Implementing a Whiteboard type application.

[Sanket Agarwal]

Hi Guys,

I have been away from pidgin actively for a while but had a nice idea
recently. I am sure this is not the first time the idea would be discussed
as I have seen a *long* back GSoC proposal on this too!

The idea is to implement a Whiteboard Application Plugin for Pidgin. This
will have functionalities of which I am listing a few:

   - Polygons, lines and other geometric figures.
   - Extending support to arbitrary shapes.
   - Make the chat experience more liberal because simple text can be a
   headache sometimes :).


I do realise that there are some *important* issues to handle here:

   - The encoding here shall be pivotal. We can't keep a hefty pixel by
   pixel information to be sent( that is Suicidal + Stupid )
   - A better way could be to use XML ? Which can be still verbose we might
   look into JSON ? I was even thinking of looking into how XFIG does it ?
   - Again for any effective extension of the whiteboard to more complex
   figures like *free lines* the encoding will be very important.


What I would like to know from the community is:

   - How important do you think the idea is, rather how much does it excite
   you ?
   - What are the bottlenecks, I am sure amount of data to be transferred
   will be considerable. If so what can be the remedies.
   - Is there something which was similar BUT drooling in your mind ? It'll
   great to hear similar extensions/changes that might make such an idea
   useful.


Cheers
Sanket
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