[Kde-pim] GSoC Proposal - basKet KDE SC 4 port

[Ryan Rix]

On Sat 27 February 2010 2:40:26 pm Dr. Robert Marmorstein wrote:
> On Saturday 27 February 2010 4:03:15 pm Ryan Rix wrote:
> > Hello everyone,
> 
> Hi Ryan,
> 
> It would be good to have you working on basKet as a SoC project.  I'm not
> sure how useful a Plasma interface to basKet would be at this point
> (without Akonadi support), but it's an interesting goal.
> 
> > A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post detailing an idea of mine to port
> > KDE SC 3's basKet note taking application to KDE SC 4, and in the
> > process taking advantage of the various technologies that have evolved
> > since basKet's last official release.[1]
> 
> A. Basket has already been ported to KDE 4.  It is true that we don't use
> Akonadi/Nepomuk/Plasma and so forth yet, but basKet is no longer a KDE 3
> application.  We have removed all the legacy code and now rely almost
> entirely on KDE 4/Qt4 classes.  The only remaining support class is the
> Q3ScrollView we inherit in the main window.  I'm working on replacing it
> with a QGraphicsView widget instead, but I haven't had time to finish that
> port -- it requires some pretty significant and tedious restructuring of
> the BNPView and Basket View displays.  I'm pretty close, though -- I just
> need the time to get it done.
> 
> We have not released the KDE 4 enabled basKet yet, but that is mostly
> because we haven't had time to get release materials together yet.  We
> were supposed to release two weeks ago, but dropped the ball.  However,
> the KDE 4 version of basKet in Kelvie's gitorious repository (and mine) is
> nearly ready for release.  It's more a matter of deciding who's going to
> do what and getting the web site updated...

I had no idea development on basKet was even still active... Where are these 
two git repositories?

> 
> B.  Adding Akonadi support to basKet is a definite desideratum.  However,
> it also will require major refactoring of the existing codebase.  We had a
> GSoC proposal last year to do that, but it didn't make the cut.  It's a
> much harder task than it looks.  Currently, the different properties of
> notes, baskets, tags, and so forth are spread out all over the code. 
> Kelvie had worked on restructuring things a little, but I don't know where
> he is at with this.
> 
> C.  We also already have drag-and-drop support for links, images, etc..  It
> may be a little buggy, though.  I fixed a few bug reports about D-n-D a few
> weeks ago, but please let me know if you encounter other issues.
> 
> D.  Adding Nepomuk support might actually be the easiest and most useful
> way in which you could contribute to basKet.  Being able to search using
> semantic information (such as the basKet tag) would be a big win in terms
> of usability.
> 
> E.  A basKet plasma applet would be much easier to write once Akonadi
> support is available.  Otherwise, you will need to worry about data
> synchronization issues, parsing, and a whole slough of problems.
> 
> I've actually thought about this a little bit -- what would a basKet plasma
> applet look like?

I was actually going to do it the other way around; the element where the 
widgets would reside _is_ plasma, specifically a plasma containment which will 
probably be very close to plasma's desktop containment, only embedded as an 
applet. The user would be able to add custom plasma applets similar to 
basket's current applets.

See http://rix.si/gallery/uploads/28/ for a very early idea of what will 
happen. I currently can't 'do' anything with that plasma containment yet, but 
that is on my todo list currently.

But with the knowledge that there is indeed a KDE 4 basKet make me wonder if 
this is actually a useful idea.

> 
> The design I like best is to allow the user to create notes in a special
> "Desktop" folder.  Notes in that folder (and only in that folder) would
> show up as "sticky notes" on the desktop.  This would use less desktop
> real estate than embedding the basKet kpart in a plasma applet, but would
> still make it easy to view/edit these notes.
> 
> Alternatively, we could add a new property to the basket configuration that
> makes it viewable on the Desktop.
> 
> Robert

-- 
Ryan Rix
== http://hackersramblings.wordpress.com | http://rix.si/ ==
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