[kde-edu]: GSoC Proposal: KidDraw

[Anne-Marie Mahfouf]

Hi,

It looks you did not get a GSoC but we think such an application is needed in 
KDE-Edu.
Do you have plans to still work on it and do you need help doing so? We would 
be happy hosting the code in playground/edu and start KDEify it!

Best regards,

Anne-Marie

Le Friday 21 March 2008 11:22:41 pm Cheetah, vous avez écrit :
> Hello,
>
> Since I'm new here, I'll first introduce myself: I'm Wouter Haffmans, a 23
> year old student Computer Science at the University of Technology Eindhoven
> (in the Netherlands).  I want to submit a proposal for GSoC next week, with
> a new suggestion for KDE Edu, which will hopefully get me involved in the
> KDE community. So far I've only been following development, and I think
> it's time for me to start actively participating. GSoC seems to be the
> perfect opportunity. So, here's the idea:
>
> In the past I've made a small and simple drawing application as a high
> school assignment. The target group were young children who are not able to
> use a computer mouse all too well yet. That assignment was made in Delphi.
> As I myself have a son now, I decided to remake that application to Qt 4.
> Part of it is done, but it still needs lots of work and improvement.
>
> I want to submit KidDraw (which is its very original name) as GSoC project
> to help KDE Edu to something new and unique. I think it fits KDE Edu best
> since it helps kids learn how to use the mouse and explore their creativity
> in a fun way, though I suppose it could also fit in KDE Graphics... I'm not
> entirely sure about that.
>
> This has been done for KidDraw so far (see
> http://svn.simply-life.net/KidDraw/trunk/ for the current code):
> The UI is simple, kid-friendly. It already shows the canvas, which is
> QGraphics based. The "live" rendering is done on an extra cached QImage
> though (like the Qt scribbly example), as that seemed to perform much
> better in my tests. Drawing is done by clicking any mouse button (not just
> the left one). On the left and right the color palette is shown: simply
> hovering the mouse over a color will select it. The same goes for the line
> widths, which can be picked at the bottom. The buttons are big and thus
> easy to hit.
>
> The canvas also already supports the loading of a background image, which
> can be used for coloring sheets as well as connect-the-dots like stuff.
>
> Tasks that would be for GSoC:
> - KDEify KidDraw, it's just a Qt app now. It already uses CMake, but other
> than that it's all just Qt 4.
>
> - When changing a palette, the lines that were already drawn will need to
> change colors as well.
>
> - Allow saving and reloading of pictures. All line items will need to
> remain intact (because of the palette changes).
>
> - Create "Image Pickers" at the top of the canvas, which show thumbnails of
> saved images. Clicking one loads the image into the canvas, and also saves
> the canvas image to that slot. This way a child doesn't need to know about
> files or filenames.
>
> - Make a big "Clear" button to clear the canvas.
>
> - Custom color palettes, possibly with HotNewStuff integration.
>
> - Export images, saving them to a PNG/JPG/SVG file on disk. This is
> something parents probably will need to help with, so its UI can be more
> "complicated" (i.e. a menu).
>
> - Printing support to print the canvas image.
>
> - UI to load background images.
>
> - UI for editing (and creating new) color palettes.
>
> - Settings panel, especially with settings on when clicking/dragging is
> necessary (for younger kids clicking to toggle the pen up/down may be
> better than having to drag with the mouse pressed, etc).
>
> - Option to set a picture as desktop background. I'm not exactly sure how
> feasable it is to make this cross platform, considering obvious differences
> between Plasma, Windows and OS X.
>
> - A "Color Sheet" mode, which makes a click on the canvas fill the area
> with the selected color rather than drawing lines.
>
> - If there's more time: a "Connect the dots" mode, which requires the user
> to draw lines from dot to dot (again using polygons as the points of the
> dots). Once all dots have been connected, KidDraw could switch to Color
> Sheet mode to allow filling of the drawn lines. To add a "surprise" effect,
> the dots that do not need to be connected yet (e.g. dots 3 and higher at
> the start) could remain hidden until they need to be visible.
>
> Altogether I think there is more than enough to be done during the three
> months of GSoC, but more suggestions, ideas, criticism, advice etc. is more
> than welcome before I submit my GSoC application.
>
> Wouter
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