I just released MPUI 1.1.6. This is mainly a small bugfix release that only adds very few features. The next big step will be the rewrite of the options/configuration system.

For those who are interested in helping with MPUI (besides what is written on MPUI’s website), I do have two other tasks left to do:

1. This is for everyone: I need lots of example files to test with. If you have small (~10MB max) media files in exotic formats (mkv? nut?), with exotic configurations (17 audio tracks? embedded subtitles?) or exotic codecs (vp6? snow?), please make them available to me. Do NOT send me e-mails with attached media files unless I ask for it! In particular, I could need auxiliary subtitle files in all those ugly formats that exist (vobsub? ssa? whatever, I don’t even know them all). I do not care about the content of the files (porn? :), as long as it’s no illegal stuff.
2. I could need help from someone who is good at creating icons, pictograms and all that stuff. I’d like to replace the minimalistic MPUI icons with nice and modern true-color ones. If you have some experience in painting or drawing images at 16×16 pixels and would like to improve MPUI’s looks, please send me an e-mail so we can discuss the details.

Exactly one month ago, I released MPUI 1.1.4. The first bug reports came in only one day after the release, so I planned that 1.1.5 shall be a bugfix release some days later. For reasons I can’t remember, I missed this date. This may be in part due to the fact that my TODO list grew, no, it exploded because of countless suggestions I received. In addition, there were the preparations for the CLT that left almost no time for other stuff.

In the time that was left, I started to implement the lesser features (as in »requiring the least time to implement«) on my list. If I hadn’t decided to draw the line today, development of 1.1.5 would have continued forever, I guess.
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Remember what I said about the tedious job of maintaining software projects? This time, it even struck me twice: Just two days after the release of MPUI 1.1.1, I received a batch of bug reports and other suggestions, so I did another rework of MPUI yesterday. Next to half a dozen minor bugfixes, I finally implemented a »clip info« feature that relieves the user from the task of parsing the (sometimes cryptic) MPlayer output.

This morning, even before I left my bed, a good friend …erm… persuaded me to add a new feature to CENSORED: He is preparing a presentation to be held at the university. The problem is, the computer where he’s going to show the slides is not his, and it’s equipped with an ancient GhostScript installation. The 7.x versions of GS have some serious issues with rendering PDF files generated by pdf(La)TeX. For example, hypens (‘-’) are shown at completely wrong places. To overcome this, I added an option to »render« a PDF into a directory with one PNG file per page, thus allowing to generate images on one computer (that is equipped with a decent version of GhostScript) and presenting them on another one.

I love coding, but to the same extent I hate project maintenance. This is a problem I share with most other coders, I guess – but well, sometimes it just has to be done. And today it was MPUI‘s turn to get some fixes.
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