KLibido - KDE Linux Binaries Downloader

KLibido is a KDE usenet news grabber for Linux.
News Features Screenshots Requirements Download FAQ Mailing lists Tracker

News:

2-Mar-2006 KLibido 0.2.5 - The road to transactions
"Intermediate" release while I finish and test a big work on the db structure that should increase both speed and reliability (or, at least, that's what I hope :)

New features/changes:

  • New option: do not automatically resize columns in headerlist (and remember columns' sizes)
  • New option: Do not automatically sort by subject (and remember the selected sort column)
  • New option: remember order of columns in headerlists
  • Show progress for decoding
  • New action: move to bottom of the queue
  • Sort by number of articles in available groups list (i.e.: when subscribing to newsgroups)
  • New shortcuts in headerLists: clear filter (Ctrl + C) and jump to the filter entry box (Ctrl + F)
  • New option: don't show statusbar at startup
  • French translation
  • During db migration/compact, articles are checked for consistency and discarded (KLibido should not crash anymore if there are bogus articles into dbs). A log of the discarded articles is created in the db dir (default: ~/klibido/db)
  • Progress dialog for db migrations

BugFixes:

  • Don't crash while canceling articles during decoding (and really cancel the article)
  • Cancel of update items while updating dbs now works
  • correctly remember "maximized" status for main Window.
  • Header dates now works in localized distributions as well
  • Various bugfixes (see Changelog)
23-Sep-2005 Debian news
Thanks to Gonéri Le Bouder efforts, KLibido is now included in Debian Sid (aka unstable). The download section has been updated accordingly
15-Sep-2005 New packages
  • Updated packages for Fedora Core 3 (packages for other Fedora versions are welcome)
  • Updated packages for Debian Sid
  • Added an Archlinux section
See the download section for details
13-Sep-2005 KLibido 0.2.4.1 - The bloody break!
Bugfix Release.

Bugfixes:

  • Newzbin download caused an "out-of-space" error
  • Server speed after pausing/resuming the queue now works
  • Small compile fixes
7-Sep-2005 KLibido 0.2.4 - I don't trust you!

New features/changes:

  • Partial loading of headers during loading, to speed up the opening of the headerlists
  • New option in group properties: Automatically delete headers older than xxx days from dbs
  • New action: context menu to manually delete headers from the group databases
  • command-line option to automatically load (--reload-queue, -r) or discard (--discard queue, -d) the download queue
  • Aggregate server speed
  • New widgets in the statusbar to show the total speed of the servers
  • Filter headers by regular expression
  • Incorporate patch #1275361 by Gonéri le Bouder (thanks!) that allows cancel of configuration and makes some additional checks on the dir/dbs when starting
  • added a "window" menu to switch between windows, close the active window and "close with options", overriding default options (i.e.: close a group without marking as read, close a view tab without deleting the file...)
  • Added context menu on tabs.
  • Added article numbers in groups in the "Available groups" list. To load them, reload the list with server->"get list of groups..."
  • Moved saving/updating of queued items into a separate thread (this has greatly improved GUI responsiveness while downloading)

Bugfixes:

  • incorporated the "please subscribe me!" patch
  • It's now possible to cancel paused items
  • Fixed huge memory leak while downloading (sorry guys)
  • Fixed a crash with very long (>100,000 items) headerlists (thanks to Randy Pearson)
  • Fix requeue/multiple servers bug (#1275365)
  • other small bugfixes (see Changelog)
29-Aug-2005 Site news
I finally found some time to activate some Sourceforge's items:
  • Mailing lists: Activated the klibido-users and klibido-devel mailing lists to let some public discussion between developers (just me, at the moment) and users begin. To subscribe, go to the Project page
  • Tracker: I setup the sourceforge tracker for bugreports, feature-requests, patches. Please use it if you have to submit one. It's located here. I inserted some items myself from previous users' e-mail, but it's really too long to catch up. So, if you sent me a feature requests or a bugreport that's not listed in the tracker, please enter it. Thanks.
Next version of KLibido is progressing slowly due to shortage of developer's time. I hope to have something ready quite soon.
20-Aug-2005 Back from holidays
Just a quick note to say a new release of KLibido is due soon (hopefully by the end of August). I'll try to fix memory leaks and add a couple of new features. I also have a lot of e-mail queued, so if you're waiting for an answer, please be patient. Thanks.
18-May-2005 Please subscribe me!
KLibido sometimes (often?) crashes when "subscribe to newgroup" is pressed. Here is a patch which should solve this problem.
10-May-2005 KLibido 0.2.3 - Catch me if you can
Along with Bdb 4.3 support and some bugfixes, this release sports speed improvements to the db management. A quick test showed a 800% gain in total update speed (expire + update). Unbelievable? Try it for yourself ;-]
Of course (sob), this requires an update to the dbs: backup the db dir and be patient. Thank you.

New Features/Changes:

  • Berkeley Db 4.3 support
  • Cache for db updates
  • Partial loading of headers while expiring

Bugfixes

  • UULib decoder sometimes decoded (and saved) only the first part of the post
  • UULib decoder should now honor the decoding options
  • The "internal" decoder didn't decode correctly yencoded single-part files
  • Articles are now expired correctly
  • Viewed files weren't deleted in single-tab view mode.
  • Items in the queue could be dropped "inside" other items (and these caused KLibido to freeze)
  • A crash when resuming the queue was fixed (thanks to Randy Pearson who kindly provided the patch for this)
  • Misc bugfixes
On a side note:
  • if you don't specify --disable debug as a configure parameter, the last entry in the "newsgroup" menu will be "validate newsgroup". THIS IS A DEBUG FUNCTION that must be used with care (or not at all), when the program is COMPLETELY idle. It ouputs some statistical information about the selected newsgroups on the console. Run configure with --disable-debug to get rid of it
  • added some instructions for installation on Ubuntu (thanks to Gael Beaudoin) and updated Gentoo instructions (thanks to Ken Garland) to the download section.
  • Added FAQ. Please read them if you have problems or want to report a bug
04-May-2005 Long time no see
Some news:
  • BerkeleyDb 4.3: As usual, Sleepycat made some minor changes to the Bdb 4.3 API, and KLibido has some problems with this version. I'll make a minor release to address them. Meanwhile, if you have Berkeley Db 4.3 installed, use the CVS version.
  • Decoding problems: Some users reported problems decoding binary posts. It seems to happen only with UUencoded articles, using the UULib decoder; I'll try to revise the code. Meanwhile, if you have problems, try to switch to the internal decoder.
  • Current status: I didn't have time to write a single line of code during the past month, so KLibido is exactly where I left it in March. But I plan to make a bugfix release soon.
18-Mar-2005 KLibido 0.2.2.2 - Headdesk
Bugfix release. On fresh installs (i.e.: if no previous version of KLibido was found), KLibido crashed after the configuration dialog. Thanks to Gonéri le Bouder for finding this bug.
Apologies to all packagers, I swear not to touch a single line of code for the coming month :-].
  • FIX: Crash after configuration dialog on fresh installs
16-Mar-2005 KLibido 0.2.2.1 - So you think you're a programmer?
BugFix relase.
  • Wrong version number in klibidoui.rc
  • Fixed memory leak in the .nzb module
  • Removed debian/ dir from source
13-Mar-2005 KLibido 0.2.2 - My fiancée hates me
This release adds the long-awaited (really? :) NewzBin (.nzb) files support, a new decoder, and more. Please read on.

New Features/Changes:

  • Single-tab view: Articles can be viewed in single, always-opened tab, to avoid cluttering.
  • New option: delete/don't delete viewed file (without asking) when closing a view tab.
  • New option: mark/don't mark articles as read (without asking) when closing an article list.
  • New action: "update selected with options..." allow to download only the last "n" headers of a group.
  • New behavior: during group updates, if the download timeouts, the downloaded headers are inserted in the group, and the update is automatically requeued (from where it stopped). This should solve the problems some users were having downloading very large groups on some servers.
  • New action: file->download .nzb. The parsing code was stolen (with permission :) from David Pye's Knzb. See screenshot
  • New action: "Update current group" updates the group in the currently active tab. This is now the big blue down arrow in the toolbar. "Update selected newsgroups" is still available from the context menu of the group list.
  • Renamed a couple of files to allow compiling on osX (will try to put an howto on this page soon).
  • New decoder: I stole the yy/uu decoding code from David Pye's Knzb, made some modifications/enhancements and included it in this release of KLibido.
    Pros
    • About 8 times faster than UUlib
    • Will eventually let me drop dependency on UULib
    • Decoding options now really works.
    • Better support for foreign characters
    Cons
    • Not well tested as UULib.
    • Does not (for now) decode posts with lines longer than 1024 Bytes
    • Supports only UUencoded and yyencoded posts

    Which decoder to use? It's up to you. I used the "new" decoder for about a week, and found it to be reliable and fast. However, you can still force KLibido to use the UUlib decoder: in the decoding options you can choose between the two (note that, for now, the default is still to use UULib). If you have problems decoding posts with the internal decoder, please let me know

BugFixes:

  • Misc bugfixes.
03-Mar-2005 Mandrake/FreeBSD packages
Added links to Mandrake and FreeBSD packages in the download section.
01-Mar-2005 KLibido 0.2.1.1 - Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
This is a bugfix-only relase: some debug code slipped in and messed up something.

Bugfixes:

  • KLibido didn't delete temporary files created by newsgroup updates
  • Added some conditionals to allow compiling on KDE 3.2
  • Removed some debug messages
22-Feb-2005 KLibido 0.2.1 - The big bad liar
I finally found a couple of nights to work on the next version of KLibido, and here it is. The big bad liar, in case you're wondering, it's me: I promised a maintenance version in January, but I've really been too busy to accomplish the task. But, since I felt guilty, I added some new features, so this is actually a 0.2.1+ version :)

New Features/Changes:

  • New option: always double click to view article (this overrides the global KDE setting)
  • New option: remember filter settings for headerLists
  • New options: enable/disable subject expansion and colums in headerlists
  • Try to avoid jumping around the headerlist when marking articles as read and filtering them out of the list
  • Closing a view now jumps to the previously active tab
  • New action: File->compact databases
  • Misc cosmetic changes

Bugfixes:

  • Workaround for servers with groups starting with dot
  • Resuming of the download queue after a crash/restart now really works (or, at least, I hope :)
  • KLibido crashed if there was not enough temporary space for decoding
  • Infinite loop when downloading articles with lines longer than 100,000 chars (thanks to Randy Pearson who kindly provided the patch for this bug)
  • Subscribed groups weren't properly saved in the "Available groups" database
  • Misc bugFixes (see Changelog)
04-Jan-2005 Near-future plans:
I will probably manage to release a 0.2.1 version in January. It will be only a maintenance relese, with solid recovery of the queue (now it still has some problems) and some other bugfixes. Then I'll start to work on new features:
  • Every newsgroup tab will have an (optional) view pane to display the viewed posts
  • NewzBin files (.nzb) support
Right now I can't provide a timeline for releases after 0.2.1...we'll see.
A bug...don't tell anyone
It's some time I am aware of a problem getting the group list on some servers (e.g.: usenetserver.com), and have coded a workaround for it, but didn't tell anyone :-]. For those having this problem, here is a patch
03-Jan-2005 FreeBSD-CURRENT binary packages
Conrad J. Sabatier was so kind to send me binary packages (both for i386 and AMD64) of KLibido for FreeBSD-CURRENT, and is offering his help to anyone willing to build packages for other versions of FreeBSD. Details in the download section.
28-Dec-2004 Queue amnesiae
There were a lot of bugreports about KLibido crashing when trying to reload the queue. It was a stupid "cut&paste" typo I found in five minutes. I must confess I started investigating because I had 877 items (10 GB) in the queue and didn't want to reload them manually. Shame on me, I'm sorry. Now, there are some problems with the reordering of the items, but this function can still be used in emergencies. Here is a quick patch for the bug.
16-Dec-2004 Slackware packages
Mike Buland sent me KLibido and Berkeley Db packages for Slackware. As usual, they're linked in the download section. Thanks Mike!
02-Dec-2004: Ports and Portage
Two good news for KLibido users:
  • KLibido is now included in Gentoo's portage. Instructions are in the download section.
  • KLibido seems to work well under FreeBSD, and Conrad J. Sabatier is creating a FreeBSD port.
Thanks guys! :-]
17-Nov-2004: OOps, I did it again
Forgot to remove a Db::get_env() call, so 0.2.0 can't compile with BerkeleyDb < 4.2.0. I've done a silent re-release of the source, so if you end with a compile error, try to download it again.
17-Nov-2004: KLibido 0.2.0 - "The Persistence of Memory".
This is a "major" release, with more than 1,000 lines of new code plus a lot of internal changes. There is a new format for a couple of Dbs, so the first time the program is run, the Dbs are migrated. This operation can be lengthy, so please be patient. If you can, backup the database directory (default is $HOME/klibido/db) before starting the program.

New Features/Changes:

  • .nzb support
  • Persistent download queue: KLibido now saves the progress of downloads and, in the event of a crash/restart/whatever, asks the user whether to resume it.
  • Added the shortcut manager and some default shortcuts
  • Double clicking on a header triggers the "view article" action
  • Added group categories and group aliases. This is only a matter of how groups are displayed in the grouplist, but should help people with a lot of subscribed groups. Use the "group properties" to add categories
  • Queue balancing: if you have more than one server subscribed, KLibido tries to balance the load (i.e.: bytes) across the servers, BUT ONLY IF THEY HAVE THE SAME PRIORITY.
    NOTE: this works only with articles whose headers have been downloaded after the Db update
  • KLibido should now gracefully handle write errors, including out-of-space errors: newsgroup updates fail with an "I/O error", while post downloads are kept in the queue AND the queue is paused. This seems a reasonable behavior to me, but I'm accepting comments :)

Bugfixes:

  • Reworked a lot of code in the download threads.
  • Other small (and not-so-small) bugfixes
  • Compile fix for Berkeley Db headers on Mandrake and Gentoo
See the README and the NEWS files for more info.
09-Nov-2004: Release 0.2.0 is nearing and will be in the CVS soon. I'm currently testing the code that saves the progress of the queue, and it seems to work quite well. There are problems with the m4 macro (not written by me) that looks for the Berkeley Db headers. If someone who knows the m4 language wants to help, please contact me. Thanks.
04-Nov-2004: Please, be careful with optimizations, since I'm having reports of strange behaviors of KLibido when compiling with -O3 (or greater)
27-Oct-2004: KLibido 0.12 is released. This is a maintenance release, with a couple of (small) new features and some bug and compile fixes.

New features:

  • Ask to fallback to plain text if trying to view an unknown file type
  • Added specfile and debian/ dir to source distribution
  • Added pause and resume of download threads via a context menu
  • Added "download to directory..." to download selected articles to a specified dir

BugFixes:

  • Various fixes to source code and include files. Now KLibido should compile correctly with KDE 3.2/Qt 3.2 or greater. KDE 3.1 and older versions are unsupported since they don't have the KMdi classes
  • Now it should be possible to login to a server with no posting permission
  • Solved a decoding problem with some UUencoded multi-part articles (thanks to Matthew Mueller, author of nget)
  • Other small bugfixes (see ChangeLog)

Features:

KLibido is in the beta stage. Some things are unimplemented, some don't work as expected, and others will probably cause the program to blow up. For example:

But, if you treat it gently :-], it will work, and I've used it to download hundreds of Gigabytes without any major issue.

Screenshots:

Browsing a group Previewing with KParts The Queue Manager List of subscribed groups .nzb interface
Shots are censored to protect the not-so-innocent :-)

Requirements

Download:

Current release is 0.2.5 Get it on the project page on Sourceforge

There are currently five file releases. The binary packages are generally available shortly after the source release:

Documentation:

Not much:
README (includes a quick start)
Changelog

Credits:

Contacting me

KLibido will hardly progress without contributions from its users. So don't be shy, and send comments, questions, bug reports: bauno_at_inwind.it

License:

KLibido is released under the GNU General Public License
SourceForge.net Logo Last update: 04/Mar/2005 © 2004-2006 Bauno