[PyKDE] PyKDE update

[Jim Bublitz]

I'm getting ready to begin test builds for PyKDE-3.8.0. With 
other stuff I have going on (mostly internet connection 
problems) it'll probably be ready around the end of the week.

The changes since the last update are:

1. Added version reporting for both KDE and PyKDE:

>>> from kdecore import KDE, PyKDE
>>> print KDE.versionString ()
3.1.1
>>> print PyKDE.versionString ()
3.8.0

Also methods to return an int for major, minor and release.
This got removed from PyKDE a long time ago and I've been meaning 
to reimplement it (finally did)

2. Documentation - *all* of the docs are now in html in the doc/ 
subdirectory. The README and INSTALL files just say to go there.
I've revised all of the docs and added pages on installation, 
troubleshooting, build.py options and the class ref doc viewer.

The new class ref docs are also included along with the viewer.
The viewer can also generate HTML pages for the class ref docs so 
you can view them with a browser instead if you prefer that. In 
either case the docs will link to the KDE Class Ref docs, either 
locally or online (online doesn't work as well though).  All 
methods are documented in Python format. Generating about 5MB of 
HTML takes 2-3 seconds. Instructions are in the docs. You only 
need the viewer to read the class reference docs, not the 
general documentation which is already HTML.

There are a few bugs in the viewer -- an extra ) or two in 
places; typedef'd types report as the C++ type instead of a 
Python type (pid_t instead of int for example). Some of that 
will be fixed later. The problems seem mostly minor, but this 
hasn't had a public release yet. The fixes are in the code 
generation stuff (presip) and I'll be getting back into that.

3. build.py has changed *again* (I can hear Hans-Peter 
screaming). It isn't what I want for a final version, but there 
are even more changes coming with the next sip/PyQt release and 
other things going on. It should work but needs a little 
re-design internally. The SMP stuff is still there and I think 
it's correct but have no way to test it.

4. Bug fixes - I have a few things to clean up, but nothing 
major. Mostly things like not checking for Python version 
correctly for future cases and things like that.

The tarball has grown considerably (docs, image files) to about 
1.1MB. Packagers may want to do a lib package, devel package and 
docs package.

David Boddie has done a lot of work on KControl, IOSlaves, 
KParts, etc. That stuff probably won't make into this release. 
We've been discussing how to combine it with PyKDE and at the 
moment it looks like it will go into the contrib/ directory and 
have its own build.py (this stuff builds in seconds though). It 
does require creating .so libs (no easy way around it because of 
the way KDE loads pugins), but should be pretty automatic - you 
still won't have to write any C++ to use any of it. 

The next step will be to start converting over to whatever Phil 
releases next (sip 3.9 or 4.0) - that requires changes to both 
code generation and code. I've already looked at the PyKDE-3.2 
alphas, but probably won't start generating code for those until 
the rc's are available.

Jim