Digikam/CodingSprint2014: Difference between revisions
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== digiKam Coding Sprint 2014 == | == digiKam Coding Sprint 2014 == | ||
<write short intro to digikam here?> | |||
=== The event === | === The event === | ||
It had been almost three years since the last time the digiKam team had an opportunity to meet, talk, code and spend some time together. Gilles Caulier, the lead coordinator, was a victim of a serious car crash two years ago and was thus unable to organize or attend such an event. Now, we finally had an opportunity to meet again. After a lot of effort finding a suitable place and a date | It had been almost three years since the last time the digiKam team had an opportunity to meet, talk, code and spend some time together. Gilles Caulier, the lead coordinator, was a victim of a serious car crash two years ago and was thus unable to organize or attend such an event. Now, we finally had an opportunity to meet again. After a lot of effort finding a suitable place and a date suitable for all developers to work together under optimal conditions, the digiKam coding sprint 2014 finally took place in [https://sprints.kde.org/sprint/248 Berlin, Germany], between November 14th and 16th 2014. | ||
Before going through what happened during these days, we would like to sincerely thank [http://www.digia.com/en/Contact Digia], the company in charge of Qt development, for hosting the event, and also in particular Tobias Hunger, who welcomed us at Digia's offices located in the South of Berlin. | Before going through what happened during these days, we would like to sincerely thank [http://www.digia.com/en/Contact Digia], the company in charge of Qt development, for hosting the event, and also in particular Tobias Hunger, who welcomed us at Digia's offices located in the South of Berlin. | ||
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https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5615/15772576686_e5ea277655_c.jpg | https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5615/15772576686_e5ea277655_c.jpg | ||
=== | === What happened during the sprint === | ||
The next major task is to port digiKam to Qt5 | The next major task is to port digiKam to Qt5. Originally approximately 10% was already ported by Gilles before the sprint, and the objectives for this coding sprint were as follows: | ||
* Specify [https://www.digikam.org/about/releaseplan timeline for porting digiKam]. | * Specify [https://www.digikam.org/about/releaseplan timeline for porting digiKam]. | ||
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* Delegate porting tasks to developers (who does what). | * Delegate porting tasks to developers (who does what). | ||
Long discussions evolved around these topics. Gilles explained the experience he already gained with this sort of work, which tools are available to facilitate the porting, and where manual work is required. The libraries which are part of the digikam project were prioritized for the port, and tasks were assigned.<br/> | |||
There were also discussions about the KIPI framework and its plugins. After many years of development, some plugins are essentially unmaintained and no longer needed by the digiKam as there functionality was superseded or moved, leaving them out from porting. We also talked about APIs to provide better integration between KIPI and digiKam for a task-based framework such as digiKam's batch queue manager. The KF5 port seems like the right time to integrate binary incompatible as well as architectural changes where needed. | |||
Shourya Singh Gupta consequentially worked on implementing the KIPI tools functionality in the Batch Queue Manager (Tools Settings). To do this, discussions were done regarding what API changes must be done to the stack to facilitate a generic way to plug kipi-plugins into BQM. By the end of Coding Sprint, there were changes made to APIs to allow a generic way to plug kipi-plugins' settings widgets to the user-interface, tested by converting two plugins (DNG converter and KIO export tool) to take advantage of this feature. Later on, also the background processing part of DNG converter, responsible for doing the real work, was ported over. This work is currently still in its separate feature branch, waiting to be merged after the frameworks porting branch becomes more stable. | |||
Marcel worked on memory consumption problems with the database functionalities as well as several reported memory leaks. As soon as he could reproduce the problems under valgrind, many cleanups and fixes were committed. Among other fixes a long-standing bug https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=205776 was fixed.<br/> | |||
He also worked to complete the Removable Collection support. The goal is to show thumbnails from disconnected media, without actually having access to the full file, as this information is stored by the digiKam in its internal metadata database. In practise this means that the users can continue to search and preview collections with thumbnails and other metadata. A feedback to the user is provided to indicate that items and collection are not available for editing. See bugs https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=191494 and https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=114539. This feature was completed during the train ride back from Berlin, and committed Sunday evening. | |||
Gilles polished the whole libkgeomap public API to be ready for the KF5 port. A lot of changes have been applied to reduce binary compatibility issues. This is especially needed if a library is to be moved to be a KF5 library to be more easily reused by other projects. A similar move has recently been made to libkface to make it available for KPhotoAlbum. | |||
Veaceslav worked on porting libkdcraw from the old KDE4 Threadweaver API to the new KF5 Threadweaver implementation. Unfortunately, the new API was not quite stable nor documented, and Gilles decided to port it one more time to use a pure Qt thread pool implementation. | |||
Teemu fixed some crashes as well as some small annoyances and introduced his plans to work on cleaning up the codebase, which is still on-going process started with cleaning up the CMakeLists and moving misplaced source files to their corresponding places. | |||
<should this belong to aftermath?> | |||
MySQL support is now disabled by default for the time being because it's not fully functional and still experimental. MySQL support is still fully available of course, but as an optional feature. | |||
After long days of coding, the tired developers went out in search for food in the quarter around the hotel at Rosenthaler Straße. Sushi on Friday and Vietnamese food on Saturday managed to support the developers for another day of coding. | After long days of coding, the tired developers went out in search for food in the quarter around the hotel at Rosenthaler Straße. Sushi on Friday and Vietnamese food on Saturday managed to support the developers for another day of coding. | ||
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https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7506/15175371273_c774455db9_n.jpg | https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7506/15175371273_c774455db9_n.jpg | ||
https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5616/15766506676_7b6e6cc846_n.jpg | https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5616/15766506676_7b6e6cc846_n.jpg | ||
=== Aftermath === | |||
<write about what has happened after the sprint up to this time point?> | |||
<plans for the future?> | |||
digiKam core (and the libraries we are depending on) is now pretty much ported to Qt5/KF5, is compilable and running, although there is still ongoing effort to port away from KDE4 support libraries which are currently employed. The port is not yet ready for the prime-time and one can encounter bugs caused by porting, but in the near future we will start to roll beta releases in hope to get reports from end-users about regressions. | |||
However, there is still a lot of work required especially into kipi-plugins, of which only a small part (20%) is currently ported. For those wanting to try out and help in the development the code is available in frameworks branch of corresponding projects. See more information from [https://www.digikam.org/contrib our contribution page]. | |||
The build-system (CMake) structure is currently being cleaned up to make the codebase more maintainable for the future as well as making writing unit tests a breeze. In the same time the dependencies of different parts is being investigated and cleaned up, hopefully to allow easier compilation on Windows and OSX. | |||
=== Final Words === | === Final Words === | ||
DigiKam is hoping to participate once again in the GSoC this year, and there are some selected new ideas for next [https://community.kde.org/GSoC/2015/Ideas#digiKam available in the wiki] to find new contributors. We hope that anyone interested in working on digiKam in this summer to start getting familiar with the project already. | |||
We | We would like to thank the folks at Digia once more for their hospitality and KDE e.V. for sponsoring the event! | ||
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7571/15916071079_05bb30163a_c.jpg | https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7571/15916071079_05bb30163a_c.jpg | ||
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7515/15509459184_5b1a8a9a26_c.jpg | https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7515/15509459184_5b1a8a9a26_c.jpg | ||
More photos from the event are available on [https://www.flickr.com/photos/digikam/sets/72157648876788027 Flickr]. |
Revision as of 02:18, 1 March 2015
KDE Framework Port
Branches Creation
All port code must be stored in dedicated "frameworks" git branch for each project. Branch must be created from master.
$>git checkout master
$>git pull --rebase
$>git checkout -b frameworks
$>git push origin frameworks:frameworks
$>git branch -a
* frameworks
master
remotes/origin/HEAD -> origin/master
remotes/origin/frameworks
remotes/origin/master
KF5 Repositories list is given below :
Kipi-plugins Refactoring
A lots of tools are not maintained since a while, other one have been never finalized. See the list of plugins which will be ported or not :
- Tools which can be ported as well :
- panorama
- expoblending
- gpssync
- sendimages
- timeadjust
- metadataedit
- videoslideshow
- advancedslideshow
- flashexport
- kmlexport
- acquireimages
- calendar
- dngconverter
- printimages
- imageviewer
- Tools in pending stage :
- dlnaexport <=== Needs HUpnp lib Qt5 port
- htmlexport <=== Nobody maintain this code since a while, but tool still used.
- photolayoutseditor <=== A complex but powerful tool. Will be complex to port.
- removeredeyes <=== We can share red eyes removal core implementation in libkface in way to share with other KDE applications and replace digiKam Image Editor tool by this code. A new digiKam BQM tool must be created. A GSoC 2015 project can be planned about this topic.
- Web export tools which must be factored (same settings widgets, common dialog, common high level interface to process import/export). Another GSoC 2015 project can be planned about this topic.
- picasawebexport
- rajceexport
- shwup
- debianscreenshots
- dropbox
- googledrive
- imageshackexport
- kioexportimport
- piwigoexport
- smug
- flickrexport
- yandexfotki
- mediawiki <=== need to port libmediawiki from extragear/libs/.
- vkontakte <=== require libkvkontakte from extragear/libs/.
- Tools never finalized (can be moved to attic for the moment) :
- imgurexport <=== require libqtkoauth from SF.net
- photivointegration
- jalbumexport
- wallpaper
- Tools obsolete (can be moved to attic for the moment) :
- batchprocessimages <=== replaced by digiKam BQM
- rawconverter <=== replaced by digiKam BQM
- jpeglossless <=== replaced by new digiKam core tool
- kopete <=== KF5 will use new API
- ipodexport <=== work only with very old Apple devices.
- galleryexport <=== Gallery web service is not maintained since a while. Gallery project is dead.
KF5/Qt5 Port Status
Libkexiv2
Component | Cmake port | pure Qt5 port | pure KF5 port | compile | warnings | Who | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
libkexiv2/src | done | done | done | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent |
|
libkexiv2/tests | done | done | done | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent | Code do not depend of KF5 |
Libkdcraw
Component | Cmake port | pure Qt5 port | pure KF5 port | compile | warnings | Who | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
libkdcraw/src | done | done | done | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent, Veaceslav |
|
libkdcraw/tests | done | done | done | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent, Veaceslav |
|
Libkipi
Component | Cmake port | pure Qt5 port | pure KF5 port | compile | warnings | Who | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
libkipi/src | done | done | done | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent, Mohamed |
|
libkipi/test | done | done | done | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent, Mohamed |
|
Libkface
Component | Cmake port | pure Qt5 port | pure KF5 port | compile | warnings | Who | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
libkface/src | done | done | done | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu | Library only depend of KF5::I18n |
libkface/tests | done | done | done | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu | Code do not depend of KF5 |
Libkgeomap
Component | Cmake port | pure Qt5 port | pure KF5 port | compile | warnings | Who | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
libkgeomap/src | done | done | done | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu, Mohamed |
|
libkgeomap/tests | done | done | done | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu | |
libkgeomap/calibrator | done | done | done | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu | |
libkgeomap/demo | done | done | done | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu |
|
Kipi-plugins
Component | Cmake port | pure Qt5 port | pure KF5 port | compile | warnings | Who | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kipi-plugins/common | done | uncomplete | uncomplete | yes | yes | Gilles, Laurent |
|
Kipi-plugins/tests | done | uncomplete | uncomplete | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent | |
Kipi-plugins Documentation | done | not applicable | not applicable | yes | no | Gilles | |
Kipi-plugins/timeadjust | done | uncomplete | uncomplete | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent | |
Kipi-plugins/sendimages | done | uncomplete | uncomplete | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent | |
Kipi-plugins/kmlexport | done | uncomplete | uncomplete | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent | |
Kipi-plugins/printimages | done | uncomplete | uncomplete | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent | Postscript support have been removed from QPrinter. Option is now removed from assistant. |
Kipi-plugins/flashexport | done | uncomplete | uncomplete | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent |
digiKam Software Compilation
Component | Cmake port | pure Qt5 port | pure KF5 port | compile | warnings | Who | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
digiKam Software Compilation | done | not applicable | not applicable | not applicable | not applicable | Gilles |
|
digiKam Documentation | done | not applicable | not applicable | yes | no | Gilles |
digiKam Core
Component | Cmake port | pure Qt5 port | pure KF5 port | compile | warnings | Who | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
digiKam/data | done | not applicable | not applicable | yes | no | Gilles, Laurent | |
digiKam/libs | done | under progress | under progress | yes | yes | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu, Alin |
|
digiKam/app | done | under progress | under progress | yes | yes | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu, Alin |
|
digiKam/utilities | done | under progress | under progress | yes | yes | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu, Alin |
|
digiKam/imageplugins | done | under progress | under progress | yes | yes | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu |
|
digiKam/kioslave | done | under progress | under progress | yes | yes | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu |
|
digiKam/showfoto | done | under progress | under progress | yes | yes | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu | |
digiKam/databaseserver | done | under progress | under progress | yes | yes | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu | |
digiKam/tests | done | under progress | under progress | no | Gilles, Laurent, Teemu |
Recommendations
Porting to KF5 is divided in 4 stages:
1/ Change CMake files. Some Laurent scripts do this stuff. We use now ECM scripts collection from KDE core to manage dependencies and report on the console. Some macros disappear, and are replaced by new ones. For this job, it's recommended to look well all done in CMake files from libkexiv2 and libkdcraw already ported and polished.
2/ Port C++ code using KDE4Support. This include older classes from Qt4 and KDE4 to make transition faster. This will help to have quickly a code compilable, but this will generate a lots of deprecated warnings. First regression tests must be done at this stage to see if nothing is broken.
3/ Port C++ code to pure KF5. The goal of KF5 is to reduce KDELibs fingerprint everywhere, when it's possible. Qt API will be used in priority against KF5 API. But sometime, this will be not possible as well, without big changes. A lot of KDE API have migrated to Qt5 (as for ex : KUrl -> QUrl and kDebug ->qDebug). It's sound like KDELibs will become an incubator for new implementations which will move later to Qt. Also, to have the most of code using pure Qt5 will simplify future transitions more easy to do. Removing KDE4Support dependency will force to use non-deprecated KF5 API.
4/ Port C++ code to pure Qt5. Porting most of KF5 Api to use Qt5 instead is prefered, when it's possible. Another important change in Qt5 is the non-support of char pointer with QString.
In first stage we must use remove_definitions(-DQT_NO_CAST_FROM_ASCII -DQT_NO_CAST_TO_ASCII) in CMake script to compile code. These definitions force to not use deprecated QString methods.
Another definition to add while Qt5 porting is add_definitions(-DQT_NO_URL_CAST_FROM_STRING) about cast between QString and QUrl.
In last stage we must use remove_definition(-DQT_DEPRECATED_SINCE(5,0)) in CMake script to compile code. These definitions force to disable deprecated methods in Qt API.
Common changes to port code
Original Code | Ported Code | Remarks |
---|---|---|
...section of code not yet ported... |
#pragma message("PORT QT5")
/*
...section of code not yet ported...
*/ |
Not yet ported code sections must be commented with compiler warnings printed on the console |
KDE4_BUILD_TESTS=ON | BUILD_TESTING=ON | CMake flag to build tests sub-dir. |
CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debugfull | CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=debug | CMake flag to build code with debug symbols. |
kDebug() / kWarning() / kError() | qCDebug(FOO_LOG) / qCWarning(FOO_LOG) / qCCritical(FOO_LOG) |
|
#include "foo.moc" |
#include "foo.h" |
|
KUrl::directory() |
QUrl::adjusted(QUrl::RemoveFilename).path() |
|
KDiskFreeSpaceInfo |
QStorageInfo |
|
KUrl::setFileName(newFileName) |
QUrl::setPath(QUrl::path() + newFileName) |
|
KUrl url;
url.adjustPath(KUrl::AddTrailingSlash); |
QUrl url;
url.setPath(url.path() + '/'); |
|
KDialog::spacingHint() |
QApplication::style()->pixelMetric(QStyle::PM_DefaultLayoutSpacing) |
|
KDialog::marginHint() |
QApplication::style()->pixelMetric(QStyle::PM_DefaultChildMargin) |
|
KComponentData::mainComponent().componentName() |
QApplication::applicationName() |
|
KComponentData::mainComponent().aboutData()->homepage() |
KAboutData::applicationData().homepage() |
|
KIconLoader::SmallIcon("icon_name", size) or KIconLoader::global()->loadIcon("icon_name", size) |
QIcon::fromTheme("icon_name").pixmap(size) |
|
KStandardDirs::installPath("data") + QString("filename") |
QStandardPaths::locate(QStandardPaths::GenericDataLocation,
QString("filename")) |
File to open in read-only. File already exist. |
KStandardDirs::installPath("xdgdata-apps") + QString("filename") |
QStandardPaths::locate(QStandardPaths::ApplicationsLocation,
QString("filename")) |
File to open in read-only. File already exist. |
KStandardDirs::locateLocal("data", QString("filename")) |
QStandardPaths::writableLocation(QStandardPaths::GenericDataLocation)
+ '/' + QString("filename") |
File to open in read-only. File already exist. |
QString dir = KStandardDirs::locateLocal("data",
QString("dirname"), true) |
QString dir =
QStandardPaths::writableLocation(QStandardPaths::GenericDataLocation)
+ '/' + QString("dirname");
QDir().mkpath(dir); |
Dir to open in read-write. Create dir if it do not exist. |
KUrlLabel |
KDcrawIface::RActiveLabel |
|
KSeparator |
KDcrawIface::RLineWidget |
|
KXmlGuiWindow::restoreWindowSize(group);
KDialog::restoreDialogSize(group); and KXmlGuiWindow::saveWindowSize(group);
KDialog::saveDialogSize(group); |
KWindowConfig::restoreWindowSize(windowHandle(), group); and KWindowConfig::saveWindowSize(windowHandle(), group); |
|
KVBox* const vbox = new KVBox(this); |
KDcrawIface::RVBox* const vbox = new KDcrawIface::RVBox(this); |
|
KHBox* const hbox = new KHBox(this); |
KDcrawIface::RHBox* const hbox = new KDcrawIface::RHBox(this); |
|
KIO::NetAccess::del(url, QApplication::activeWindow());
KIO::NetAccess::mkdir(url, QApplication::activeWindow());
KIO::NetAccess::dircopy(srcUrl, dstUrl, QApplication::activeWindow()) |
auto deleteJob = KIO::file_delete(url);
KJobWidgets::setWindow(deleteJob, QApplication::activeWindow());
deleteJob->exec();
auto mkdirJob = KIO::mkdir(url);
KJobWidgets::setWindow(mkdirJob, QApplication::activeWindow());
mkdirJob->exec();
auto dircopyJob = KIO::copy(srcUrl, dstUrl);
KJobWidgets::setWindow(dircopyJob, QApplication::activeWindow());
dircopyJob->exec(); |
|
KD::rename(src, dst) |
QFile::rename(src, dst) |
|
KToolInvocation::invokeBrowser(url) |
QDesktopServices::openUrl(url) |
|
KGlobalSettings::singleClick() |
qApp->style()->styleHint(QStyle::SH_ItemView_ActivateItemOnSingleClick) |
|
KUrl::directory(KUrl::ObeyTrailingSlash) |
QUrl url = adjusted(QUrl::RemoveFilename);
url.adjusted(QUrl::StripTrailingSlash).path() |
|
KImageIO::typeForMime(str) |
QMimeDatabase().mimeTypeForName(str) |
|
KTemporaryFile temp;
temp.setPrefix(prefixStr);
temp.setSuffix(suffixStr); |
QTemporaryFile temp;
temp.setFileTemplate(prefixStr + QLatin1String("XXXXXX") + suffixStr); |
|
K_GLOBAL_STATIC |
Q_GLOBAL_STATIC |
|
KMenu::addTitle() |
QMenu::addSection() |
|
KStandardDirs::locate("data", "file") |
QStandardPaths::locate(QStandardPaths::GenericDataLocation, "file") |
|
KStandardDirs::locateLocal("data", "file") |
QStandardPaths::writableLocation(QStandardPaths::GenericDataLocation)
+ QChar('/') + QString("file") |
|
KStandardDirs::locateLocal("appdata", "file") |
QStandardPaths::writableLocation(QStandardPaths::DataLocation)
+ QChar('/') + QString("file") |
|
KStandardDirs::locateLocal("cache", "file") |
QStandardPaths::writableLocation(QStandardPaths::GenericCacheLocation)
+ QChar('/') + QString("file") |
|
KStandardDirs::locateLocal("tmp", "file") |
QDir::tempPath() + QChar('/') + QString("file") |
|
KStandardDirs::makeDir(path, permission); |
if (!QDir(path).exists())
{
if (QDir().mkpath(path))
{
QFile f(path);
f.setPermissions(permission);
}
} |
permission = QFile::ReadUser | QFile::WriteUser | QFile::ExeUser = 0700 |
KUrlRequester |
KDcrawIface::RFileSelector |
To select local only file or path, no need KUrlRequester. |
KActionMenu |
QMenu |
Use QMenu::menuAction() to get Action instance of menu to plug in action collection. |
KToggleAction |
QAction |
Use QAction::setCheckable(true) to switch Action as toggle state. |
QUrl url;
url.addQueryItem(key, value); |
QUrl url;
QUrlQuery q(url);
q.addQueryItem(key, value);
url.setQuery(q); |
|
QPixmap pix, alphaMask;
pix.setAlphaChannel(mask); |
QPixmap pix, alphaMask;
QPainter p(&pix);
p.setOpacity(0.2);
p.drawPixmap(0, 0, alphaMask);
p.end(); |
Link to documentation to port code
Scripts to port code
Laurent Montel has written scripts to port CMake and C++ code to KF5/Qt5 and remove kdelibs4support dependency. There are available in this repository (see kf5 sub-dir).
Scripts must be applied in this order, with a test compilation between each one :
- Full safe scripts :
- convert-to-k4aboutdata.pl (first one to apply, this help to compile)
- adapt_cmakelists_file.pl (to convert CMake scripts, but code must don't be capititalized)
- remove-kde4support.pl
- convert-kicon.pl
- convert-kmenu.pl
- convert-kshortcut.pl
- convert-kcolordialog.pl
- convert-klistwidget.pl
- convert-kmd5.pl
- convert-kmenubar.pl
- convert-ksplashscreen.pl
- convert-kdebug.pl
- Less safe scripts :
- convert-kintnuminput.pl
- convert-kintspinbox.pl
- convert-ktextbrowser.pl
- convert-kfontcombobox.pl
- Scripts which need to check in-deep all changes :
- convert-kvbox.pl
- convert-kdialog.pl
- convert-kcmdlineargs.pl
- convert-kdebug-with-argument.sh (this one change kDebug(1556) en qCDebug with some info after to convert)
- convert-kmimetype.pl
- Last scripts to apply :
- clean-forward-declaration.sh (remove forward declaration, to do when all compile fine)
- clean-includes.sh (try to remove not used includes, not safe to 100%)
- port_to_autogenerate_export_header.sh (convert to new signal/slot API, not safe to 100%)
digiKam Coding Sprint 2014
<write short intro to digikam here?>
The event
It had been almost three years since the last time the digiKam team had an opportunity to meet, talk, code and spend some time together. Gilles Caulier, the lead coordinator, was a victim of a serious car crash two years ago and was thus unable to organize or attend such an event. Now, we finally had an opportunity to meet again. After a lot of effort finding a suitable place and a date suitable for all developers to work together under optimal conditions, the digiKam coding sprint 2014 finally took place in Berlin, Germany, between November 14th and 16th 2014.
Before going through what happened during these days, we would like to sincerely thank Digia, the company in charge of Qt development, for hosting the event, and also in particular Tobias Hunger, who welcomed us at Digia's offices located in the South of Berlin.
People participating the sprint (from the left to right) :
- Gilles Caulier from France
- Teemu Rytilahti from Finland
- Shourya Singh Gupta from India
- Marcel Wiesweg from Germany
- Veaceslav Munteanu from Republic of Moldova
- Dmitri Popov (taking the Photo)
What happened during the sprint
The next major task is to port digiKam to Qt5. Originally approximately 10% was already ported by Gilles before the sprint, and the objectives for this coding sprint were as follows:
- Specify timeline for porting digiKam.
- Identify priorities (what should be ported first).
- Delegate porting tasks to developers (who does what).
Long discussions evolved around these topics. Gilles explained the experience he already gained with this sort of work, which tools are available to facilitate the porting, and where manual work is required. The libraries which are part of the digikam project were prioritized for the port, and tasks were assigned.
There were also discussions about the KIPI framework and its plugins. After many years of development, some plugins are essentially unmaintained and no longer needed by the digiKam as there functionality was superseded or moved, leaving them out from porting. We also talked about APIs to provide better integration between KIPI and digiKam for a task-based framework such as digiKam's batch queue manager. The KF5 port seems like the right time to integrate binary incompatible as well as architectural changes where needed.
Shourya Singh Gupta consequentially worked on implementing the KIPI tools functionality in the Batch Queue Manager (Tools Settings). To do this, discussions were done regarding what API changes must be done to the stack to facilitate a generic way to plug kipi-plugins into BQM. By the end of Coding Sprint, there were changes made to APIs to allow a generic way to plug kipi-plugins' settings widgets to the user-interface, tested by converting two plugins (DNG converter and KIO export tool) to take advantage of this feature. Later on, also the background processing part of DNG converter, responsible for doing the real work, was ported over. This work is currently still in its separate feature branch, waiting to be merged after the frameworks porting branch becomes more stable.
Marcel worked on memory consumption problems with the database functionalities as well as several reported memory leaks. As soon as he could reproduce the problems under valgrind, many cleanups and fixes were committed. Among other fixes a long-standing bug https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=205776 was fixed.
He also worked to complete the Removable Collection support. The goal is to show thumbnails from disconnected media, without actually having access to the full file, as this information is stored by the digiKam in its internal metadata database. In practise this means that the users can continue to search and preview collections with thumbnails and other metadata. A feedback to the user is provided to indicate that items and collection are not available for editing. See bugs https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=191494 and https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=114539. This feature was completed during the train ride back from Berlin, and committed Sunday evening.
Gilles polished the whole libkgeomap public API to be ready for the KF5 port. A lot of changes have been applied to reduce binary compatibility issues. This is especially needed if a library is to be moved to be a KF5 library to be more easily reused by other projects. A similar move has recently been made to libkface to make it available for KPhotoAlbum.
Veaceslav worked on porting libkdcraw from the old KDE4 Threadweaver API to the new KF5 Threadweaver implementation. Unfortunately, the new API was not quite stable nor documented, and Gilles decided to port it one more time to use a pure Qt thread pool implementation.
Teemu fixed some crashes as well as some small annoyances and introduced his plans to work on cleaning up the codebase, which is still on-going process started with cleaning up the CMakeLists and moving misplaced source files to their corresponding places.
<should this belong to aftermath?> MySQL support is now disabled by default for the time being because it's not fully functional and still experimental. MySQL support is still fully available of course, but as an optional feature.
After long days of coding, the tired developers went out in search for food in the quarter around the hotel at Rosenthaler Straße. Sushi on Friday and Vietnamese food on Saturday managed to support the developers for another day of coding.
Aftermath
<write about what has happened after the sprint up to this time point?> <plans for the future?>
digiKam core (and the libraries we are depending on) is now pretty much ported to Qt5/KF5, is compilable and running, although there is still ongoing effort to port away from KDE4 support libraries which are currently employed. The port is not yet ready for the prime-time and one can encounter bugs caused by porting, but in the near future we will start to roll beta releases in hope to get reports from end-users about regressions.
However, there is still a lot of work required especially into kipi-plugins, of which only a small part (20%) is currently ported. For those wanting to try out and help in the development the code is available in frameworks branch of corresponding projects. See more information from our contribution page.
The build-system (CMake) structure is currently being cleaned up to make the codebase more maintainable for the future as well as making writing unit tests a breeze. In the same time the dependencies of different parts is being investigated and cleaned up, hopefully to allow easier compilation on Windows and OSX.
Final Words
DigiKam is hoping to participate once again in the GSoC this year, and there are some selected new ideas for next available in the wiki to find new contributors. We hope that anyone interested in working on digiKam in this summer to start getting familiar with the project already.
We would like to thank the folks at Digia once more for their hospitality and KDE e.V. for sponsoring the event!
More photos from the event are available on Flickr.