Hello!

This is to announce the beta test release of gerbv-2.0.0!

Release 2.0.0 represents a a whole new look for gerbv.  Most importantly, the
layer control GUI has been made much more powerful through the outstanding
work of Julian Lamb.  Julian has also re-worked the GUI's button and menus to
make them more  convenient to use.  We are certain that you  will find
gerbv-2.0.0 even easier to use than before because of Julian's amazing work!

Other changes include: 

* Julian Lamb incorporated the cairo graphics library into gerbv,
  thereby enabling export to a variety of different output file
  formats, including PDF, PS, SVG, and PNG.  
  (GDK rendering remains available as a configure option for
  older Linux systems.)
* Drill parser rewrite by Joerg Wunsch giving better support for
  internationalization and formats.
* Added report windows showing statistics of Gerber and 
  drill codes used (as well as CAM errors) by Stuart Brorson.
* Parser improvements from Stefan Petersen and Julian Lamb.
* Aperture handling improvements from Stefan Petersen.
* A new unit test suite (and nightly test runs) by Dan McMahill.
* Improved autodetection of file-type by Stuart Brorson.
* Improvements in the graphical rendering of pick-and-place files.
* Export of images from the command line (cairo only).
* Complete implementation of the Gerber spec.
* Open multiple layers at once in File->Open dialog.

This is a beta test release to the denizens of geda-dev.  We would appreciate
it if you could take some time to download the beta test release of
gerbv-2.0.0-beta and take it for at test drive.  If you find any bugs, please
report them on the gerbv.sf.net bug tracker (or email one of the gerbv
developers).  

The homepage for gerbv still lives on SourceForge: 
        http://gerbv.sourceforge.net/.
There you will find a bug database, a feature request database, the CVS repo
and a commit mailinglist. 

To download gerbv-2.0.0-beta, go to 
        http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/gerbv/
and grab gerbv-2.0.0-beta.tar.gz

To install gerbv do this:
1. tar zxf gerbv-2.0.0-beta.tar.gz
2. cd gerbv-2.0.0-beta
3. ./configure
4. make && make install

Interesting configure options are:
--help              : Lists all configure options.
--disable-cairo     : Use GDK instead of cairo for graphics rendering.
--disable-exportpng : Disable compilation of export of PNGs.
--prefix=<dir>      : Install to dir <prefix>.
--with-maxfiles     : Set maximal number of files (default 20).
--enable-unit-mm    : Change default unit in status bar to mm from inch.

Thank you for trying out gerbv-2.0.0-beta!

                              -- The gerb team