Coding on Quanta

--===============0311010231==
Content-Type: multipart/signed;
  boundary="nextPart7377460.dP60ihgR2K";
  protocol="application/pgp-signature";
  micalg=pgp-sha1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

--nextPart7377460.dP60ihgR2K
Content-Type: text/plain;
  charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Hi,

(warning: long mail ahead)

 I sent this mail as you responded to my call for developer help or=20
mentioned that you'd like to develop on Quanta before. I send it to you=20
personally and to the quanta-devel mailing list. Please keep the replies=20
onto the mailing list, unless it is something personal addressed to me.
 As you might know, development is stalled on Quanta for almost 2 years.
Development of Quanta related features did not stop though,  Niko Sams=20
wrote a PHP plugin and worked on some code that originated from Quanta.
 Anyway, first my vision, next the details. What I would like to see is=20
simple: developers who would like to work on KDE software and be famous.=20
I slightly smiled when Eric said to me many years ago that I could be=20
rich and famous by working on Quanta. Well, I'm not rich, but cannot=20
complain, and maybe I'm not that famous as a rock star, but neverthless=20
quite some people know my name. I even was asked at one conference to=20
sit near some Quanta fans to take photos and sign autographs. :) You=20
see, it is real, you can be famous by writing open source software.  In=20
the 7 past years I worked almost continously on KDE and on Qt based=20
applications. I got my job due to Quanta and my involvment into KDE (and=20
I still do KDE development as part of my job).
 What did it take to come to this level? Lot of things, but one=20
important was that I enjoyed working on the project and I enjoyed using=20
Qt and KDE as a development platform. And I still do. When I started I=20
had about 2 month Qt "experience" (C++ and general programmin much more=20
though), so not having too much Qt knowledge shouldn't stop you working.=20
If you would like to learn something interesting, work in a nice=20
community, this is a good place.
 When I joined the Quanta "team", Quanta was pretty much - although in=20
one sense different - in a state as it is now. It was abandoned, the=20
original authors wanted it to die. But one person didn't wanted, and=20
that was Eric. I got the source code of a full application where I=20
started to fix bugs, and later to add new features. This was slightly=20
before Qt3 and KDE3 appeared. What was the next step? To port Quanta=20
from Qt2 to Qt3. The following months I did the port, rewrote it to use=20
KatePart as the editor, wrote at least 3 instances of a HTML and PHP=20
parser to replace the old simple, but dump one that was limiting us.
 And now? The last stable Quanta is KDE/Qt3 based. KDE is at version 4=20
and Quanta needs a new parser. :)
 The situation is different though, as now I (and Eric) don't want it to=20
die, and I even offer support as long as my time permits, to guide you=20
with the development. Quite some code is already ported to KDE4, it=20
doesn't have to be started from scratch. There is already a prototype of=20
a new parser implemented. You have a better start, then I did. :)
 The project management model was quite simple: Eric had most of the=20
ideas (as he was a user of Quanta as well, I wasn't a web developer), I=20
coded it. How I do it was completely up to me. What I imagine now? We=20
will tell what should be done IMO, but you choose what and how to do. As=20
long as you enjoy and brings the project forward, that's great. If you=20
don't want or can't decide what to do, we can come up with ideas, don't=20
worry.
 The main goal is to have a working Quanta4 port for basic functionality=20
for the next major KDE release, 4.5.  That is about 6 months ahead. It=20
is an ambitious goal, I know. It depends only on the developers if they=20
could do it. It is certainly possible. Basic functionality IMO would be:
=2D project management
=2D HTML, XML, PHP, CSS editing in source mode (autocompletion, document=20
structure view, editing of tags in dialog boxes/in a treeview)
=2D file preview in a browser (embedded and external)
=2D upload (publishing) capabilities for the project

In terms of development goals:
=2D it should use the KDevelop platform
=2D the functionality should be provided as KDevelop plugins (unless it=20
doesn't make sense). The reason is to make the Quanta core as light as=20
possible and to reuse as much code as possible.


 Now the details... First, remember that I didn't touch the code in the=20
past 1.5 years. KDevelop and the KDevPlatform progressed a lot meantime,=20
and my knowledge is possible very outdated. Also my memory is not as=20
good as when I was young, and of course I forgot many things from=20
Quanta, even things I did in the last months of its development. :)
=46irst of all you need the trunk (development) version of KDE and the=20
KDevelop platform. Documentation about how to compile, install, set up=20
trunk KDE can be found on http://techbase.kde.org . I can give advice=20
about it, if asked, but I'd rather answer question related to Quanta,=20
then related to general KDE. Not because I don't like to help, but=20
because my free time is limited. Questions about the KDevplatform can be=20
asked on the kdevelop mailing list ([email protected]
potsdam.de). I'm really off the track about the current state, so even if=20
I'd like, I mostly cannot answer.
  Quanta and KDevelopPlatform  is now in the extragear/sdk module. Once=20
you have build KDE (kdesupport, kdelibs, kdepimlibs and kdebase is=20
enough - kdebase might even be not required) , you need to build=20
kdevplatform from extragear/sdk. Unfortunately there is some problem=20
with the configuration files in the module, so you can't build everything=20
together, but first you have to configure, build and install kdevplatform,=
=20
and later you can configure, build and install the whole extragear/sdk.=20
This might be fixed soon, though.
 Once you have everything in place, you can take a look at the Quanta=20
code in extragear/sdk/quanta .=20
 There is a DESIGN document, probably  outdated in some cases, but still=20
it should give an idea. There is also a HACKING document with some=20
coding style guide, but it is not followed strictly.=20
 1) One thing I mentioned is the new parser. This is in=20
quantacore/parsers.=20
The code is using Qt's SAX parser to build an internal node tree from=20
the html files.=20
 The way it works is using state machines described in an xml file (these
are the parsing rules). There are even nice diagrams showing how the=20
state machines work (quanta/data/statemachines/statemachine.odg). Now=20
this works, and IIRC it even builds some kind of internal tree. The first=20
idea was to use directly KHTML's or WebKit's DOM tree to store the=20
result there, but at least when we evaluated, this wasn't good, as they=20
are too strict. So the idea is similar to what Quanta3 has, store the=20
parsing result inside our own node tree. In Quanta3 this tree was the=20
heart of Quanta and I'd expect to be the same in Quanta4, after all this=20
is why we parse the document. From the tree you can get information like=20
where are you in the document (context), what you should show up when=20
autocompletion is invoked (again, based on context), automatic insertion=20
of closing tags, etc. The tree can be also used for validation. What is=20
challenging to always keep the tree up-to-date as the user types in the=20
document.=20
 Quanta3 had a nice trick to rebuild only that part of the tree that=20
changed. But this resulted in an uterly complicated code in the end, but=20
I still think the idea is good and needed to have a responsive UI.=20
Parsing in a different thread might be an idea, but then some thread=20
synching and other issues might occur, sincerely I was afraid to dive=20
into it.
 Once there is a parser and a node tree, the most important features of=20
Quanta3 can be implemented (autocompletion, tag editing, error=20
reporting, structure tree navigation).
 The first step would be to do just XML parsing and skip whatever is in=20
PHP/CSS/whatever areas. The next step would be to either write state=20
machines for these other languages or try to reuse the parser e.g for=20
PHP from KDevelop. This should be coordinated with Niko Sams, who wrote=20
the PHP plugin for KDevelop, he might have other, better ideas.
  Just so you know, the old parser worked like this:
=2D parse XML, find and mark areas that are not XML inside
=2D parse again (now by going through the node tree created in the first=20
run, not through the file itself) and replace those marked areas with the=20
parse result of the specific language.

2) There is a need for a new project manager. The whole idea how the=20
information about the project files is stored needs a rethinking. Agaim,=20
AFAIK Niko  had some idea about it.

3) the other functionality can be ported. Like tag editing, user=20
toolbars (uploads, loadable toolbars from disk), etc. Some of them are=20
already ported, and need just polishing, fixing. I know the user toolbars=20
worked ~2 years ago, but don't know what is the state now.

4) anything else ;)

In case one of you starts to work on the parser, but doesn't like it and=20
has better idea, I won't stop him to implement the new idea. :) But I=20
have to admit, I liked the current design when we came up with it and=20
coded with Jens Herden.

I hope I got your attention and you will get interested in this project.=20
You can ask me on the Quanta devel list, or even on IRC (#quanta,=20
#kdevelop, #kde channels are interesting), but give me some days to=20
respond, I might be burried in other jobs or even traveling at the time=20
you send me the mail. Communicating on mailing lists also tightens the=20
community, the links between the people involved in the project.

Andras

PS: I let out the sponsoring part now, as that was covered in my other=20
mail sent to the mailing lists.

--nextPart7377460.dP60ihgR2K
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc 
Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.12 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQBLHVtATQdfac6L/08RAsOkAJ9crfEnNV+/156C+0dQNhwkHPzJmACg0DC4
UyLEYUxBy5bN2GSc2mD5BWk=
=fmBw
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--nextPart7377460.dP60ihgR2K--

--===============0311010231==
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

_______________________________________________
quanta-devel mailing list
[email protected]
https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/quanta-devel

--===============0311010231==--