The week ending 11th June 2006

"well, after too many coffees and in between too many projects, here it is finally... my first visible contribution to 'The REBOL Week', this week's post and a new layout. I hope you like the new look and feel. It should be easier to read and a bit less cluttered in general." -Max

REBOL v3

Unicode!
It is now official, Rebol 3 will support Unicode natively, Yippee!!! There seems to be several options open, like how to treat unicode encoded rebol scripts. There is mention of support for at least Utf-16 and Utf-8 within a new unicode! datatype. RT also plans to support the usual series functions on unicode! strings. Don't miss your chance to voice your opinion here: http://www.rebol.net/cgi-bin/r3blog.r?view=0032

TO-HEX considerations for 64 bit integers
Follow the topic here: http://www.rebol.net/cgi-bin/r3blog.r?view=0031

REBOL Browser Plugin News

It seems RT is working on auto-updating the plugin and allowing more than one instance of the plugin to run within on browser instance. more details here: http://www.rebol.net/article/0277.html

REBOL Community Project Updates

OpenGL Server
John Niclasen's OpenGl server improvements continue: "New version uploaded! Added some new functions like gluBuild2DMipmaps, which can build mipmaps for textures." Still only for the OSX, there is a good chance that a client running on Windows will be available shortly. http://home.tiscali.dk/john.niclasen/OpenGL/

RebelBB
Although not released yet, the RebelBB team continues work on their cool 100% REBOL bulletin board system. Did you know you could get the source to this tool by clicking on the "code" button of the BB itself? http://www.digicamsoft.com/cgi-bin/rebelBB.cgi

MySQL
DocKimbel has released a new version of his MySQL protocol driver.
"Good news : I've finally reached a very stable version of the mysql driver with v5+ servers ! The stability garanted only if using a database created with a v5+ server, copying old 3.x files in v5 server works but results in a big mess and unstable behaviour. Exporting/Importing v3.x data in v5 server using SQL flat files works very well (except for user with passwords, better recreate them in v5 directly)."
http://softinnov.org/tmp/mysql-protocol.r

Rebudoko-It!
v1.5.0 is now featuring:
+ 30 new special Sudokos
+ an editor to create your own Sudokos
+ a solver for automatically solving Sudokos
web: http://www.TGD-Consulting.de/Download.html
Reb: http://www.TGD-Consulting.de/index.r

A few announcements from Ryan Cole
A simple to use progress indicator I use in my automation scripts...
www.practicalproductivity.com/files/progress.r

Snip and splice, must-haves for text processing...
www.practicalproductivity.com/files/snippers.r

Some tools for working with headers and allow you to disable http redirects... The following is not well tested, so feedback is welcome.
www.practicalproductivity.com/files/http-tools.r

Try Joystick Navigator If you have wrist issues from using the mouse (windows) . No rebol inside, but it may help make more rebol software.
www.practicalproductivity.com/joy-nav/

Ryan also has a patch for sending html emails. Its pretty rough at this point, so contact him if you must have it.


Beer!
The release version has been finalised and is ready for distribution. It is expected in the following days.

New Tools On REBOL.ORG

metadata.r - Gives access to OSX Spotlight Metadata
download it!

ngbg2.r - Download the current picture of the day from nationalgeographic.com
"Saves images to a location of your choice. This new version can now download all past POD (pictures of the day) images starting from 2001-04-21 to current date."
look for more details within the code's header itself!
download it!

rm.r - Remove part of a string using parse
This is a short One-line which might be helpful for learning or just a nifty func to add to your utility belt.
download it!

vprint.r - advanced, flexible, selective output/tracing/logging module
features: Extremely easy to setup and use (drop-in equivalents to Print/Prin/probe/?? ... even in logs! :-), hierarchical nesting of any output (tracing), transparent logging, on-the-fly selection of output, "allow and deny" any combination of individual tags to be output/logged , postponed output buffer for tight loops (not implemented for log).
download it!

Updated Tools On REBOL.ORG

printf.r - Wrapper for the printf and sprintf C routines
Are you missing the good 'ol printf or sprintf? Did you know, they've been wrapped for REBOL? The only downside is that you need a license of rebol which accesses dll (SDK, command or view/pro)... but for those of you who do... its a welcome script. Also a good script to look at for learning library usage... clear and concise. :-)
download it!

That's it for this week. Remember that you can promote any of your REBOL efforts to 'The REBOL Week' compilation by posting to the REBOL Mailing List , or on either the 'announce' or 'rebolweek' groups of the Rebol3 AltMe world.