[GSoC]Integration of kde-telepathy into the Plasma Workspace

[Francesco Nwokeka]

Hello,
	first off, a quick presentation of myself. I'm a student at the university of Padova in Italy 
and I study computer science.
My name is Francesco Nwokeka( irc: nwoki ) and I would like to apply to GSoC with the following 
project: "The integration of kde-telepathy into the Plasma Workspace".

I want to apply for kde-telepathy because I like challenges but most of all because I'm "greedy" for 
when it comes to coding experience. I like to absorb as much as I can from all those whom which I 
work with. From how people analyze problems to how they proceed in resolving them and coding them.
Plus I've taken the kde-telepathy project quite seriously and intend, for an undetermined period of 
time, to make it "harder, better, faster, stronger" (cit) more appealing, functional and as stable 
as possible.
I've been following kde-telepathy for three weeks in which the first week was used to get to know how 
it works and the other two to work on the kde-telepathy components.

The following patches were done in these last two weeks:
- avoid duplicate tabs
- added support for detection and usage of links in the chat-ui
- implemented the search feature for the chat-ui
- currently working on group chat feature for the chat-ui

In what does my project proposal consist?

Well, as written here( 
http://community.kde.org/GSoC/2011/Ideas#Project:_Innovative_new_UI.2FInteraction_Methods) i want to 
add a new way of interacting with contacts and the way they are displayed to the user.

What will I do in this project?

* add two new contact list views in QML
The two views will consist in a "classic" listview and a gridview ( haven't seen any im-clients with 
this ) that can be interchangable. The user will have 3 choices for contact visualization: normal 
contac-list, QML contact list, QML gridview list.
Both QML contact-list and QML gridview-list will have two or more different visualizations to choose 
from. These will be editable in the settings menu of the chat-ui

* implment drag-n-drop from the contact-list( any of the three mentioned above ) to the plasma 
workspace
The user will have the possibility to 'drag and drop' his/her contacts, from any of the above 
described contac lists, the the plasma workspace. This will result in the creation of a "contact-
plasmoid" ( description below ) with which the user can interact to do a variety of different 
actions.
Actions that will range from the most simple ones like viewing contact information, starting a 1 on 
1 im-chat, a video or audio call or send mail, to more complex actions. For example the possibility 
to initiate an online kde-game directly with the contact, collaboration on documents and sharing 
folders.

With this feature the user will have his/her favorite contacts on the plasma-workspace not even a 
click away so instead of opening a contact list and searching for the contact, all the user has to 
do is click on the desktop plasmoid.

There will also be the possibility to group these contact-plasmoids in custom groups defined by the 
user to satisfy his/her needs and with a grouping method which best suits him/her.
All this in a lightweight plasmoid that will be designed not to be invasive and not to clutter the 
workspace.


To be able to satisfy the previously described features, the following need to be met ( also 
included in my project ) :

* implement a collaboration feature for kde-telepathy
* create the contact plasmoid and the contact plasmoid data-engine
* create the custom contact-list plasmoid group and its data-engine

Francesco Nwokeka