The Wyneken 0.5 project has been going on in parallel with Wyneken 0.4 efforts since June 2006. The Aluminum Release marks the first official release in the rolling release series of 0.5. While Aluminum is not feature complete, every effort has been made to make sure it "just works" and will remain compatible with all future releases in 0.5.
Project Themes:Wyneken now uses Wyneken Projects (.wp files) and in those projects, stores Wyneken Documents (.wyn files). However, you won't have to know anything about file extensions! Wyneken only expects you to give it human readable names. When asked for a project name or a document name, answer as freely as you'd like. If you find a string that blows that part of the program up, submit a bug and I'll fix it.
Descriptions:In order to download Wyneken 0.5 Aluminum, you need to make sure that you have met the following dependencies:
While Wyneken may work with versions less than the numbers indicated, it is not guaranteed to work with those versions.
Once you have met the dependencies, proceed to downloading Wyneken 0.5 Aluminum. Download Wyneken 0.5
As the root user, execute the following commands to install Wyneken:
You should now be able to execute the command "wyneken" as a regular user and have the software work.
Enough boring text! Let's see what this thing looks like...
Above, we have what the main window looks like. Each icon can be moused over if you are unsure of what the icon does.
Above, we've just clikced the New button. If we click on Document Wizard, we see one of the new features in Wyneken 0.5:
Above, we have the finished result. If you try this and have None in the author field, then you need to set your name in the preferences panel.
The above screenshot shows the General tab of the preferences panel. Not a whole lot here, but very useful parameters to set. When you get your isbndb.com key, you can give Wyneken that information here.
The above screenshot shows that you can set any PDF viewer that you would like. Right now, Wyneken 0.5 only handles PDF. Plans are to add other formats before Gold is released.
Above, in this part of the preferences pane, you can actually change the font, background color, and foreground color of the text area in which you type.
This screenshot shows the save dialog. You need to specify both a project and a document name unless you have a project opened and you are saving tothat project, but then again -- that's a different dialog.
The following screenshot shows what happens when you go to commit a document. By commiting a document, you are able to return to that version at any time in the future.
When we click on the revisions tab, we can actually see all of the revisions of a document and also choose to revert to a revision.
When you go to open a project, you will see the following:
You will see this instead of the above if you already have a project open:
Once you have selected your project, you are presented with a list of documents in that project:
Notebooks are quite improved in Wyneken 0.5 Aluminum over Wyneken 0.4. When you go to create a new notebook, you will see this screen:
Once you have clicked OK, you are immeidately taken to today's notes in the notebook. Want to change the properties of the notebook and have it open up to the header by default instead of opening to today's notes? Simply edit the notebook properties:
You can also change the name of the notes...
If you wish to add new notes, just click on the plus sign and the following dialog appears:
Wish to edit notes by date? Wyneken can do that to. On the calendar view, dates that are highlighted with bold numbers have notes for them already. You can pick any date and edit the notes for that date. If a day does not have notes and you select it, Wyneken will create notes for that day.
Wyneken 0.5 Aluminum provides you with a project manager:
The bibtool requires an isbndb.com account code to look up bib data via isbn. In order to get one of these accounts, please visit:
https://isbndb.com/account/create.htmlOnce you have made an account, you will need to login to your account and then click on "Developer Area, Remote Access API".
Once you are in the Developer Area, click on "Manage Access Keys". From here, you can generate a new key. The key that you generate will then need to be placed into Wyneken.
In Wyneken, click on the Preferences button at the top. If you do not see which button this is, mouse over the buttons until you find preferences. On the Preferences Screen, you will see a place for "isbndb.com key". Place your key in that text field, click OK, and the bibtool should work fine now.
The main page of the bibliography tool looks like this:
When you go to add a new reference, you are presented with this:
Simply enter an ISBN, click Search, and then click OK. You may have to click Search twice for it to work.
With the introduction of WynDB and the concept of projects, the syntax to the include statement became more complex. In order to get around this, Wyneken includes a dialog which lets you pick a document to include from a list of existing documents and then it takes care of things for you.
That wraps up my overview of Wyneken 0.5 Aluminum. It certainly sheds some light on the key features. If you are interested in what you've seen here, give Wyneken 0.5 a try. And as always -- feedback is appreciated. You can send your feedback to the wyneken users mailing list or through the forums or directly to me.
One last note -- There is a good bit that I've missed, such as PyCode, code blocks in tables, improvements to various pieces of the formatting, etc. In time, I will write about those things, but for now, the above should suffice.
Regards,
Karl J. Abbott
Wyneken Developer