.8, which includes some new great freatures, bug fixes and is another step to get eyeOS closer to the end user, making it feeling more comfortable with eyeOS. As usual, the preview is released to find and solve the maximum number of bugs possible. This is why we would like to ask everyone to test the new release online or downloading it before the final release and report all the bugs seen to the eyeOS bugs page at launchpad. You can read here instructions about how to report bugs in eyeOS.

What’s new in eyeOS 1.8 Lars?

eyeFiles rewritten from scratch: The new eyeFiles now supports three different views and it’s possible to explore the home, group folders and trash from one single application. Administrators are also able to explore the directories of the registered users and the real filesystem.

eyeHelp: The eyeOS integrated help system: Daniel Sousa finished his work at eyeHelp and introduced some help topics. We need you to create new help topics! Please contact Daniel Sousa if you would like to participate. With the new eyeHelp, users will be able to check how to use the applications from the application itself, inside eyeOS.

New file management utilities: The utilities to manage files (create new files or folders, upload files, delete them, …) have been improved a lot. In most cases they now have additional features than before. eyeOpen (as an example) shows you a list with installed applications to open your files with.

A new theme (eyeFusion) has been added to eyeOS. Now eyeOS comes with 3 default themes (default, Light Desktop and eyeFusion).

Many default apps have been updated to new versions: eyeFTP reaches 3.2.0, eyeContacts has a new default design, eyeControl is now fully usable under Internet Explorer, eyeNav can hide its left bar, eyeMp3 has been fixed to work smoothly under different types of mp3 files, and almost all the available applications can be maximized and full-screened now.

You can find a more detailed list with new features in the release notes.

Download it!

You can download now eyeOS 1.8.0 Preview. Remember that the preview releases are thought to discover new bugs and solve them before the final release. For this reason, please do not use any preview version for production use. We will not provide an updater from the preview releases to the final version 1.8!

Download eyeOS 1.8 in ZIP format

Download eyeOS 1.8 in TAR.GZ format

Online testing…

If you do not want to install this preview at your own server, please test it at preview.eyeos.info. Please note that you must create a new account on that server. The preview server will be removed right after eyeOS 1.8 is released. So please do not save any important data at it! NOTE: The server will be updated to the revision we used for the packages soon!

Reporting bugs

Please report all bugs you notice. Reporting bugs is easy and will help us to release eyeOS 1.8 free of that annoying bug you and only you will see in the preview version.

You can find more information about how to report a bug in the release notes. Enjoy the new version!

Some time ago Matthew Powell from our eyeOS community started a series of videos, which show eyeOS users how to use the applications and the eyeOS system itself. Until today he published fifteen videos and his work goes on.

We thank Matthew for his work, which helps many users to get familiar with eyeOS.

You can find all the videos at our eyeOS YouTube channel.

eyeMessages & miniMessages

This video is a short overview of eyeMessages.

Two days ago we published eyeOS 1.7.0.1, which is our latest eyeOS release and eyeOS 1.6.0.4, which is an update for our obsolete eyeOS 1.6 branch.

In eyeOS 1.7.0.1 the cache system is activated for default and it gives you some additional options. You can find them in eyeControl in the category “System”. We also fixed many, many problems, which were noticed. You can find the Release Notes of eyeOS 1.7.0.1 here.

eyeOS 1.7.0.1-1 is a small update from yesterday, which updates the version number of your eyeOS system correctly and it fixes a problem with the red warning at the cache system tab in eyeControl.

eyeOS 1.6.0.4 includes most fixes we made for 1.7.0.0 and 1.7.0.1 and it gives the users of the obsolete eyeOS 1.6 branch the possibility to use the Internet Explorer 6.

For eyeOS 1.7.1 we are working on different projects. For example Daniel Sousa: He is working at a new application, called eyeHelp, which will provide help topics for many applications.

Please report every problem you notice! You can find more information about reporting bugs here.

Releases

This week we released eyeOS 1.7.0.0 “Lars” with several bug fixes and new features. We got really many comments about that version. All in all everyone I talked to, like this version, but some changes introduced new problems.

So we cannot stop working now: The next versions will be eyeOS 1.7.0.1, which fixes all bugs you and we noticed. eyeOS 1.6.0.4 will be continued as our most stable branch for a while. All fixed things between eyeOS 1.6.0.3 and 1.7.0.1 will be in eyeOS 1.6.0.4!

Both versions will be released on the next Friday. It is the 10th of October 2008.

Development

New developers are welcome! eyeOS 1.7.1 is planned to be released in one month and if you want to integrate your work into eyeOS, please create a new blueprint at Launchpad and we will answer you.

Beside: We use the Launchpad service to manage our bugs and blueprints. Blueprints are simple descriptions of an idea. They are listed at blueprints.launchpad.net/eyeos. We created a document about “How To Report a bug on Launchpad”. You download it from here.