Re: Summer of Code Project for KOffice Component Framework

On Monday 13 June 2005 08:24, Tomas Mecir wrote:
> On 6/12/05, Raphael Langerhorst <[email protected]> wrote:
> > attached is a Summer of Code proposal I would like to send it to
> > Google. Please review and give some feedback.
>
> Hmmm... The idea looks nice, but I really think (and judging from
> the google's faq, they think it too), there should be some more
> specifics. What are you trying to achieve ? How is it supposed to
> work ? Maybe also a bit of an architecture overview, that you are
> planning to implement - if possible ...
> Really, from what you describe, I have no idea how is this thing
> supposed to work. :(
>
> / Tomas

[resending this in clear text, takes less kB]

Hmmm... ;) the _how_ exactly needs some more fine planning, the 
general idea is written down in the proposal. Please tell me ASAP if 
you still think there is something missing.

Regards,
Raphael


This is my current proposal:

Summer of Code Project
Improving KOffice Component Framework - Document Embedding
 
1. Mentors 
Lauri Watts <[email protected]> 
Adriaan de Groot <[email protected]> 
 
2. Applicant 
Raphael Langerhorst <[email protected]> 
 
2.1. Software development skills and experience 
I can speak C/C++ fluently, know Java very well, can write some 
assembler and have some experience with scripting languages like 
shell and python. Additionally I have experience in leading Open 
Source projects (see below) 
 
Some of my completed projects: 
2001-2002: Complete 3D Engine with level editor based on DirectX, 
written in C++. 
2002-2003: Intelligent Navigation System for robots, implemented in 
Java. 
 
Some of my ongoing projects: 
started 2002: G System, virtual reality. I am one of the two 
initiators and the main developer. I wrote most of the code and I 
take care of team management. It builds on Qt/KDE technology: 
http://www.g-system.at 
started 2004: Contribution to the KDE and in particular to the KOffice 
project. I would now like to get more involved into this through the 
Summer of Code project. 
 
3. Overview 
 
KOffice is an integrated office suite directly built on the KDE 
technology. It extends the integration capabilities of KDE to allow 
good KOffice component/document integration. It is lightweight, yet 
offers a complete set of office components - more than any other 
commonly known office suite. 
 
http://www.koffice.org 
 
4. Project Proposal 
 
There is only limited control over what information of an embedded 
document is presented in the parent document. In particular there is 
no control over what part of the embedded document gets presented. To 
allow finer control over presented content the common component 
framework needs to be extended to allow additional embedding 
configuration. 
 
The idea is to extend the component library with an additional 
configuration framework that allows for fine tuning the presentation 
of the embedded document. The required code changes are extending the 
core libraries with a generic interface for creating and managing the 
presentation options for embedded documents. Each KOffice component 
then needs to honor this interface and present its content according 
to the desired configuration in the parent document. 
 
Additional care must be taken to honor these settings in the file 
format.
 
5. Vision 
 
It is currently easily possible to integrate flow charts and diagrams 
into presentations, spreadsheets into text documents (or any other 
way round), even in multiple depths. You can even have a database 
frontend (Kexi) inside a spreadsheet (KSpread). 
 
KPlato (K Planning Tool) is a project management component still under 
development and it will be included in the next major KOffice 
release. A desired goal is to allow for example KWord, the text 
processor, to include various pieces of information about a project 
by means of embedding the KPlato component. The text document should 
be able to selectively show different pieces of information of the 
project, the Gantt chart, resources,  general project infos, etc. 
This also applies to spreadsheets for example and a lot of other 
things. To achieve this, the component framework needs to be 
extended. This allows very flexible automated report generation for 
example, in particular in connection with the DCOP interface.