[Kde-pim] Kontact Touch GSOC Project

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On 28.04.2013 14:36, Michael Bohlender wrote:
> Thanks for your feedback and your insights.

Sorry for not having replied yet. I'm at a conference with long days 
and bad
internet connection, so I have not found the time to read your updated 
version
and write proper reply yet.
Since Friday is the deadline, I'll use the last bit of power in my 
laptop's battery (no power in the Lobby and the WiFi doesn't reach my 
room) to write a reply now ;)

>>> One thing that should be added to your proposal is deployment: 
>>> Thomas wont
>>> be able to even have a look at your work if you don't update 
>>> packages on
>>> Mer OBS. That doesn't have to be a lot of work, but should 
>>> definitely be
>>> part of your proposal.
>> 
>> It's briefly mentioned in "set up dev environment (obs)", but I agree 
>> that it
>> makes sense to write somewhere that there will be regular package 
>> updates. As
>> sebas said: I can't compile stuff for the tablet myself, so I need 
>> packages on
>> OBS whenever I'm supposed to try something out (maybe I can swap out 
>> QML files,
>> but everything which is compiled needs to come to me in compiled 
>> form).
> 
> added to Implementation details.

Thanks, that should work :)

>> I do like sebas' idea of mixing the two main tasks you outlined 
>> instead of
>> doing them strictly one after another. in order to make sure that we 
>> at least
>> have _something_ working in the end, come what may.
>> Maybe you can chop your work into different UI parts which each get a 
>> design
>> and an implementation cycle, instead of one big design cycle folowed 
>> by one
>> big implementation cycle.
> 
> Sounds very reasonable to me.
> I divided the work into 5 tasks:
> # general layout
> # mail list
> # display mail
> # compose mail
> # folder (or whatever way we come up to browse the mail)
> 
> We could do 4 of them working 3 weeks on each task with a qml
> mockup/prototype followed by the actual implementation.
> I can use the idle time (waiting for your feedback) during each
> mockup phase to do small tasks like porting a button or things like
> that.

Sounds good to me! We just need to make sure that every task is 
self-contained and could be released together with the rest of the old 
GUI in case you can't finish all tasks.

> I am a little worried that the whole project is too much work for me
> in the given time. Like stated before "asking for a full rewrite of a
> mail application UI within a single GSOC is asking for a bit much". If
> I don't progress as expected we could skip one of the above tasks and
> instead focus on polishing the remaining three.

See above: If it doesn't leave us with something unreleasable, this 
approach should leave us enough flexibility.

> Going completely crazy: The whole project looks a lot more achievable
> if I pick Tasks or Notes instead of Mail...
> But I guess we can't come up with a UX that will work across Kontact
> Touch as some problems will only show with complex applications like
> Mail ?

Hm, sounds reasonable form the size perspective, but mail is really 
much more important for us than notes or tasks, so I'd prefer having a 
partly improved Mail than a fully improved Notes or Tasks.
Sebas, Aaron, what do you think? Would it make more sense to do Tasks 
or Notes instead of Mail?

> reworked proposal:
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qxWHUg-STYimYuqxMyPaD2gHiCDoI_m_YNa5mZkpU1Y/edit?usp=sharing
> [1]

It's okay from my perspective, and obviously from Kevin's as well. :) 
Unless PA developers have any objections, I think it can stay that way.

> I think we need to start earlier with the mockups for the general
> design as we wont have that much time during the GSoC period as I
> hoped. I
> will try to come up with some Pencil mockups next weeks so that we
> have a head start.

Maybe you could also start with some of the preparation tasks ahead of 
time, so we can start the mockup phase when GSoC officially starts.

Cheers,
Thomas