KompoZer 0.8 pre-release

Ephemera

KompoZer version 0.8 is on the way. As I type, a pre-release version is available for download ^[Ref1] and starting to be used. In fact these web pages were created using version 0.8b1. Oh-eight is devoted to this topic.

KompoZer 0.8 is sufficiently different from version 0.7, and Nvu earlier, that the documentation produced for those products is no longer either sufficient or satisfactory. Oh-eight will try to fill some of this gap and disappear either when a full set of documentation is available or when version 0.8 is superseded by version 0.9.

Oh-eight has two main sections

Functional description

I will describe changes and enhancements found in version 0.8 which differ from earlier versions, trying to match these to the corresponding sections of the User Guide. Unfortunately this means that if you need a complete guide to the product you will have to Box and Cox^{[NOTE 1]} between this and the User Guide ^{[Ref 2]}.

I will use the same breakdown in this description as used in the KompoZer User Guide so pages here will map to pages in the User Guide though, because this is work in progress, the absence of a page here may indicate either that both versions are sufficiently similar or that I still have to cover the area involved.

Bug warnings

KompoZer 0.8 both visually and operationally is very similar to earlier versions but a lot of the underlying code has been rewritten. Although this has cleared up many bugs and other shortcomings other issues have appeared. There is an established route for reporting bugs ^[Ref3] but I have also included a page with bugs that I have noted and which you may need to take into account when using the program.

The way forward

I haven't been putting in much time on the KompoZer User Guide in the past couple of years because I considered it complete but KompoZer seems to be on the brink of a significant step forward. It is likely to gain many more users as a result I feel that it would be appropriate to enhance the User Guide to support this. I realise that at present it has several limitations, for one it describes only how to use it with Windows^® but since KompoZer is tri-licenced this is an anomaly. Unfortunately I have no knowledge of Macs or Linux based systems. I suspect that little change would be needed to remedy this and probably some are using it without any change but I would be glad to cooperate with anybody who would like to help me sort it out.

The second area where I feel vulnerable is that of scripts. Now that KompoZer is gaining a capability in php that is becoming more serious. Again there are lots of sources on how to write scripts, that's not what I am looking for, what I want is to provide the correct and appropriate descriptions of the hooks that KompoZer offers. Perhaps allied to this is Forms. Read section 3.9 of the User Guide and see if you think it is not ridiculously abbreviated.

If you can help in any of these areas please contact me.

Oh-eight is work in progress. I will try to track each version as it is released so expect changes here to reflect this.

Note 1 Box and Cox is a play by J. M. Morton in which Mr Box and Mr Cox shared lodgings but never met since one used the rooms by day the other by night. Sir Arthur Sullivan's short comic opera Cox and Box popularised the piece. I don't guarantee that Oh-eight and the User Guide will live together any better.