Request for reviews and update for GSoC projects page

[Vadim Zeitlin]

Hello,

I've just updated http://www.wxwidgets.org/gsoc/projects/ for the 2014
edition and would welcome any comments or updates: because, as the contents
of this page is on Github, sending such updates is very simple, just go to
https://github.com/wxWidgets/website/blob/master/gsoc/projects/index.md and
"Edit" the file and then send us a pull request (of course, if you are more
comfortable with Git and Jekyll, you should clone this repository locally
and edit it more conveniently, but doing it online should be fine for any
small changes).

One of the most important things I've added is the "potential mentors"
section for each of the projects. This assignment is by no means final but
we really need to have at least one mentor for each of the projects we're
proposing, otherwise it's not worth offering them, so any new projects
would also need to have someone assigned to them.

And while adding more ideas is probably the most interesting thing to do,
revising and extending the existing ones is at least as, and probably more,
important. In fact, I removed or commented out a couple of projects because
they were not fleshed out enough. So I'd really welcome any additions to
the existing project ideas, notably wxWebView and wxRTC ones, about which I
don't know much.

Thanks in advance for your help!
VZ

P.S. Bryan, what would be the best way to add some gap between the
projects? They all run into each other currently and I'd like to have some
separation between them. I thought of just putting a <hr/> there but I'm
sure you can come up with something slightly more advanced and less ugly...

[Bryan Petty]

Post by Vadim Zeitlin
P.S. Bryan, what would be the best way to add some gap between the
projects? They all run into each other currently and I'd like to have some
separation between them. I thought of just putting a <hr/> there

<hr> isn't bad. <hr> is a void element in HTML5 btw, which means they
are forbidden from being self-closing, as are all the other void
elements listed here:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/syntax.html#void-elements

I was mostly just trying to stick with the global site margins defined
for the given header levels, and this is partially why I added the
"idea" (light bulb) icons to help visually separate them. In any case,
it's also still possible to override those styles to provide more
spacing on a per-page basis, and I've done so now. You can see how
this is easily done from this commit:
https://github.com/wxWidgets/website/commit/3fa5952d

(re-download new styles on the official site)

Regards,
Bryan Petty

[Julian Smart]

Hi Vadim,

Comments on two of the proposed wxRTC projects:

1. I do have code I could contribute for ODT import and export. I have
been hesitant to offer it because I didn't know whether it constituted
too much bloat for wxWidgets, plus it needs a small amount of work to
purge some code I use to extend wxRTC functionality. And doubtless there
are further improvements to be made anyway. But I don't know if this
would be a suitable GSOC project...? Certainly it's more achievable than
starting from scratch, but it would be less satisfying.

2. The same applies to the wxRTC table UI - I have a set of classes for
editing table properties plus a table template/gallery implementation
that again I was hesitant to add to wxWidgets for library bloat reasons,
and 3.0 was about to be released so it would have been bad timing. But
it could be made into a separate add-on if people were interested. Or
integrated into wxRTC. It probably doesn't really constitute a GSoC
project unless further interesting extensions were made.

The really interesting wxRTC thing to me at present is the RTL
implementation which I have not a clue how to do...

I would like to see the ability to display SVG files; searching for how
to do this wxWidgets doesn't have promising results, so maybe a GSoC
project could find a reliable way to do this on the main platforms.

Regards,

Julian

Post by Vadim Zeitlin
Hello,
I've just updated http://www.wxwidgets.org/gsoc/projects/ for the 2014
edition and would welcome any comments or updates: because, as the contents
of this page is on Github, sending such updates is very simple, just go to
https://github.com/wxWidgets/website/blob/master/gsoc/projects/index.md and
"Edit" the file and then send us a pull request (of course, if you are more
comfortable with Git and Jekyll, you should clone this repository locally
and edit it more conveniently, but doing it online should be fine for any
small changes).
One of the most important things I've added is the "potential mentors"
section for each of the projects. This assignment is by no means final but
we really need to have at least one mentor for each of the projects we're
proposing, otherwise it's not worth offering them, so any new projects
would also need to have someone assigned to them.
And while adding more ideas is probably the most interesting thing to do,
revising and extending the existing ones is at least as, and probably more,
important. In fact, I removed or commented out a couple of projects because
they were not fleshed out enough. So I'd really welcome any additions to
the existing project ideas, notably wxWebView and wxRTC ones, about which I
don't know much.
Thanks in advance for your help!
VZ
P.S. Bryan, what would be the best way to add some gap between the
projects? They all run into each other currently and I'd like to have some
separation between them. I thought of just putting a <hr/> there but I'm
sure you can come up with something slightly more advanced and less ugly...

[petah]

On Fri, 14 Feb 2014 22:46:01 +0000

Post by Julian Smart
2. The same applies to the wxRTC table UI - I have a set of classes for
editing table properties plus a table template/gallery implementation
that again I was hesitant to add to wxWidgets for library bloat reasons,
and 3.0 was about to be released so it would have been bad timing. But
it could be made into a separate add-on if people were interested.

I'm definitely interested.

Post by Julian Smart
I would like to see the ability to display SVG files; searching for how
to do this wxWidgets doesn't have promising results.

The C++ standards committee is looking at adding Cairo to the C++ ISO, maybe implementations based on Cairo would help, it'd be somewhat forward-looking.

cheers,

-- p

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 00:03:16 +0100 petah wrote:

p> > I would like to see the ability to display SVG files; searching for how
p> > to do this wxWidgets doesn't have promising results.
p>
p> The C++ standards committee is looking at adding Cairo to the C++ ISO,
p> maybe implementations based on Cairo would help, it'd be somewhat
p> forward-looking.

Sorry, what's the relationship between Cairo and *displaying* (as opposed
to generating) SVGs?

Regards,
VZ

[petah]

On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 00:06:38 +0100

Post by Vadim Zeitlin
p> > I would like to see the ability to display SVG files; searching for how
p> > to do this wxWidgets doesn't have promising results.
p>
p> The C++ standards committee is looking at adding Cairo to the C++ ISO,
p> maybe implementations based on Cairo would help, it'd be somewhat
p> forward-looking.
Sorry, what's the relationship between Cairo and *displaying* (as opposed
to generating) SVGs?

I'm not sure what you mean; Julian mentioned displaying SVGs.

cheers,

-- p

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 00:25:29 +0100 petah wrote:

p> On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 00:06:38 +0100
p> Vadim Zeitlin <***@wxwidgets.org> wrote:
p> > On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 00:03:16 +0100 petah wrote:
p> >
p> > p> > I would like to see the ability to display SVG files; searching for how
p> > p> > to do this wxWidgets doesn't have promising results.
p> > p>
p> > p> The C++ standards committee is looking at adding Cairo to the C++ ISO,
p> > p> maybe implementations based on Cairo would help, it'd be somewhat
p> > p> forward-looking.
p> >
p> > Sorry, what's the relationship between Cairo and displaying (as opposed
p> > to generating) SVGs?
p>
p> I'm not sure what you mean; Julian mentioned displaying SVGs.

Yes, so how does Cairo help with this? AFAIK it can only be used for
generating SVGs.

Regards,
VZ

[Steve Barnes]

Post by Vadim Zeitlin
p> On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 00:06:38 +0100
p> >
p> > p> > I would like to see the ability to display SVG files; searching for how
p> > p> > to do this wxWidgets doesn't have promising results.
p> > p>
p> > p> The C++ standards committee is looking at adding Cairo to the C++ ISO,
p> > p> maybe implementations based on Cairo would help, it'd be somewhat
p> > p> forward-looking.
p> >
p> > Sorry, what's the relationship between Cairo and displaying (as opposed
p> > to generating) SVGs?
p>
p> I'm not sure what you mean; Julian mentioned displaying SVGs.
Yes, so how does Cairo help with this? AFAIK it can only be used for
generating SVGs.
Regards,
VZ

wxPython has a python plug-in for displaying vector graphics - this
could be used with a translation layer for displaying SVGs quite easily
and there are some libraries for this already, (not sure if they are
Cairo based). wxPython Project Phoenix also has a SVGFileDC that is a
write only device context for SVG.

[petah]

On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 00:25:29 +0100

Post by Vadim Zeitlin
p> On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 00:06:38 +0100
p> >
p> > p> > I would like to see the ability to display SVG files; searching for how
p> > p> > to do this wxWidgets doesn't have promising results.
p> > p>
p> > p> The C++ standards committee is looking at adding Cairo to the C++ ISO,
p> > p> maybe implementations based on Cairo would help, it'd be somewhat
p> > p> forward-looking.
p> >
p> > Sorry, what's the relationship between Cairo and displaying (as opposed
p> > to generating) SVGs?
p>
p> I'm not sure what you mean; Julian mentioned displaying SVGs.
Yes, so how does Cairo help with this? AFAIK it can only be used for
generating SVGs.

Still not entirely clear, I guess you're referring to Cairo's SVG backend? What I meant by "implementations /based/ on Cairo" is using a library built on top of Cairo to render to a Cairo bitmap backend, something like librsvg.

My comment was more about Cairo possibly becoming an ISO standard would further wx's goal of deprecating old features that have standard alternative, like wxHashMap & std::unordered_map, in order to offset bloat, which Julian mentioned as a recurrent concern (I'm assuming he meant source, not binary, bloat).

cheers,

-- p

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 01:43:18 +0100 petah wrote:

p> > Yes, so how does Cairo help with this? AFAIK it can only be used for
p> > generating SVGs.
p>
p> Still not entirely clear, I guess you're referring to Cairo's SVG
p> backend? What I meant by "implementations /based/ on Cairo" is using a
p> library built on top of Cairo to render to a Cairo bitmap backend,
p> something like librsvg.

We already have 2 APIs for rendering (wxDC and wxGraphicsContext), we're
not going to add a third one, at least not immediately and not for this
project, which is about reading/parsing SVG.

Regards,
VZ

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Fri, 14 Feb 2014 22:46:01 +0000 Julian Smart wrote:

JS> Comments on two of the proposed wxRTC projects:
JS>
JS> 1. I do have code I could contribute for ODT import and export. I have
JS> been hesitant to offer it because I didn't know whether it constituted
JS> too much bloat for wxWidgets,

I really don't know at all what is involved in ODT support. This was
mentioned by a couple of different people though, so I've added this as a
project idea. If you don't think it's a good one to propose to a GSoC
student, please just remove it.

JS> 2. The same applies to the wxRTC table UI

This one was already there so all I did was to polish it up a little.
Again, if you think it shouldn't be proposed, I'm perfectly fine with
removing it, the decision is really fully yours, I don't know anything
about this.

JS> The really interesting wxRTC thing to me at present is the RTL
JS> implementation which I have not a clue how to do...

It's pretty difficult. I really don't think it's a good idea to do it
ourselves, we should use Uniscribe under Windows, Pango under Linux and I
have no idea what under OS X.

JS> I would like to see the ability to display SVG files; searching for how
JS> to do this wxWidgets doesn't have promising results, so maybe a GSoC
JS> project could find a reliable way to do this on the main platforms.

This has also been asked about recently, so it might be interesting to
provide. If you (or anybody else) could add a project for this, it'd be
great, otherwise I could try to do it later. After spending 5 hours today
on GSoC-related stuff, I'd really like to do something else for now...

Regards,
VZ

[Bryan Petty]

Post by Vadim Zeitlin
JS>
JS> 1. I do have code I could contribute for ODT import and export. I have
JS> been hesitant to offer it because I didn't know whether it constituted
JS> too much bloat for wxWidgets,
I really don't know at all what is involved in ODT support. This was
mentioned by a couple of different people though, so I've added this as a
project idea. If you don't think it's a good one to propose to a GSoC
student, please just remove it.

Not that I'm volunteering to mentor a project like this, but I wanted
to point out the similarities in how we currently use wxCode as a sort
of plugin/extension directory more owned by the community than anyone
specifically, in comparison to how other projects are encouraged to be
"umbrella" organizations to other smaller, but related orgs, and also
in comparison with projects that include actual plugins/extensions as
fair game for GSoC projects (WordPress is one of those, but I know
there's others).

I think I'm one of those people that tends to think ODT import/export
is pretty useless for being bundled in the official package, but I
also like the idea of this being a GSoC project run with the intention
of pulling together a wxCode project for it. Although, I would
definitely need to see some support from Ulrich Telle (who is mostly
maintaining wxCode overall right now) as committing to provide help
and timely support to push the project along if it was going to be
approved.

I'd still score official library improvements as much higher priority
though given everything else equal (student experience and such).

Regards,
Bryan Petty

[petah]

oops, just saw Vadim's comment :)

-- p

[Eric Jensen]

Hello Julian,

Friday, February 14, 2014, 11:46:01 PM, you wrote:


JS> I would like to see the ability to display SVG files; searching for how
JS> to do this wxWidgets doesn't have promising results, so maybe a GSoC
JS> project could find a reliable way to do this on the main platforms.

What about wxSVG?
http://sourceforge.net/projects/wxsvg/

I think it should be possible to create a renderer for it that uses
wxGraphicsContext instead of the provided Cairo and AGG renderers.

Eric

[Vadim Zeitlin]

On Sat, 15 Feb 2014 01:08:33 +0100 Eric Jensen wrote:

EJ> JS> I would like to see the ability to display SVG files; searching for how
EJ> JS> to do this wxWidgets doesn't have promising results, so maybe a GSoC
EJ> JS> project could find a reliable way to do this on the main platforms.
EJ>
EJ> What about wxSVG?
EJ> http://sourceforge.net/projects/wxsvg/
EJ>
EJ> I think it should be possible to create a renderer for it that uses
EJ> wxGraphicsContext instead of the provided Cairo and AGG renderers.

Yes, looking at the code it should be indeed relatively simple to do this.
I'm a bit concerned by how complicated this code is, perhaps we could just
use some subset of it, e.g. drop support for video element. But in any case
it looks like the most important parts of the work are already done in this
project, so it's probably not a good candidate for a GSoC project...

Regards,
VZ

[Stefano Mtangoo]

Post by Vadim Zeitlin
Hello,
So I'd really welcome any additions to
the existing project ideas, notably wxWebView and wxRTC ones, about which
I
don't know much.

As for wxHelpController and wxWebview integration, I have done it and its
working.
Its still not complete (missing wxConfig) and code need cleaning. but the
remained
work makes it less candindate for GSOC.

Integrating Chromium will be nice one.
Download Events and Cookies are really missing for wxWebView .
Am not sure how others view at them...

Post by Vadim Zeitlin
Thanks in advance for your help!
VZ
P.S. Bryan, what would be the best way to add some gap between the
projects? They all run into each other currently and I'd like to have some
separation between them. I thought of just putting a <hr/> there but I'm
sure you can come up with something slightly more advanced and less
ugly...