[GRASS5] GRASS Extensions Manager RC1

[benducke at compuserve.de]

Dear GRASS developers

After several weeks of hard work, I am pleased to announce
the availability of GEM Release Candidate 1.

GEM allows developers to re-package sets of GRASS add-on
modules into conveniently maintainable extensions.
Users will benefit from GEM's ability to install such
extensions into a running GRASS installation without
the need for GRASS sources to be present on the system.

There are still some minor issues with the program but
they are annoyances, no critical bugs.

This version comes with extensive documentation in PDF
and HTML format.

GEM can be downloaded here:

http://www.uni-kiel.de/ufg/dateienDucke/gem-1.0.rc1.tar.gz

Please try it and tell me what you think.
I encourage developers of GRASS add-on modules to migrate them
to a GEM extension.

You will find some extensions on my webpage that you can use
to test GEM (links at bottom of page):

http://www.uni-kiel.de/ufg/ufg_BerDucke.htm

GEM RC 1 comes with binaries for different OS and a "skeleton"
extension that makes creating new extensions and migrating
code out of the GRASS main source tree easy.

GEM now also supports menus for Michael Barton's second
incarnation of the GIS Manager (gis.m). However, I have
not updated the extensions on my webpage for this, yet.

I would like GEM to go into GRASS CVS so that users
of future GRASS versions can benefit from it immediately.

Best,

Benjamin