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[RaiMan <question209853@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Question #209853 on Sikuli changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/sikuli/+question/209853

    Status: Open => Answered

RaiMan proposed the following answer:
--- Sikuli development dead?
Not really, but it definitely is currently in a comatose condition.

Sean (Tsung-Hsiang Chang aka vgod) after his recent graduation currently
has other priorities (the last 2 years he was the only real Sikuli
developer)

Tom Yeh has left MIT and is busy with a leading position at another
university. A few month ago he restarted the development of a totally
new Sikuli (only on the Java level, not compatible with what we
currently know as Sikuli and no Python support). But the project pages
simply vanished from the net without any comment.

----------------
I'm beginning to wonder if my continuous investment of time and effort in making all these Sikuli scripts is going to bite me when it suddenly stops working with the next OS patch (or whatever...it is quite a daisy chain of tech), leaving me high and dry.
----------------
I understand this, but we should not be too scared about that.
I really believe: running scripts based on the latest version of Sikuli will do their job for enough time in the future, at least for Mac and Windows (new versions of Linux always have been a problem in the past and currently are (see Ubuntu 12), since you have to setup the prereqs (OpenCV, Tesseract, ...) yourself).

The near future (at least 2 years) we will not have any problems
- already tested on Windows 8 - works
- it is running on Mac 10.8 (Mountain Lion)

The changes we already faced:
--- Java 7
not really a big problem. Some minor adaptions and it works (see faq 1958)
But since it is possible, to have JRE6 in parallel on your machine and only use it for Sikuli, this is not really a problem.

--- OpenCV 2.4 (the base for image searching)
the current bundled versions (Windows, Mac) still use 2.1 and this works.
With some minor adaptions it can be built with 2.4 and works.

--- Tesseract 3.0 (the base for OCR and text search)
The current Version comes with and needs Tesseract 2.
For Tessearct itself, the step to version 3 is a big step and needs major changes in Sikuli (there is already a development branch for this).
So it is not trivial (but possible: there are some Linux guys, who didi it), to build Sikuli with Tesseract 3. On the other hand: without using the additional possibilities of Tesseract 3, there really is no need to upgrade.

*** So what is left currently
--- There are some weird bugs, mainly in the IDE, that I think we can live with (if you use Sikuli for more than some private automation, you will use another IDE like Eclipse, Netbeans, ... anyway (to at least have a debugging feature).
--- For the basic features of Sikuli (support to run Sikuli scripts and using the API in Java) there are some minor bugs (the most of them have workarounds) and surely many feature requests (that one could rather easy implement on the Java level, if really needed).

*** CONCLUSION
Be happy with Sikuli, if you really like it (that is rather easy ;-) and do not panic.

*** ONE MORE THING
I just started to revise the Sikuli sources using NetBeans 7.2 (Java 6) on my Mac. 

my goals for using Sikuli:
Part 1 (on Mac)
- reduce it to the really needed basic features and goodies that really work
- make it lean and robust, so it comes into a shape, that it can be further developed 
  (see https://blueprints.launchpad.net/sikuli/+spec/sikuli-revise-api-and-structure)
- revise the system specific interfaces
- revise and augment the logging feature 
- fix some major bugs (I will not touch the OCR/searchText area currently, but isolate it better)
- implement some requests, that fit with what i am already revising
- get it working with Java 7 AND Java 6
- make it working with OpenCV 2.4 and Tesseract 3 (without adding features)
- assure, that everything still works, that works with X-1.0rc3-r930
Part 2:
- Get it working on Windows 8 and Ubuntu 12 using Netbeans
- get the whole stuff into one makeSikuli.jar for all systems, so you just run that, and get a working environment on your system

my goals for developing Sikuli:
Part 3:
- major: revise, cluster and prioritize the bugs and requests
- major: revise the tests for Sikuli IDE and sikuli-script
- major: revise and complete the JavaDocs
- minor: based on the Netbeans build.xml make Ant scripts and use Maven, that allow to build Sikuli without having Netbeans

I am sure, that I will complete Part 1 and at least Part 2 for Windows until end of November.
When I have the structure and content of the sources ready, I will setup a project on GitHub.
This will include a downloadable and installable version for Mac and Windows (not necessarily the makeSikuli.jar).

On that way, I will try to have a an eye on, that it might be possible
to get it working on native Android, since we have Java and OpenCV there
already, but without the OCR/textSearch (Tesseract not yet available)

I will make that a faq.

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