GSOC 2015: Introduction - Further development of android application

Hello Guys

I am Venkatesh Shukla, from Varanasi, India. I am willing to work with
MetaBrainz Foundation Inc. for Google Summer of
Code 2015.

I have some exposure to android application development and hence would
like to contribute in musicbrainz-android.
A while back, I probed the IRC channel to find out if there is any interest
in further development of the android side
of musicbrainz and was received good response. I was told to 'adopt the
android application and keep it updated'. And I
have been doing exactly that on and off for past couple of weeks. I know it
is late but I wanted to introduce myself to
the community with some work to show on my part.

This the work done so far :
a. Gradle build of the android application.
   The application currently uses maven build script. Android officially
supports gradle as its build system. Hence, as
   a first step towards updating this application, I made a gradle build
script. This was done in a separate branch and
   the logs can be seen here
<https://github.com/venkateshshukla/musicbrainz-android/commits/gradle>.
The instructions for gradle build are also updated in the README file. I
have sent a pull
   request to jdamcd. I would request him to review the pull-request and
suggest changes in order to get it merged.

b. Migration from actionbarsherlock to appcompat.
   Further, actionbarsherlock is now a deprecated library
<https://github.com/JakeWharton/ActionBarSherlock>. So, I have initiated
migration of the application from usage
   of actionbarsherlock to usage of android support libraries (appcompat).
The progress can be viewed here
<https://github.com/venkateshshukla/musicbrainz-android/commits/appcompat>.
I am stuck
   at migration of PreferenceActivity which the appcompat does not support.
I would send a pull request as soon as this
   is finished.

c. Usage of oAuth2 in the application.
   I had been told to work on Bug # (Integration of oAuth2 with the
musicbrainz android application). But I have not been
   able to start that yet. But as time is running short for proposal
submission, I am facing a dilemma. Should I be
   working on the bug or working on making the proposal. I need your advice
on which is the better option of the two.

Some other short term enhancements that I have noticed for the application
are:
a. Removal of aether error encountered while building with new maven
versions.
b. The instrumentation tests fail in 9 instances out of total of 31. The
results can be viewed here
<http://venkateshshukla.github.io/musicbrainz-android/app/build/outputs/reports/androidTests/connected>
. Necessary
   modifications are required to remove these errors.
c. Migration and usage of android studio. Android studio is now the
preferred IDE of android. As the gradle build is
   finished, this would not be much difficult. As such, the project can be
directly imported by android studio. But
   gradle wrappers are not included. Other android studio stuffs like iml
files etc are also needed to be added to VCS.
c. Upgrading the application to use latest library versions and supporting
latest android version (lollipop).
d. Detailed documentation.

Proposal
========
As mentioned above, time is running short for proposal submission. So, I
would now be focusing on preparation of
proposal. I would ask the community for suggestions regarding the android
side of things. But I think that should belong
in another mail thread.
Utilizing the community feedback, I would prepare a preliminary proposal
and submit it for review. I plan on doing this
in next few days, giving me time for final changes and proposal submission
on google melange.

About Me
========
I am a senior undergrad pursuing Electrical Engineering at Indian Institute
of Technology in the ancient city of Varanasi.
On IRC, I appear by the nick 'v_s'.
I am an open source enthusiast and have worked a bit with few open source
projects. My github profile can be viewed
here <http://www.github.com/venkateshshukla>. I am not an avid blogger but
I do share things that I learn, mostly as a reference for later. My blog
can be
viewed here <http://venkyappdev.blogspot.com>. I have worked with
Subsurface during GSOC '14 on the Android Downloader project. The link to
the project
can be found here
<https://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/project/details/google/gsoc2014/venkateshshukla/5639274879778816>.
And the git repository here
<https://github.com/venkateshshukla/subsurface-android-downloader>.


Sincerely
-- 
Venkatesh Shukla

Senior Undergraduate
Dept of Electrical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology
Varanasi

_______________________________________________
MusicBrainz-devel mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-devel