Nvu, Kompozer, Composer
By glazou on Wednesday 17 October 2007, 12:58 - Nvu - Permalink
I keep receiving a lot of emails/questions about Nvu and its descendants. So here are a few answers :
- yes, I know that Nvu was impossible to download from nvu.com. I pinged Linspire and they updated the page.
Everything should be ok now. - no, I have no more relationship with Linspire about Nvu.
- yes, the name Nvu and its logo are protected.
- no, I'm not helping on Kompozer and yes, I dropped Nvu entirely.
- no, Composer is not dead at all, it's only evolving slowly because I'm working on it on my spare time.
- no, I don't think Kompozer is going to live a long time. Kompozer is only a chrome bug-fix of Nvu and it's still based on the Mozilla 1.7 codebase. It's obsolete. Compared to Composer, Nvu and Kompozer will look like dinosaurs
- yes, Composer will be MPL.
- yes, Composer's code is only minimally based on Nvu's.
- no, Composer is only a code name. The final name is not chosen yet.
More questions ? Add a comment.
Comments
Hello Daniel
> no, Composer is not dead at all, it's only evolving slowly because I'm working on it on my spare time
Any roadmap available, even in the worst case?
Thank you for the work again ...
Is it possible to know approximately when a first Beta of Composer will be available?
Thanks in advance for your reply,
Arnaud
Just my point of view on Nvu and KompoZer...
KompoZer is just a way to keep the Nvu project running. As an example, Nvu had been dropped from Ubuntu Feisty, KompoZer replaces it in Gutsy Gibbon. Nvu has been dropped by Linspire and yourself, Linspire has even closed the official Nvu forum, but there are still a lot of users waiting for bugfixes and support.
It is perfectly true that KompoZer will die as soon as your Composer project gets usable by end users. I am aware of that and I will be one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the new Composer. Most of my current work on KompoZer being chrome-based, it will be easy to port this work for the new Composer project. I am working on the new site manager with this goal in mind.
Kind regards. ;-)
Is there any plan to have a reduced version of Composer as a firefox extension to use it as a wysiwyg toolbar on textarea like Tinymce or fckeditor
A few:
A vision of what Composer will/should be? A Dreamweaver competitor?
Why isn't a open/public software development so other persons could contribute to move the project forward faster?
Why so much secrecy?
"no, I don't think Kompozer is going to live a long time. Kompozer is only a chrome bug-fix of Nvu and it's still based on the Mozilla 1.7 codebase. It's obsolete."
This does not seem right as its "developers" are planing to move its development further by adding new features. Couldn't they help you out or this is unwelcomed?
Thank you.
just thanks for your efforts.
i still fire up nvu/kompozer when i need to spit out some html that i cant be assed coding it.
look forward to the first alpha.
keep up the good work.
Will Composer (or whatever it is named when done) still be compatable with various platforms (specifically Mac OS X)? That is one thing I like about Nvu -- I have it downloaded at home AND work so I can make quick updates to my site as needed.
How will your "Composer" improve the web designing experience...mostly for new people? Will it be easy to use? Will it have tutorials or will it be so straight forward that it doesn't require tutorials? And last but not least, will it include your FullerScreen Pro?
Hello Daniel,
Do you have :
- a list of planned features,
- a roadmap (even in quarter),
- some screenshot,
- nightbuild or preview,
- a pre-qualified list of possible name ...
That's all for today !
actually, two questions :)
1) do you really work alone on composer and no help from outside?
2) when (2007, 2008, later?) can we see pulic alpha? maybe you will get some help as well, then :)
here is the most obvious one : what's the release date ?
"it's only evolving slowly because I'm working on it on my spare time"
Though I am pretty impatient to discover the new beast, I understand perfectly we cannot blame you for being long. Thanks for indulging on this project on your free time.
I am surprised and sorry anyway there is no (small) team of developers interested in giving you a helping hand (?)
- a goofyuser of dinosaur html editors
What are you working on not in your spare time?
Will you have enough time to be the project lead behind helping make Composer as equally prominent an application as the others in the Mozilla-initiated suite?
Here's looking forward to the much needed Composer!
Thank you!!! :-)
I am really glad to hear that Composer is still alive (I am visiting your blog on a regular base and was sad to see no progress on composer since February 2007).
Is there a production schedule or a release date in sight?
Do you have a target of base level functionality in your head that must be reached before you release Composer, if so could you describe this?
Do you have an initial preview or release time frame in mind at the moment, given the slightly slowed progress on the project?
Is there a public repository for the code / binaries at the moment?
Thanks very much.
You've got some good branding going there with nvu (e.g. recently you said some random person beside you was reading a tutorial on it) I'd keep it and call it nvu 2.
When you say MPL, I assume you mean MPL/LGPL/GPL tri-license?
Daniel
This is good news but not a word I have read surprises me (including the impatience obvious in of some of the comments - of course we are all impatient).
If you will need a User Guide and would like me to work on it please let me know. I would probably completely rethink what I did for Nvu. Because this won't be an overnight activity I would appreciate seeing the shape of the beast at as early a stage as is practical.
What is the relation between your current version of Composer and the version being included in the latest nightlies of SeaMonkey? Are they the same? If not, can your version be downloaded (as alpha code) by the intrepid?
Keep up the good work.
Are your fixes and improvements to Composer included in the standard builds of Firefox and Seamonkey?
I'm developing an application that runs in them as an extension (and could run in XulRunner) which uses the <xul:editor/> tag. Do I get those improvements in my application?