Padre 0.47 is out

Padre 0.47 was released a couple of days ago. Special thanks goes to all of our Padre developers and translators. This release includes a very long list of stability bug-fixes and feature upgrades.

How to install it?

• Download and install Padre Standalone 0.45 release to obtain the greatest and latest in Perl's CPAN world.
• In your command line, run the one-liner upgrade script to upgrade to it:
  perl -MCPAN -e "CPAN->upgrade('/^Padre/')"
• Run "Padre" shortcut from your start menu.

What's new?

Here are some of the features that are in this release:

Improved Integration with Windows

Padre now features a native Padre executable launcher (padre.exe) that is installed by default in c:\strawberry\perl\bin. This launcher runs Padre using wperl.exe instead of perl.exe. So no more black command prompt windows while launching Padre. If still you need these screens (e.g. to debug a Padre bug), you can simply run "padre.bat". Perl's syntax checker now works every one second in the background which means faster and more predictable syntax checking behavior.

Better handling of line endings

Padre can now detect the document's line endings (i.e. newlines or end of lines). So mixed line endings are detected and displayed in the status bar as "Mixed". In addition to that, the auto-conversion of line endings is now officially removed.

Improved About box

While strictly not a feature on its own, we really like our new About box :) The info tab provides configuration information along with Padre's uptime and process size in Megabytes.

The New Padre Perl Six Updater

If you would like to try Rakudo Perl 6 "Seattle" Release #21, or switch between Rakudo Perl 6 releases and you are using Padre on Windows, then please try the following. I uploaded yesterday version 0.60 of Padre::Plugin::Perl6 to CPAN which has this lovely Rakudo Perl 6 updater tool.

How to install it?

• Install Padre Standalone 0.45 MSI Installer. This step is optional if you already have Padre Almost Six 0.41 installed.
• Upgrade to the latest Padre via this one-liner:
  perl -MCPAN -e "CPAN->upgrade('/^Padre/')"
• Make sure you have Perl 6 support plugin installed. You should have at least version 0.60 to use Six Updater.
  cpan Padre::Plugin::Perl6
• Run Padre's shortcut from the Start menu or type "padre" into the "Run Program" dialog.
• Please make sure that Perl 6 plugin is enabled in Padre's plugin manager (i.e. if you do not see a Perl 6 sub menu under Plugins menu).
• Click on "Update Six" like this:

• Click on "Install Six" button and please wait until it is installed. The installation happens in the background and visual feedback in shown in the output panel.
• Once installed, create a new Perl 6 script (File -> New -> Perl 6 Script) and run it (F5) using your newly installed Rakudo in c:\strawberry\six.

It is currently limited to the last two binary releases; namely Seattle #21 (September 2009) and PDX #20 (August 2009). I will keeping updating it in the future for upcoming monthly Rakudo Perl 6 releases. Any feedback is appreciated :)

What's new in Padre 0.46

Padre 0.46 was released a couple of days ago by our new and cool Padre release maintainer Ryan Niebur. First of all, thanks for all the great effort that Padre developers and translators put into this release. This release includes a lot of stability bug-fixes and feature upgrades. It also coincides with Curtis Jewell's Padre standalone 0.45 win32 release which has a more recent version of Strawberry Perl.

How to install it?

• Remove any previous Strawberry or Almost Six installation. Please Make sure that c:\strawberry is not there after Removal.
• Download and install Padre Standalone 0.45 release to obtain the latest in Perl's CPAN world.
• In your command line, run the one-liner upgrade script to upgrade to Padre 0.46:
  perl -MCPAN -e "CPAN->upgrade('/^Padre/')"
• Run "Padre" shortcut from your start menu.

What's new?

Here are some of the features that are in this release:

Smart highlighting

Simply double click on a word to show all of its occurrences in the current document.

A better help search dialog (Shortcut: F2)

Press F2 on any thing in your script and help search will try to find its documentation. In some case where the cursor is above a special character, you may need to select it first and then press F2. The following is currently included in the help index:

• Perl core language reference (e.g. perlintro)
• Perl pragmas (e.g. strict, warnings)
• Perl core modules (e.g. File::Spec)
• Perl variables (e.g. @_, $_)
• Perl functions (e.g. print, open)
• Perl operators reference (e.g. X and Y, !X). This is taken from cowens's perlopref.pod github project.

Detection of common beginner errors

Padre can now detect common beginner errors when in beginner mode which can be turned on in Edit -> Preferences. Simply run a Perl script using "Run -> Run Script (F5)" or "Perl -> Common (beginner) errors" and it will catch most of the errors detailed in the PerlMonks "Little annoying mistakes" post.

Extract subroutine

Yes! Padre has an exciting extract subroutine refactoring tool which is based on Devel::Refactor. This is totally experimentally and will likely improve quite a bit in future releases. It is accessible from the Perl menu.

Upgrading to Rakudo Perl 6 PDX

If you would like to try Rakudo's Perl 6 #20 "PDX" release using Padre over windows, please follow these instructions:

• Install Padre's Almost Six 0.41 MSI Installer.
• Upgrade to the latest Padre via this one-liner:
  perl -MCPAN -e "CPAN->upgrade('/^Padre/')"
• Extract the following zip file into c:\strawberry
• Run Padre!

Or you can wait for the next release Padre's Almost Six which is coming soon :)

A one-liner to upgrade Padre's "Almost Six"

First of all Padre 0.44 is out (garu++). In an effort to make upgrading Padre's "Almost Six" to the latest Padre easier for windows users, I thought of this one liner:

perl -MCPAN -e "CPAN->upgrade('/^Padre/')"

Upgrading takes like 5-7 minutes on my new laptop. This will keep you happy until we release the next version of "Almost Six" later this week :) Thanks for Ruslan U. Zakirov for the idea. Padre's "Almost Six" enables you to program Perl 5 and 6 applications on windows. It contains Strawberry Perl, Padre, Rakudo Perl 6 and Padre's Perl 6 plugin in one easy-to-install MSI installer.

Upgrading Padre "Almost Six"

I would like to share my experience in upgrading Padre "Almost Six" version 0.41 to 0.43 via cpan (Thanks to Audrey Tang for the idea). If you do not have Padre Six distribution, please download and install it from:

http://strawberryperl.com/download/padre/almost-six-0.41.msi

Please note that Padre "Almost Six" MSI package installs Perl to c:\strawberry and Rakudo to c:\strawberry\six. After installing, you'll have Padre 0.41 and Rakudo Perl 6 release #19 "Chicago" and Perl6 plugin 0.55. To start upgrading Padre, please type:

cpan Padre

You will see cpan complaining about dependencies like this. No worries. It will upgrade them automatically.

Warning: prerequisite File::Next 1.06 not found. We have 1.02.

Warning: prerequisite PPI 1.205 not found. We have 1.203.

Warning: prerequisite PPIx::EditorTools 0.08 not found. We have 0.07.

Now Padre 0.43 is ready to go. To launch Padre, type 'padre' on the command line or simply click on the shortcut in the start menu "Padre Standalone Plus Six/Padre". If you going to try Perl 6, I suggest upgrading Perl 6 plugin to 0.57 after closing Padre via the following command:

cpan Padre::Plugin::Perl6

Again, cpan will greet you with the following errors/warnings which is perfectly normal... no worries there and it will install them correctly.

- ERROR: App::Grok (0.17) is installed, but we need version >= 0.19

- ERROR: Syntax::Highlight::Perl6 (0.65) is installed, but we need version >= 0.71

- ERROR: Padre (0.43) is installed, but we need version >= 0.44

Voilà, you have you upgraded Padre to 0.43. Padre 0.44 is scheduled to be released this week by Breno G. de Oliveira and soon afterwards a new Padre/Rakudo Perl 6 distribution from Curtis Jewell will follow.

Padre's Perl 6 version 0.54

Padre Perl 6 plugin (0.54) is now on CPAN. This release breaks compatibility with older Padre versions so you need to upgrade to Padre 0.41. A lot of refactoring was done by Gabor Szabo to re-use Padre's new mime-type to highlighter list support.

A plugin now can contribute one or more highlighters to a mime-type. So for example, Parrot plugin contributes a Perl 6 highlighter to Padre which is based on PGE (Parrot Grammar Engine) highlighter. This used to be a part of Perl 6 plugin.

To install Padre Perl 6 support, cpan Padre::Plugin::Perl6. For Padre or Perl 6 help, please visit #padre on irc.perl.org or #perl6 on irc.freenode.net.