Software projects

My software development work can be grouped in three units: TeX & friends related, Debian related, and other stuff.

TeX & friends related projects

My involvement with TeX started during my studies of mathematics. In 2002 I started building binaries for TeX Live on the alpha-linux architecture. In 2005 I contacted Debian about packaging TeX Live for Debian, and started packaging it with the first successful upload in January 2006. In 2007 I participated the first time at the BachoTeX (which was also EuroTeX) giving a talk about TeX Live in Debian. During the meeting we had long discussions how to improve the TeX Live infrastructure, which was based on XML files. A few days later I sent a proposal based on the Debian package file format to the TeX Live mailing list, and by end of May the new infrastructure was in place. The rest is history.

With my move to Japan I also got interested in typesetting specifics of CJK languages, another source of inspiration for my work.

TeX Live Manager

The TeX Live Manager (tlmgr) is the main administration and management program for TeX Live. It comprises several perl modules and the main program, summing up to several thousand of line of code. See the TUG web page dedicated to the TeX Live Manager: http://www.tug.org/texlive/tlmgr.html

tlcockpit – GUI frontend for the TeX Live Manager

Written in Scala with a modern GUI, TLCockpit aims at providing a intuitive and appealing frontend for the hard-core command line management utility TeX Live Manager. The program is included in TeX Live. For details see the github development page or the blog post introducing TLCockpit.

ptex2pdf – converting Japanese TeX files to PDF

Converting documents from with various Japanese TeX programs (ptex/uptex/etc) to pdf is not necessarily trivial, and sometimes a dedicated program doing the necessary steps comes in handy, like in the case of TeXworks. The program is included at least in TeX Live. See the dedicated page or the github devel page for details.

tlptexlive

Updates to TeX Live targeting users of Japanese. See the dedicate page (in Japanese).

jfontmaps

Tools and maps to make various Japanese fonts available for Japanese TeX engines. See the CTAN page or the github development page for details.

cjk-gs-integrate

A script that takes the necessary steps to make various Japanese fonts available for Ghostscript. See the dedicated page or the github development page for details.

WordPress and Piwigo

Another area of development is centered around Piwigo Web album and WordPress:

PiwigoPress – linking Piwigo and WordPress

The PiwigoPress plugin for WordPress allows inclusion of photos from any open installation of Piwigo (Photo Manager). See the dedicated page for details.

Shotwell

I am contributing to Shotwell, a photo organizer for the Gnome Desktop. My contributions are mainly for supporting the Piwigo web album, and the addition of the complete comment system.

Slick Google Map Plugin

The WordPress plugin allows inclusion of Google Maps, with markers and KML support, in WordPress blog posts. See the dedicated page for details.

Other software projects

Kobo Japanese Dictionary Enhancer

This script enhances the Japanese dictionaries provided by Kobo with English translations. See the dedicated page for details.

CafeOBJ

CafeOBJ is a algebraic specification language, in which I have developed several specifications and contribute to the development of the language and interpreter. See the dedicated page for details.

Older or not maintained programs

Debian Development

As written above, I got involved with Debian around 2005, and since then I am the main developer of TeX Live and most TeX related packages in Debian until 2021, when prolonged disagreements with certain entities in Debian triggered a fall-out. The set of packages I (formally still) maintain or co-maintain are best found on the Debian QA page. Reality is that I have switched to Arch to escape a toxic atmosphere in Debian that punished people for expressing their opinions.

rfkill-applet

This program allows switching on and off single rfkill switch using a little GNOME(2!) panel applet. I use it for turning on and off the WWAN, WLAN, and BlueTooth devices on my laptop:Current version: rfkill-applet-0.7.tar.gz

GIT repository: git@gitorious.org:sony-laptop-zseries/rfkill-applet.git

sony-laptop-zseries

This kernel module is an adaption of the original sony-laptop kernel module
first made by Eva Brucherseifer and Matthias Welwarsky, see here for details. It works on the latest kernel and includes support for newer BIOS releases of the Sony Z series, too.For a very detailed explanation and all the details see Raphael’s Sony Vaio Z Blog

If you have any questions please contact the sony-z-series mailing list
at sony-vaio-z-series@lists.launchpad.net.

Current version (for kernel => 2.6.39): sony-laptop-zseries-0.9np8.tar.gz

Version for 2.6.33: sony-laptop-zseries-0.9np6.tar.gz

Old version (for kernel < 2.6.33): sony-laptop-zseries-0.9np5.tar.gz

GIT repository: git@gitorious.org:sony-laptop-zseries/sony-laptop-zseries.git

smmgr

This program controls the USRobotics Message 56k Modem (Message 56k Professional).

The complete functionality of the Message 56k is supported. The smmgr provides a scripting interface as well as an interactive mode. It allows to download messages left on the modem during SelfMode (answering machine mode).

Current Version is 1.0.5, which brings the following new features:

  • Macros
  • Output directly to the soundcard with libgsm, no need to temporarily save the message

Download location: smmgr-1.0.5.tar.gz

New version with changed syntax: smmgr-1.1.3.tar.gz