GSoC/2012/StatusReports

Status Report:GSoC and SoK 2012

GSoC

Puneet Goyal

Project Name: Enhancement to peer-to-peer DBus for Telepathy DBus Tubes

A _Brief_ Description Telepathy is a modular framework for real-time communications that handles voice, video, text, file transfer, and so on. It makes extensive use of the D-Bus messaging bus and a modular design. When an application connects to a peer to peer dbus tube, it must know what exactly to look for. Even When it registers for another object, the other side of the tube must know about it. So the ideas is to create a class that could ease the object to register and unregister on the DBus Tubes, and to provide you with an interface similar to the one as a DBus Server.

Status:

               org.freedesktop.DBus.Peer Interface and Adaptor-  complete
               org.freedesktop.DBus.ObjectManager Interface and Adaptor - complete
               Tabbed Kwhiteboard using ObjectManager Interface - Pending

Screenshot:

IRC Nick: puneetgoyal

IRC Channels: #kde-telepathy, #kde-in

Blog: http://blog.puneetgoyal.co.in

This is awesome about GSoC:

This is what I learned during GSoC:

Cyril Oblikov

Project Name: Asynchronous errors handling during file transfer

A _Brief_ Description The goal is to bring powerful, easy to use and suitable for both desktops and touch devices way to handle errors during copying or moving files. Since this project will be finished, errors will no more block copying process. The functionality for kdelibs is already done in last GSoC. You can see my blog posts about it: first, second.

Google+: munknex

Blog: http://munknex.net

Report 1: New KDE Copy Dialog: First Preview

Rishab Arora

Project Name: Improving Data Storage, Logs and adding DSO catalogs to KStars

A _Brief_ Description My proposal aims at improving the way the data is handled inside KStars. All user data which is currently being fed by multiple text files can be consolidated into a SQLite database which also makes the data more manageable and resolves many issues. This will also let me improve drastically on the ability to create portable logs about sky objects with a detailed interface and storage. However, in cases where reading the text files (comma/space/colon delimited) is necessary, I shall create separate provisions for processing them which is robust, tested and reliable. I shall also target the way the sky objects are stored and referenced and transfer all those objects to another SQLite database to make the data more manageable.

Status: Porting the User DB to SQLite and replacing old file usage.

Screenshot:

IRC Nick: spacetime

IRC Channels: #kde-edu #kstars #kde-in

Blog: http://blog.rishab.in/category/kde/

This is awesome about GSoC:

This is what I learned during GSoC:

Sinny Kumari

Project: Advanced features and enhancements for Plasma Media Center

A _Brief_ Description Plasma Media Center (PMC) aims to provide users all the media related facilities like Listening Music, Watching Videos, Viewing Pictures, etc. Currently, PMC have all the basic features that a Media Center need to have. My project is to add advanced features in PMC like add to playlist, cover fetching, picture slideshow, tagging, online services like fetching pictures from picasa and many more.

Link (Wiki):http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Plasma/Plasma_Media_Center

Link (Project): https://projects.kde.org/projects/playground/multimedia/plasma-mediacenter/repository

IRC : #plasma-mediacenter (ksinny)

Yash Shah

Project Name: Multimodal Accessibility: Using Computer Vision to improve Speech Recognition in Simon

A _Brief_ Description A major obstacle for command and control speech recognition systems is to differentiate commands from background noise. Many systems solve this by using physical buttons or certain key phrases to activate/deactivate the speech recognition. This project explores the use of computer vision to determine when to activate / deactivate the sound recognition using visual cues. For a media centre or robot applications, it would make a lot more sense to only activate the recognition when the user is actively looking at the screen/robot and is speaking something. This is strikingly similar to the day-to-day communication between humans! Face recognition can also be employed to provide different speech models for different people. In this way the media centre could adapt to different people in one household. Checkout my blog post about it

IRC Nick: yashshah

IRC Channels: #kde-accessibility

Blog: yashshah.com/blog/category/kde/

Vinay S Rao

Project Name: Gluon: Implementing Saving/Loading Gluon Engine's Game State

A _Brief_ Description My project mainly involves providing effective ways to save the Gluon Engine's Game state. This is a feature that any game developer would like to provide. To implement this first requires serialization of the current scene of the game. My project takes this further, by creating basic scene graphs, to compare two scenes. That way, only the necessary data is saved. Also, variants of basic save/load APIs like checkpoints, level saves etc are to be built. I plan to follow up this GSoC project, with an implementation of a replay feature, that takes scene graphs further by using timestamps of events, and using deterministic prediction to minimize data and processing required.

IRC Nick: vsrao

Zhengliang Feng

Project Name: Integrate Spotify into Amarok

A _Brief_ Description This project is to integrate Spotify collection and music streaming into Amarok. So that users can login into Spotify, access their playlists and stream & play music through Amarok.

Status: Implementing basic classes of the Spotify plugin.

Screenshot:

IRC Nick: ofan

IRC Channels: #kde-soc, #amarok.dev

Blog: http://ofan.me

This is awesome about GSoC: GSoC offered an great opportunity to practice programming skills and contribute code to open source projects.

This is what I learned during GSoC: Communication is very important.

Viranch Mehta

Project Name: KDE games: Port KBreakout to QtQuick

Brief Description: The project is to port the current game graphics interface to Qt's popular QtQuick.

Status: Almost done - What's pending? 1. Gifts for breaking certain bricks, 2. Burning bricks, and 3. String translations

IRC Nick: viranch

IRC Channels: #kdegames

Jigar Raisinghani

Project Name: SUPPORT FOR PIVOT TABLES IN CALLIGRA SHEETS

A _Brief_ Description Pivot Tables will be a data summarization feature for data visualization application (Calligra Sheets). Users can summarize data (also from ods files) by simply using drag & drop functionality. User has the freedom to choose the interested fields to work with and organize/summarize data as he/she wishes. It gives the user the analytical power by allowing him/her to rotate/transform columns to rows and vice versa and hence called “PIVOT”.

Status: Working on Extraction of data using QAbstractTableModel implementation

Screenshot: In the blog link given below

IRC Nick: jigar

IRC Channels: #kde #calligra

Blog: http://jigarraisinghani.blogspot.in/2012/06/pivot-tablesdesign.html

Paul Mendez

Project Name: Support for edition of shape animations in Calligra Stage

A _Brief_ Description At present, Calligra Stage can only show shape animations it loads from a file. It is not possible to add, edit or remove shape animations using Calligra Stage user interface. The goal of this project is to implement an user interface to let users easily add, edit or remove shape animations, manage animation trigger events and change animation parameters.

Status: Support of formula tag for animations is already commited. User interface and data model used to present animation data of each slide in a docker is almost done. Next Step: start adding some edition features.

Screenshot:

IRC Nick: paul_m

IRC Channels: #kde #calligra

Blog: http://paulm-byte.blogspot.com/

Avnee Nathani

Project Name: Porting KDiamond (game) to Qt Quick

Brief Description: KDiamond is one of the addictive KDE-Games. Whilst the game is very intuitive to play, I feel that the gameplay and the user interactions can be improved to make it more compelling. My proposal is to port KDiamond to Qt Quick - which would allow me to enhance the UI for better gameplay, and with the UI capabilities of QML - give a new feel of the game to the player. I also plan to add some more UI components like - dialogs, particles effect, transitions to the game to to make it more engaging and fun to play!

Status: Implementing the board part of the game

IRC Nick: AvneeNathani

IRC Channels: #kdegames

Blog: http://avnee.wordpress.com/

Abhinav Badola

Project Name: Video Metadata Support in Exiv2 library

Brief Description All recent digital-still camera devices provide video capture. digiKam must be able to manage these files as it do with images. digiKam can already play-back video and register files to the database, but it lack important metadata used to catalogue and sort items (as date, camera name, and all record conditions). To improve video files support, video metadata management done in background needs to be improved. This requires extensive work to be done on Exiv2 shared library, the back-bone of digiKam for photo metadata handling.

Status: Implementing read functionality for the RIFF container format

IRC Nick: badola

IRC Channels: #digikam

Amandeep Singh

Project Name: Focus Tracking in KWin / KMagnifier

Brief Description: Currently the KWin zoom plugin and KMagnifier implement focus tracking using Kaccessible which only works for Qt/KDE applications. In this project I will change the existing code in the KWin zoom-plugin and KMagnifier to use DBus to connect with AT-SPI2 and fetch needed information about focused widget. Also I will identify and fix cases where common applications are not sending the focus events and correct accessibility problems in Qt's widgets as they emerge, for example Qt's tree-views.

Status: libkdeaccessibility extended, patches for KMag done, KWin is next and then comes the apps.

IRC Nick: dedman

IRC Channels: #kde-accessibility

Blog: http://amanonit.blogspot.com/search/label/kde

Samikshan Bairagya

Project Name: Add "What's Interesting..." feature to KStars and make star-hopping user-configurable.

A _Brief_ Description Often beginner astronomers open up KStars, look around a bit, but then can't figure out what to do next. This project aims to make KStars more beginner friendly through a new feature called "What's Interesting..." This feature will consist of a QML based easy-to-use user interface that will suggest sky objects currently visible in the sky taking into account the equipment-wise and location-wise limitations/availability of the user. The user's experience level and interest in astronomy will also be taken into account, thus providing the beginner/intermediate user a more personalised experience. Also this project aims to make the star hopping feature of KStars more usable by giving the user the option to specify equipment and location conditions.

Status: Done with designing the model-view architecture to show list of interesting sky-objects. Currently working on algorithm that will decide the visibility of sky-objects depending on the equipment specifications.

Screenshot: Will provide once I blog.

IRC Nick: samxan

IRC Channels: #kde-edu , #kstars

Blog: http://samxan.wordpress.com/ (I need to blog more)

This is awesome about GSoC: Its fun and you learn a lot of stuff and you feel great!

This is what I learned during GSoC: Till now, understood the awesome concept of model-view. Also loved the way C++ models could be exported to QML for use with Qt Quick views.

Matěj Laitl

Project Name: Statistics synchronization for pluggable devices and Last.fm in Amarok

A Brief Description: Amarok can maintain useful per-track play statistics and meta-data such as: play count, first/last played date, rating and labels; these are tracked for each collection separately. This project will implement statistics synchronization between all collections that support them (local, iPod) in its first part. Second part is to implement synchronization of the statistics from scrobbling services such as Last.fm to Amarok. (other way around already partially works)

Status: Latest status can be tracked on my blog. By the end of 3rd week, statistics synchronization between local collection already works.

Screenshot: here

IRC Nick: strohel

IRC Channels: #amarok, #gtkpod

Blog: strohel.blogspot.com

This is awesome about GSoC: I can finally work on open-source full-time during the summer without having to take less fun jobs on proprietary software.

This is what I learned during GSoC: Mainly that Amarok codebase is in a desperate need of some major clean-ups. ;)

Martin Küttler

Project Name: New interface for Cantor

A _Brief_ Description Cantor is a KDE application for mathematics. It uses various backend software to do the actual calculations, and strives to provide a common, intuitive and nice-looking interface. The design of the original interface had some limitations though, and it is the goal of this project to implement a new interface for Cantor. The first step is to reproduce the features (and the look&feel mostly, though some improvements are there) of the old interface. After that a couple of new features, such as a nice search&replace bar, are planed.

Status: Currently I still re-implement features that the old interface already has, but there is not much left to do for that.

IRC Nick: mkuettler

Blog: mkuettler.blogspot.com

Phalgun Guduthur

Project Name: Semantic desktop collection in Amarok

A _Brief_ Description Nepomuk has been a great semantic framework in recent years with many applications like Dolphin using it for managing metadata associated with its files and resources. But Amarok, still doesn't make use of the existing framework which comes bundled with any KDE distro. So, the objective of the project is to develop a Nepomuk based collection backend for Amarok which is functionally equivalent to the existing embedded MySql backend. An earlier attempt to achieve this was made this in GSoC 2008, but it never went on to be implemented and bundled along with the Amarok package because of reliability and performance issues. This is another attempt to make use of the excellent Nepomuk framework in Amarok and make it more semantic.

Status: Right now trying to get Amarok scan for tracks in Nepomuk index.

IRC Nick: phalgun

IRC Channels: #amarok, #kde-in, #pes-os

Blog: http://blog.phalgun.in/tagged/gsoc

This is awesome about GSoC: Getting to know new people and is a platform to start contributing to open source projects that people use. Being part of something that so many people around the world use is satisfying.

Maximilian Löffler

Project Name: Kate Scripting IDE Plugin

A _Brief_ Description Kate supports a variety of possibilities for scripting, for example indentation and user defined commands. Although scripting in Kate is quite powerful, it is rarely used. This project aims at making scripting within Kate more popular by providing a plugin for Kate, which makes the process of creating and managing scripts easier.

Status: After figuring out the core capabilities which the IDE plugin should hold, they are now going to be implemented. Currently implementing script wizard for creating new scripts. There will be more features added in the future.

Blog: http://kate-editor.org

This is awesome about GSoC: GSoC is the perfect opportunity for me to deepen my C++ skills in combination with working on an awesome project.

Ganeshprasad T P

Project Name: Bullet integration into Gluon

A _Brief_ Description Gluon has been an excellent cross-platform free and open source 2D game engine from KDE. It aims to make life easier for game developers by providing a simple but powerful API to handle 2D objects, sounds and inputs.Gluon will be a revolution in the way we’ve seen 2D game creation. People will be able to create new games in a more flexible manner, while the Gluon web content system will allow them to earn rewards.ntegration of Bullet physics to Gluon is a huge addition in this direction. Since the gaming world has entered the rage of Good effects and better look(better Graphics) ,The integration of Bullet physics to Gluon engine provides game developer to create games with clear effects such as collision detection, collision response etc.. in Gluon. This will be huge advantage to develop modern graphics games through Gluon.

Status: Right now creating different collision shapes.

IRC Nick: gani

IRC Channels: #gluon, #kde-in, #pes-os

Blog: http://ganeshprasad.tumblr.com/

This is awesome about GSoC: Getting to know new contributors and is a platform to start contributing to open source projects that people use. Place to learn a lot.The concept that code we write is used by world is exciting.

SoK

Heena

Project Name: To develop the KDE game pairs and to work as a theme editor for this game.

A _Brief_ Description In the next KDE release the game Pairs will make its first public appearance. It is designed to increase the logic and foster the IQ skills of children.

IRC Nick: stack3457

Screenshot: Coming soon

IRC Channels: #kdegames , #kde-edu

Google+: heena

Blog: my_blog

KDE summer of code is great platform foster the programming skills.

I get to learn more about the kde applications and significance.

Sharad Dixit

Project Name: Implementation of Variable thickness lines in Calligra Karbon

A _Brief_ Description One of the most fundamental basics of drawing is varying the width of your lines to show shape, form and perspective. Almost every line tapers at either end, and often gets thicker and thinner in different places as needed. For purely technical and histrorical reasons though, every vector program (Illustrator, Inkscape, Karbon etc) make curves all one hard width. Task is to create a variable width path shape / tool, much like the path tool, would allow drawing curves, but where each node could have its width set so that the line width changed smoothly from node to node. As Karbon is part of the Calligra suite, this would be beneficial to apps such as Krita,also.karbon

Screenshot: Here

IRC Nick: illumiknight

IRC Channels: #calligra

Google+: sharad

Blog: Here

This is awesome about KDE Summer of code:

This is what I learned during KDE Soc:

Utku Aydın

Project Name: Port Marble to Plasma Active platform

A Brief Description: Project's aim is a nicely polished, end-user ready Marble Touch for Plasma Active. That will enable users to use their favorite Virtual Globe on their Plasma Active powered tablets.

Status: Creating a Foursquare online service, a plugin that shows venues on the map

Screenshot: http://ompldr.org/vZTVmNA (Latest status of Foursquare plugin)

IRC Nick: utku

IRC Channels: #marble

Blog: http://utkuaydin.wordpress.com (nothing related to SoK yet)

This is awesome about SoK: Like my previous Google Code-in experience, I get a chance to work with talented people in a more organized process.

This is what I learned during SoK: QML is awesome.

Jasneet Singh Bhatti

Project Name: Improvement of the current Amarok Unit Testing scenario

A Brief Description This project aims at creating useful comprehensive unit tests that will provide coverage for the core components of the Amarok source, along with high quality documentation that will make it easier for other developers to write tests for the features they implement and hopefully for those of others too

Status: Writing tests for core/collections

IRC Nick: jasneet

IRC Channels: #amarok, #amarok-dev

Blog: http://jascmevirtually.tumblr.com/ Will be updated regularly with the project progress

This is awesome about SoK: The opportunity to interact and learn from highly skilled and experienced developers and make a significant contribution to the open source community

This is what I am learning during SoK: Understanding workflows, better coding conventions, design, testing and much more

David Yang

Project Name: Developing and improving the pairs game from KDE-edu.

A _Brief_ Description Making the first release of pairs a good one. Pairs is an educational game designed to exercise the memory skills of small children. Multiplayer coming soon!

Status: Will start when school gets out of my way.

Screenshot:

IRC Nick: DavidYang

IRC Channels: #kde-edu #kde-games

Blog: davidosyang.wordpress.com. Completly empty for now.

This is awesome about SoK: That I can get a mentor to help me get into contributing to an open source project.

This is what I learned during SoK: Yeah, I know how to answer this before I've started my project. Want me to grab a copy of kde 5.3 from 2015 while I'm at it?