Joining the team...

[Kevin Puetz]

Jason Mott wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Hello,
> 
> Since two others have posted on this subject, I guess I will too.
> 
> I've been listening in to get a feel of how the group works (and how one
> becomes a part of the development effort). I have some original works I'd
> like to offer (will discuss most of them in other posts, but one later in
> this email). I just have one question to add to the others that have been
> posted.
> 
> Do new guys like myself just have to post patches for a while until we get
> better known, or is there a process for getting a cvs account?

Well, the 'process' essentially consists of asking Waldo Bastian (pmax on
IRC) or Stefan Kulow (coolo on irc) for CVS access, and emailing the an
encrypted password (possibly others). But, if you're a total unknown, they
will probably not add you, at least not right away. So yes, for now, the
right approach to getting known is to start posting code, fixes, etc on
mailing lists, participating in discussions on either the mailing lists or
IRC (#kde, #kde-users, and #kde-devel on irc.freenode.net). You should find
plenty of people willing to help you get code committed in the meantime
(which, if the quality is good, won't last all that long before peopel
trust your judgement).

> As well as some of my original work, I'd also like to offer my support
> where needed. I can investigate bugs, add features according to requests,
> etc. Just ask if you have a need.

bugs.kde.org lists the needs :-) #kde-users and the mailing lists throw the
requests at us (as well as our own personal itches as well). Fixing bugs
(or even just identifying the causes better) is *great* way to make friends
fast :-)

> Now, here is one thing I'd like to add: A class that extends QLCDNumber
> that is configurable the way that the DigitalClock Widget of the clock
> applet is. Basically, I'd take the code in the DigitalClock Widget of the
> clock applet and make it more general purpose and configurable through an
> API. When done, the clock applet would be able to use the new class
> instead of implementing the functionality itself (but that is really
> separate from this conversation). I'm doing this because of my program
> Kalculate (http://sourceforge.net/projects/kalculate/). It uses the base
> QLCDNumber for its display. As I was investigating how to add
> configurability to its look and feel, I realized I was just redoing what
> the DigitalClock widget was doing -- so it made since to see if it is
> something that should be offered to core so we don't have many different
> iterations of this functionality around.
> 
> Here is the interface I'd imagine for such a widget (this is of course
> just a rough sketch and is open to comments/suggestions).

I'll let others comment on the proposed API, but there are certainly a large
number of QT widgets we subclass to add additional functionality and
configurability in a standard fashion, so certainly the basic premise is
sound.

Welcome!