The last round of news regarding Enlightenment were pretty nice, but one thing that we could see from the community feedback is that there are lots (and I do mean lots) of people out there who do not know its current state. Mostly this is caused by our serious public relations issue (lack of official news, etc.), and we’re planning on fixing this.

But right now, I just wanted to correct some of the misinformation we saw:

  • Question: when will E17 be released?
  • Answer: Soon. No, seriously, I really mean it. Currently work is being done on finalizing a few remaining items of our Release Plan in order to make the first stable release of the libraries, which is the main focus of work right now. After that is done, then focus will be shifted to E17. But if you really want a date, I can’t give you one. Best I can do is say: “join us and help, and then the date will come sooner :P ”.
  • Question: does EFL support OpenGL?
  • Answer: YES, it does, both OpenGL and OpenGL-ES 2.0. There is much to be said on this topic, and some posts with more info and benchmarks are coming soon, but for now just rest assured that there is support for it and it’s kicking ass.
  • Question: is it being  actively developed? Or is it just a bunch of people who are hacking on a project without future?
  • Answer: there is a lot of development going on, and it’s most definitely not a project without future. There are many companies using EFL because the libraries are pretty good, fast and stable. And the libraries can be used for softwares that run by themselves, they definitely do not need E17 to be running. Some examples of projects using EFL are set-top boxes, airplane infotainment systems, etc.
  • Question: why should I use the EFL instead of Qt or GTK+?
  • Answer: the first reason would be because you prefer to use it. Seriously, give it a try. Other than that, if you’re doing a project for an embedded system, chances are the EFL might suit you better than the other two. There was heavy work on optimization done on the libraries, and they usually respond a lot better on smaller hardware than their counterparts. If you’re a designer or working closely with designers on a project, then that might also be a pretty good reason to check out Enlightenment (most specifically Edje).
  • Question: how do I learn more about EFL? How can I help?
  • Answer: documentation is something that we’re working on right now, and it’s one of the main areas we still need to improve a lot. A pretty good place to start is the document that my colleague Gustavo Lima wrote and which is available here. And if you decide you want to help (there are some low hanging fruit there, don’t be afraid) just join us at #edevelop on Freenode and hang there for some time, chances are you will quickly find something to do (and if you haven’t, just ask there and people will quickly find something for you).

That’s it for now. If you have any doubts, just get in touch.