Hi,

it's time for the next release of Gerber Viewer, aka gerbv, 
the "no guile problem" release.

There has not been so long time ago since last release. My and Anders
former employer filed for bancruptcy and we was left without work. Now 
I've got one and I'm back on track. And Anders has gotten up to speed in 
contributing amazing things to gerbv.

Number of bugs that has caused images to be drawn incorrectly starts 
to get really low. This release is no difference in the bug hunt. A 
couple of apertures drawn wrong has been fixed, like lines with square
apertures and rotation of aperture macro primitive 4. But now many extra 
features starts to get implemented. One of the biggest news is zoom 
outline and the measurement tools. You can also export the image as PNG,
thanks to Dino Ghilardi (not compiled in by default currently).

As noted, Guile is no longer default when configuring/compiling gerbv.
The backend was lagging behind the parser, noone was interested in using
the backends and Guile installation always gave people headache. If you 
want Guile, then tell me fast, because next release I also plan to remove 
all strange defines in the code due to Guile. 

Dinos export-PNG code has added some new dependencies on external 
libraries. Next release I plan to have this export-PNG in by default 
as Guile was before. My idea is to change only one library dependency at
a time. Is this good or bad?

For the next release most of the ideas are in the feature request database. 
If you have any further ideas, either email me so I can add them or enter 
them yourself. I have also started a mailinglist. It's very boring, since
the only traffic is the commit mails. But if you like to bleed, you can 
follow the progress extremely close.

Comments, patches and suggestions are, as always, very welcome. We use 
the bug database and feature request database available through sourceforge. 
Have a look there if you curious what's going on or if you have any idea 
that you think should be implemented in gerbv.

Homepage for gerbv is still http://gerbv.sourceforge.net/ where bug database,
feature request database, CVS and mail list are available.

To download gerbv goto 
	http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/gerbv/
and grab gerbv-0.0.9.tar.gz

To install the program do
1. gzip -dc gerbv-0.0.9.tar.gz | tar xf -
2. cd gerbv-0.0.9
3. ./configure
4. make install

Interesting configure options are:
--help             : Lists all options
--enable-batch     : Enable compilation of Guile/Scheme backends
--enable-exportpng : Enable compilation of export of PNGs
--prefix=<dir>     : Install from dir <prefix>


What's new in 0.0.9
- Zooming uses parts of current scale and not hardcoded values. The 
  zooming is more smooth now.
- Zoom outline: 
   - Right mouse button gives zoom outline with one corner where you 
     clicked the mouse and the other where the mouse is at the moment.
   - If you press shift+right mousebutton you get zoom outline  with 
     the center where the mouse was when you started.
  Zoom outline draws two squares: one where you select and one dashed 
  showing actual zoom area controlled by aspect ratio of your window.
- A measurement tool so you can do measurements on the gerberfiles.
  It's controlled by shift and left mousebutton.
- A statusbar with current position for mousepointer in absoulute 
  coordinates and the measurement result.
- Proper handling of layer polarity, also called %LP% or  
  paint/scratch/paint.
- When you load a file via the menu it remembers which directory you
  used and starts in that directory next time you load a file.
- Dynamically handling of corners in polygons.
- Reload files. By selecting this menu alternative (or pressing Alt+r) 
  you reload all loaded files from disk again. Good when hacking and 
  debugging gerberfiles.
- It's possible to use gerberfiles with negative coordinates
- Possible to change the background color.
- Added export of PNG's submitted by Dino Ghilardi. Currently it's not 
  default when compiling gerbv, you have to use --enable-exportpng when
  running configure. The reason is that feature depends on gdk-pixbuf 
  and libpng and I don't want to make too many dependency changes in 
  one release.
- Guile is not compiled in by default. To use that you have to give
  --enable-batch to configure to get it to work.
- A sleeve of minor bugfixes.
- Probably a sleeve of added bugs.