Summer of Code application draft

[Ian Monroe]

On Sun, Mar 16, 2008 at 8:33 PM, William Viana <vianasw at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
>  I am interested in the Context View project idea. I have been mailing
>  Leo Franchi for some questions related to the project and now I need
>  some feedback for my first application draft. I would like to know if
>  I should also include a roadmap or a methodology.

A roadmap would be good, especially since you're European and only
have odd parts of the summer and spring off.

>
>  Any feedback is welcome.
>
>
>    Application for Google Summer of Code 2008
>
>    Abstract
>  ----------------
>   Amarok 2.0 has suffered a very big change in its new user interface.
>  The Context View (CV) has gained more relevance than ever occupying a
>  central position in the application window. My task would be to
>  complete and improve the CV area continuing the work already done,
>  improving and polishing its appearance. In the following lines I will
>  introduce what would be my approach in this task
>
>
>    Project
>  ---------------
>   Amarok is currently making use of Plasma library to display applets
>  (a.k.a. plasmoids) in the CV. Plasma is a brand new technology and
>  very promising but still not fully exploited in Amarok 2.0. My
>  approach would take into account that Plasma library was created for
>  the desktop and I would try to take advantage of it.
>
>   My main task in this project would be to finish what is already
>  started and to correct what is currently not working properly. That
>  would involve the following:
>
>
>    Allow to resize the applets: this is one of the missing
>  functionalities and the one that should be accomplished with less
>  effort. It would also be useful to me as an initial contact with the
>  source code.
>
>
>    Allow to organize the applets using layouts: this task should
>  provide a way to organize the applets in the CV area. There is already
>  some work done with the layouts but it is still missing the
>  possibility to rearrange the applets in the CV.
>
>
>    Manage a CV with many applets: currently if you add many applets to
>  the CV if they do not fit in the area they are simply not shown until
>  you remove some of the others applets or you hide the side columns.
>  The easiest way to solve this would be to provide a scroll bar and to
>  add all the new applets to the end of the scrollable area. A more
>  interesting way of solving this would be to implement virtual areas
>  such as virtual desktops where users could place their applets. Taking
>  advantage of Plasma library zooming capabilities it would be possible
>  to develop the change between virtual areas zooming out to show the
>  available areas and then zooming in to the desired one. Another
>  interesting way would be to have an area with a iconized version of
>  the applets like in a desktop task bar.
>
>    Packaging system: The current "Add widget" dialog has some
>  functionalities missing like drag-and-drop applets directly to the CV
>  or install new applets. I would make sure this dialog has at least the
>  basic functionality.
>
>    Polish the already existing applets: some applets are not fully
>  functional yet and others need some love. This task would be left to
>  the end of the project if there is still time to accomplish it.

Really I don't see this as an extra task. The tasks you list up to now
are pretty limited in their scope (though that zooming stuff could
take some time). Also you probably won't be the only one working on
the context view.

Leo is going to be gone for the next week, but he'll be back in time
for when people officially send their proposals in on March 24th.
Maybe I'm wrong about the time the tasks will take, seeing how you've
been in contact with him. So don't worry about it if I am wrong. ;) I
guess a timeline would be helpful just to see how long you think the
tasks will take.

>   My job would require me to be in constant contact with Plasma
>  developers since it is still in heavy development and some of the
>  functionalities I may need may be missing or still in development.
>
>   This project is of great relevance for Amarok 2.0 and would polish
>  one of its main functionalities which is part of the main purpose of
>  the application: "Rediscover your music".
>
>
>    About me
>  ------------------
>   I am a 23 years old computer science student in Castellón Spain. I
>  am currently in my fourth year in college and fortunately I have had
>  plenty of opportunities to work with FOSS applications in my
>  university, including QT 4 toolkit which I am pretty familiar with.
>  Apart from personal interest and college subjects I have been working
>  with QT 4 toolkit in a project from October 2007 to December 2007. The
>  project was an jural application [citation needed] written in C++ and
>  my task was to port the SQL queries to XML-RPC calls.
>
>   At the age of 15 I got interested in FOSS and started using
>  GNU/Linux.

We're the same age and started using Linux at the same time. :)

> At the same age I started to learn to C and then turned to
>  C++. In my college's years I have got more involved with FOSS,
>  promoting and helping to plan FOSS events. I am used to read API
>  documentation and I consider myself a quick learner.
>
>   My next step is to get involved and collaborate in a FOSS project. I
>  chose KDE because it is what I use and where I would like to see
>  improvements. Amarok particularly is one my favourites application in
>  KDE and probably the one I use the most.
>  _______________________________________________
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>  Amarok at kde.org
>  https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/amarok
>