eyeOS 1.6 Beta released
By Pau Garcia-Milà | April, 15 2008 | Development, Releases
What’s coming in eyeOS 1.6
By Pau Garcia-Milà | March, 19 2008 | Development, Releases
After some weeks working to provide a good platform to every eyeOS developer, we are ready to announce the roadmap for the next eyeOS version: eyeOS 1.6.0.
eyeOS 1.6 will introduce both system and applications improvements, and will be the first eyeOS release ever to include also an optional add-on for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.
Synchronization with local files and folders (see blueprint)
eyeOS 1.6 does incorporate a new system (based on the xml-rpc protocol) which will allow external desktop applications to communicate with every eyeOS in the world through the port 80. With this new addition, the same day of eyeOS 1.6 release we will release eyeSync 1.0, a tool to automatically synchronize local files and folders with your eyeOS system.
By just selecting which folders do you want to keep synchronized, eyeOS will maintain it updated with your virtual eyeOS computer, asking you to resolve conflicts with files modified in both ways and keeping the folders always updated with your eyeOS without requiring any action from the user (the system does detect changes in the folders and sends them to eyeOS every time we save changes on a file or copy/remove files locally).
With eyeSync (that will ask you for the eyeOS server you’re working on, your username and password, and the path you want to sync with local folders), eyeOS will include a brand new functionality for the whole system: an online backup of all your data, which can be accessed (and many times also read and updated) from everywhere in the world with an Internet connection, through eyeOS.
eyeOS Mobile Access (see blueprint)
With the new eyeOS Mobile Access (accessible from every mobile phone with a WAP/Mobile HTML browser) you will be able to access your eyeOS files, download them to your mobile phone and upload new ones.
The new Mobile Access will provide a new cool feature for mobile phones: Office files viewing, through the existent eyeConverter to read Office and OpenOffice documents. This means that you will be able to see documents, spreadsheets and presentations from your mobile phone, without installing any new software into it.
Desktop Widgets (see blueprint)
The new eyeOS 1.6 desktop will include three default widgets activated: miniCalendar, miniMessages and miniHome, that will inform you what do you have planned for today (and optionally navigate to other dates with the included calendar), see new and last received messages in eyeMessages and see how much space do you have occupied in your account.
The new widgets will be controlled with a new Widgets Box app which will allow you to see which widgets are installed in the system, add new ones to your desktop and remove existent ones.
Improvements in Calendar and Contacts (see blueprint)
As we did with eyeOS 1.5 and Office, eyeOS 1.6 will include hot improvements for eyeCalendar and eyeContacts, making easier to share information between users using this applications, providing more usability and options.
With the improvements and the XML-RPC system, we can expect for next versions sync tools between the most used desktop apps for calendar and contacts (Microsoft Outlook, Novell Evolution, Mozilla Thunderbird…) and eyeOS PIM tools (eyeCalendar and eyeContacts).
Integrated add-ons from eyeOS-Apps website
eyeOS 1.6 will integrate some cool add-ons (from themes to apps and games) from the eyeOS-Apps community.
For example, the new version will come with the Light Desktop theme, the eyeTetravex game -being the second official game in eyeOS-, eyeXMLViewer and some more.
Improvements in eyeSheets
The Save function in eyeSheets was removed in the eyeOS 1.5 release. Hard work has been done from then, creating a new library which is being used in many projects now, with the collaboration of an eyeOS community member (Juan Lao Tebar). This library (php-ods in Sourceforge) will be used to provide the save functionality in eyeSheets.
Improvements suggested by the community
After the release of eyeOS 1.5, Alexandre Mejat (an eyeOS community member) started a topic in the forums called Suggestions for eyeOS 1.6. While lots of the ideas that appeared there do need some hard work on the system, we have read all the ideas and some of them will be included in eyeOS 1.6.
This ideas include improvements in the themes system (allowing the customization for the four borders in the windows or allowing themes to auto-run applications in the user’s desktop when activated or deactivated, for example).
Note that this kind of topics should be now posted in the new Development Community, specially in the Blueprints pages for registering projects and ideas around eyeOS, which will make much easier to find developers for each idea and get it implemented in the next eyeOS versions.
Optimizing the downloaded data
A new effort on minimizing the amount of data which is sent to the user’s browser on the eyeOS login is being done. eyeOS 1.6 will come with optimized JS libraries and CSS files.
The goal will be to save a 30% of the sent data.
Summary and dates
The new eyeOS 1.6 release will come during April. You can expect the eyeOS 1.6 Beta on an online server to test it (specially the new mobile and sync platforms) by April 15th.
We have noticed the Developers Community it’s starting to rise. We would like every eyeOS developer or user interested in the eyeOS development to join the project’s Mailing Lists to make everything easier to coordinate.
The new ideas have been also added to the eyeOS Launchpad page for Blueprints (ideas and projects). You can follow their continued development from there.
Once again, thanks to the whole community which does help to improve eyeOS day after day.
New official theme: eyeOS Light Desktop
By Pau Garcia-Milà | February, 15 2008 | Development, Releases, Tips & Tricks
We are proud to announce the second official eyeOS theme, available at the eyeOS Applications Community: The eyeOS Light Desktop.
The Light Desktop theme is a lightweight theme that removes the effects-based menus and adds a new left bar on the desktop (that can be easily edited) with the favorite apps and places, with a new menu that shows all the applications.
It will come bundled with eyeOS 1.6 as an optional theme (the default one will be the current one with some improvements).
If you have an eyeOS server, you can download and install this theme easily, following the instructions at the theme’s download page. You can also take a look at the other great eyeOS Themes available there.
If you use the eyeOS Public Server or any other public server that has this theme installed, you can follow this instructions to enable the Light Desktop:
- Open System Preferences
- Go to Autorun Commands and click on New.
- Write eyeLightDesk (note that it’s case sensitive!) and click on Add.
- Go to Theme and select Light Desktop.
- Close your session and log in. That’s all!
If you want your desktop to load faster, you can remove eyeDock and eyeDesk_extras from your Autorun Commands. Just re-add them when you want to switch to the default theme again.
If you are having problems enabling this theme, you can check the common problems and solutions at them theme download page.
Which apps you use in eyeOS and where? [Poll]
By Pau Garcia-Milà | February, 1 2008 | Development, Releases, Tips & Tricks, Website, eyeOS - General
We would love to know where are you using eyeOS, and which apps do you use on the system, to prepare the next releases acording to eyeOS main uses. Please take 20 seconds to answer this two polls:
We will be adding a new poll to resume the main whishes and blueprints for eyeOS 1.6 (add yours at this Forums’ topic) so the Roadmap of eyeOS 1.6 will be built with the most voted ideas.
Thanks!
eyeOS 1.5 Released | eyeOS Professional Services available
By Pau Garcia-Milà | January, 15 2008 | Releases, Website, eyeOS - General
We are proud to announce the release of the most important version of eyeOS ever: the new eyeOS 1.5 “Gala”.
The new eyeOS version is the first to include full support for both the Microsoft Office and OpenOffice formats, for Documents, Spreadsheets and Presentations.
eyeOS 1.5 Gala also introduces new applications, such as eyeMessages (the new Internal Messaging system) and the new eyeContacts and eyeCalendar, which have been rewritten to provide a much better functionality and new features.
There are also new services and libraries available for developers, such as the new Right Click service, which has been implemented to almost all base applications and provides a much better system usage, making it more intuitive for new users.
The new version can be downloaded here and tested in the demo server.
We think that with this version, eyeOS is now Business and Production ready, providing a really stable system to develop and port specific applications for every business. All problems regarding special characters on the whole system have been resolved, providing a much more stable user experience with the desktop and the base applications.
Since some months ago, several people inside and outside the eyeOS community has told us that had plans to use eyeOS profesionnaly. But even with companies being every day more interested about Open Source Software Solutions, they still would need 3 guarantees before moving to an OSS solution :
- Being secure that the software will persist in the future
- Predictability
- Support
This is why we have decided to launch Professional Services around eyeOS, to give a strong base for spreading the eyeOS project in the business area.
We believe that being Open Source, eyeOS has great capabilities of being implemented successfully on Schools and Companies, providing Support, Personalization, Specific Development and Training to all those companies, schools and governments who are interested in.
We also announce today the availability of the new websites of :
- The new eyeOS Open Source Network: eyeOS.org which is and will be the base of the Open Source project and community
- The brand new eyeOS.com website, which offers eyeOS Based Professional Services.
The plans around Professional Services do include to contract and work collaboratively with people in the eyeOS Development Community with the new Professional Projects.
We want to thank specially in this release the whole community which has been testing the latest RC versions and making eyeOS better and better, to the people at OOOForum, who has helped a lot in the new eyeOffice connectors, and to Ricardo Galli, who has helped a lot on the best configurations for the new servers.
About the eyeOS Public Server, we will have it online back in the next hours. The new server will provide more space to each individual user and a great increase of velocity on the whole Server. It will be online tomorrow, with the new eyeOS 1.5 Gala version!
The official annouce of the new eyeOS Hosting Parters and an official press release about the new eyeOS 1.5 Gala will be available soon.
We are proud to announce the immediate availability of eyeOS 1.6.0.0 Beta, which is the result of months of work from the eyeOS Team and eyeOS Community on both the eyeOS Platform and base Applications.
The new eyeOS 1.6 version also includes everything planned on the Global Roadmap plus some new features which were not asigned to a particular release, but have been finally created for eyeOS 1.6.
Testers wanted!
There are still 10 days before the final release, and some testing would be really appreciated. Now it’s the best moment to report bugs through the Bugs reporting tool or in the Bugs mailing list.
Online beta server available
Everybody can test the new eyeOS 1.6 release extensively from the Beta server (you must create a new account first), which is located at beta.eyeos.info.
Download eyeOS 1.6.0.0 Beta
You can also download the eyeOS 1.6.0.0 Beta Release from here. Please keep in mind that this is a package without installer, so it doesn’t include some security features such as the randomization of the whole eyeOS system folder or the generation of the root password during install. Please do not use it on production systems.
Username/password for the package are root/root, and you should give the package the sufficient permissions for your system to make the web server able to run, read and write into it.
About eyeSync
Please note that XML-RPC (the server part for the synchronization) is already bundled with eyeOS 1.6, but that eyeSync 1.0 for Windows, Linux and Mac will be released with the final version of eyeOS 1.6.
What does eyeOS 1.6 include?
To discover what eyeOS 1.6 includes, you may want to read this blog post, plus all this features which have been finally added:
Drag and Drop: eyeOS API finally has a D&D system. This means that you can just move your files between folders, to the desktop, to the trash… by just dragging and dropping them to the correct place!
eyeFeeds: The new feeds reader (formerly known as eyeRSS) provides a completely rewritten interface, which makes much more easier to store and get your favorite feeds inside eyeOS. It does provide automatic link opening in eyeNav, integrated preview panel, tree-organization with folders and subfolders. It’s the first big contribution from Anaël Ollier since he’s on the eyeOffice at Barcelona, so wait for more eyecandy applications during next releases ;-).
miniActions widget: This new widget that comes preloaded with the new eyeOS 1.6 version on the desktop and links common actions on the system in an easy and intuitive way.
eyeNotes: eyeNotes has been integrated with CodePress and features syntax highlighting for the most common programming languages (including .eyecode!).
eyeCode: This new application, only available if you are root, will allow you to modify all the eyeOS applications, libraries, services and kernel from inside eyeOS. This is the first part of eyeDesigner, which was planned on eyeOS 1.0, and allows you to create eyeApps in a comfortable way, within eyeOS.
Small changes here and there: The new Info Screen (yes, doowee comes back from eyeOS 0.x), some design improvements over the whole desktop, a completely rewritten and redesigned calculator, optimization of all the images inside eyeOS and much more.