GNOME Outreach Program for Women - week 4

This week was mostly an exploration/learning week.

Releasing a Cheese new version

I learned how to create a Cheese release. The release was 2.91.3 and scheduled for Monday 10, to enter the GNOME 2.91.5 Development Release, scheduled for Wednesday 12. ( http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointNinetyone )

The steps to do this (specific to Cheese) are:

• Update to last version:
  $ git pull
• Check that you don't have any modified files:
  $ git status
• Edit configure.ac and and set the release version in the line:
  AC_INIT(cheese, 2.91.3)
  If libcheese api changed, also change the line:
  CHEESE_LT_VERSION=18.0.0
• Update the NEWS file:
  $ tools/mantainer.sh -n 2.91.2
  (Use previous version as parameter to see what changed) (I had to change the first line from #!/bin/sh to #!/bin/bash, depends on your system).
• Tidy up the generated NEWS file, deleting the lines containing translation commits and technical commits intended for developers. Leave only "new feature/fix" commits and group similar commits in single bullet points.
• Create the tarball:
  $ ./autogen.sh (with your usual flags)
  $ make && make distcheck
  
• Upload the tarball (I bumped into some errors here and couldn't create the tarball, so Daniel Siegel uploaded his instead).
  $ scp cheese-2.91.3.tar.gz (user)@master.gnome.org
  Then ssh into master.gnome.org and call install-module.
  $ install-module cheese-2.91.3.tar.gz
  
• Tag the new release: (set the tag message to something like "tagged for 2.91.3 release").
  $ git tag -a 2.91.3
  $ git push origin 2.91.3
• Create the announcement mail and send it to gnome-announce-list and cheese-list:
  $ tools/mantainer.sh -m
• Update the Cheese website:
  Get gnomeweb-wml from git if you don't have it and run
  $ gnomeweb-wml/projects.gnome.org/cheese/update.pl
  and commit the changes.

Finished! A more generic step by step for releasing is here: http://live.gnome.org/MaintainersCorner/Releasing


The following day I rebuilt Cheese from scratch using jhbuild, skipping gobject-introspection which had some problems, and could finally generate a tarball, so next time I'll be more prepared.

Building Cheese from scratch

• Remove .la files from /usr/lib if you have any. (http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/RemovingLaFiles)
• $ jhbuild build cheese (my .jhbuildrc file is here: http://pastie.org/1462382 )
• Get directly from their git repositories these packages:
• - libcanberra
• - vala
• - dconf
• - clutter-gst
• - gst-plugins-bad
• Build and install them. When configuring dconf, use VALAC=/path/to/installed/bin/valac if you installed vala in a different prefix.

This week I also started playing with the idea of creating a new effect, or adding existing effects from frei0r plugins. I looked at frei0r code gallery, especially http://frei0r.dyne.org/gallery?filter=facedetect

I also installed OpenCV and ran the examples. Here is the result for facedetect.cpp :

Cool huh? It also detects two faces at the same time, and even faces using the cheese "stretch" effect!! =P

 (not very "glasses-compatible" tee-hee! x)

Note: the "cheese effect" picture is just that, a picture taken with cheese and then used as input for ./facedetect, it's not the effect already working inside cheese! ;)

Well, we'll see what happens these next weeks, I still have to decide what to focus on, but this effect could be one option.