[GSoC] Suggestions: Gadu-Gadu prpl improvements | 3.0.0 API improvements | others

[Tomasz Wasilczyk]

Hi,

I have some GSoC project proposals. I had already mentioned about the
first one (and I definitely like it the most):


*** Gadu-Gadu protocol plugin improvements ***

GSoC is a chance to make Pidgin to be the best Gadu-Gadu protocol
client. There is a lot of work to do - most important things are:

- file transfer #372 - there is no warranty, that this could be
possible, as there is no open implementation yet; on the other hand, I
have some experience with reverse-engineering, so I can do my best ;)

- contact list synchronization #9463 - gadu-gadu service supports
contact list synchronization with server, like xmpp does

- Windows SSL support - now, encryption is available just for Linux with GnuTLS

- code refactoring - most of gg prpl code is old and a bit messy, I
could clean up it a little, push some changes back to libgadu and so
on. This plugin can be a shiny prpl implementation example ;)

less, but still important:

- SOCKS proxy support #5576 - I haven't done any research about this
yet, but it should be an easy one

- multiple gadu-gadu servers support #5576 - I have some ideas on
this, not exactly the same as described in this ticket

- multi-login support #14366 - synchronization of messages with other
sessions, ability to disconnect other sessions

- better inline images support - notifications about not delivered
images, maybe automatic resize and compression of large (over 255kB)
images

- ability to create new gadu-gadu account / remove old one / restore
lost password directly from pidgin - this one can be useful for dev's,
who doesn't have any gg account, but would like to check some bugs

- full avatars support - ability to set new avatar, improvements in
buddies avatars fetching (bug #14305)

- setting public profile information - as in xmpp

- using contact's nickname #2188 - xmpp already have similiar
functionality; by the way, I could improve this functionality a bit in
xmpp

- full text formatting support #13584

- fixing some less important tickets and bugs

Some of these could be done (but not necessarily) with small changes
in libpurple API (it's a chance for 3.0.0), ie: registration without
providing username, lost password restoring, username validation,
automatically getting default user alias and so on. Most (all?) of
these would be useful for other protocols.

I'm familiar with this code, so it should be a low risk project, which
won't consume much mentor's time ;).


*** Libpurple 3.0.0 API improvements ***

The second proposal (if Pidgin's devs decide, that gg prpl
improvements are not so important to do it as GSoC project) is to work
on Libpurple API (and it's usage in Finch/Pidgin). I have described
some proposals on devel group few months ago:

http://pidgin.im/pipermail/devel/2011-October/010468.html

Of course, this list could be expanded.

Also, some of these would be useful in Gadu-Gadu (as well as others)
protocol plugin.


*** Better chat log viewer ***

I was thinking of this proposal too (like somebody, who posted here
before), but I think, we should focus primarily on backend
implementation (quick, non-blocking searching and so on). Of course,
GUI needs some freshness too.


*** Easy-to-use plugins ***

Variation of "Pidgin Plugin Website" proposal. Now, plugin
installation isn't as easy, as it could be. Unfortunately, there is
some problems, especially with cross-system installation, that can be
hard to defeat. One-click-install like Android Market or Firefox
plugin installation would be nice (and possibly hard to implement)
feature.



BR,
Tomasz "Tomkiewicz" Wasilczyk, Pidgin's CPW