Importing translations and translation templates
Published by Matthew Revell June 18, 2009 in Translations
When you’re ready to start translating your project in Launchpad, there are a couple of ways to import your GNU Gettext translation templates (.pot) and translation files (.po) into Launchpad.
We recently introduced continuous imports from Bazaar branches or you can upload a tarball through the web interface.
There are, though, a few simple rules you need to follow to make sure your templates and translations are imported correctly. I’ve recently rewritten them to make them easier to follow and to add a few more tips for getting your templates right first time.
Read our translations import policy.
Launchpad’s bug import format
Published by Matthew Revell June 17, 2009 in Bug Tracking
Earlier today, Graham wrote about the Trac to Launchpad migrator.
In his post, Graham mentioned the XML schema we use as an interchange format when bringing a project’s bug history from elsewhere. It’s something that we knocked together to help projects when they move from other bug trackers. Although it’s still something that’s in development, you can use it as an intermediate format if you’re planning to import your project’s bug history from another tracker.
You can find the format, and also subscribe to get any updates if we make changes, over on the help page.
Making bug migration that bit easier
Published by Graham Binns in Bug Tracking, Cool new stuff
Greetings, readers!
For a while now I’ve been the Launchpad developer in charge of helping users of other bug trackers migrate their projects to Launchpad. We do this reasonably regularly for users of Trac, SourceForge and Bugzilla, and we’re always open to helping people migrate from other solutions should they wish to.
Several months back, the Elisa project migrated from Trac to Launchpad. In doing so, they wrote a script to take their Trac database and convert it to the Launchpad bug interchange format, which is an XML schema that we use for bug imports (you give us an XML document containing your bugs that conforms to the interchange format schema and we can then import it into Launchpad for you).
More recently, we realised that we were getting quite a few requests from Trac users for help with migration. We went back to the Elisa developers and asked if they’d be willing to let us have their migration tool under the GPL so that we could share it with everyone. They kindly said yes, passed the code to us under GPLv3, and yesterday I made it available on Launchpad as the Trac to Launchpad Migrator project.
It’s a bit rough around the edges at the moment and needs some documentation, but more than anything else it needs people to test it and use it so that we can make migrating from Trac to Launchpad as smooth as possible.
Update: Matthew’s written a blog post about our bug import format.
Launchpad offline 22.00 – 22.10 UTC 4th June
Published by Matthew Revell June 3, 2009 in Notifications
We’re taking Launchpad offline for around ten minutes from 22.00 UTC on the 4th June. This is to increase the document storage space available to Launchpad.
Going offline: 22.00 UTC 4th June 2009
Expected back: 22.10 UTC 4th June 2009
Note: Launchpad’s OpenID service will remain online throughout this downtime.
Sparklines!
Published by Matthew Revell May 28, 2009 in Code
I like neat little tricks that make it easier to take in a wedge of information. Martin Albisetti‘s addition to a project branch overview pages is just one of those.
Now, the trunk branch of a project has a visual representation of its activity over the past 90 days. You’ve probably seen similar mini-graphs elsewhere, particularly if you’re a fan of the work of Edward Tufte who names them “sparklines”.
At a glance you get a feel for how many commits the branch has been getting, the distribution of its commits and when its busiest day was during that period.
Take a look at the Bazaar project’s code page for an example, or watch this short video.
Launchpad’s YouTube channel
Published by Matthew Revell May 27, 2009 in General
I’ve set up a Launchpad channel on YouTube. Along with other members of the Launchpad team, I’ll be posting tutorials, demos of new features and more.
If you have a request for a video you’d like to see, file a bug in the Launchpad Documentation project! Or make it yourself and get in touch.
To kick things off, there’s a video showing the new in-line tag editing on bugs pages.
Update: I neglected to mention that all our videos are also online in Ogg Theora format.
In-line bug tag editing and subscriptions
Published by Matthew Revell in Bug Tracking, Cool new stuff
There’s now more Ajaxy goodness on bug pages: in-line bug tag editing and also in-line subscriptions.
Both are simple actions that I always wished could happen without a page reload.
Have a look at the video I made or give it a go over on Launchpad’s staging environment without affecting real bug data.
View this video in Ogg Theora format.
Git branch imports now in public beta
Published by Matthew Revell May 26, 2009 in Code
Launchpad is all about bringing free software activity together in one place: it gives you one page to view the same bug as it is tracked in multiple places, you can hold discussions with other people using mailing lists and you can import code from around the web ready to use in a Bazaar branch.
Kiko calls it the great source code supermarket. Using Launchpad and Bazaar, you can access the code and version control history of projects who host their Bazaar branches or Subversion and CVS repositories pretty much anywhere on the net.
This month, we’ve added Git branches.
Try it out, tell us how you get on
Now Launchpad can import a project’s Git branch, using Bazaar’s bzr-git plugin, into a Bazaar branch hosted on Launchpad. We’re considering this as a public beta so we really want to know how you get on. Either post here or join us on the launchpad-users list.
There’s one significant limitation in this public beta: it won’t yet import Linux kernel branches. Jelmer, who has done much of the work on bzr-git, explains:
“As part of the Git network protocol Bazaar has to inform the Git server of the checksums of the Git revisions it already has, so the server doesn’t send it the full repository each time. To calculate these SHA1s Bazaar
has to bit-for-bit reconstruct the original Git revisions from the revisions that have been imported into Bazaar earlier.The first versions of git did not normalize file modes, and this in some situations led to file modes that can not be represented in Bazaar. This makes it impossible to recalculate the checksum of the original revision from the data in Bazaar.”
You get the Git branch’s version history and it works just like any other Bazaar branch. Launchpad then regularly pulls the latest version of the Git branch into the Bazaar branch.
For now, Launchpad will import master Git branches only. We’re looking at ways of importing non-master branches.
Request an import and let us know how you get on.
Launchpad read-only 22.00 UTC
Published by Matthew Revell in Notifications
We’re releasing Launchpad 2.2.5 today (26th May) at 22.00 UTC. While we roll-out the code, Launchpad will be read-only.
- Going read-only: 22.00 UTC 26th May 2009
- Back to normal: 23.00 UTC 26th May 2009
You may notice a couple of minutes around 22.00 where Launchpad is offline. That’s while we switch to read-only mode.
This release was planned for the 27th of May. We’re sorry for the short notice of the change in our release date.
What’s a build score, then?
Published by Matthew Revell May 8, 2009 in PPA
If you upload source packages to Launchpad — either to be built and distributed in a PPA or for Ubuntu’s primary archive — you’ve probably spotted the term “build score” and wondered what it represents.
A build score is the priority that Launchpad has assigned to a particular build job. I’ve just added a new page to the Launchpad help wiki that explains how Launchpad decides that priority but here’s the quick version.
When you upload a source package, Launchpad looks at:
- the target component
- the target pocket
- source urgency — defined by the packager
- time since upload to the queue
- whether the package is destined for a public or private PPA.
Launchpad then gives the build a score in each of those categories, adds it all up and the total is the build score you see on the build details page. The higher number, the higher the priority.
So, for example, a build destined for the security pocket gets a higher priority than a backport. However, to prevent lower priority packages from never making it to a builder, packages get an extra few points as they get older.
Get the full details in the guide over on the help wiki.
