Contact avatars, Summer Of Code & Stuff

[Tobia Tesan]

Il 15/04/2013 0.49, Mark Doliner ha scritto:
> On Sun, Apr 14, 2013 at 2:37 PM, Tobia Tesan <tobia.tesan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Do you think it would be reasonable to either flesh out the idea more (see
>> above) or combine it with some other "bigger" idea or a number of small
>> ideas
> Yes, I think all of those ideas are reasonable.

Hi Mark, thank you a lot for you patience.
So, I read the C HowTos, checked out the source, looked at some existing 
plugins and toyed around.
I'm still a bit scared about the API (and about automake, which I have 
no experience whatsoever with), but less so.


§ Regarding the hypotetical "Google Contacts plugin":

1. While we are at it, I noticed that the "Get Info" window from the 
contact list could as well benefit from the treatment, showing the same 
info I get in Google Contacts.
I am not sure if there is anything else that can be reasonably done.
I think editing and reorganizing contacts is a bit outside our scope, 
it's more of an Address Book application thing, do you agree?

2. I noticed that under libpurple/protocols/jabber there is already some 
Google-specific code (GTalk, A/V and stuff).
Does this matter? Should I leave it alone?
Among other things, I'd probably have to authenticate with the Google 
APIs using the same credentials as Google Talk: if I had a separate 
plugin would I have to have the user re-entering the same credentials 
twice or is there any way I can snatch them from the jabber plugin (i 
suspect not)?

Would it make sense to draft a proposal to do this along with, say, 
adding support for some XEPs and fixing some XMPP bugs?
In the Ideas page, what do you guys exactly refer to when you ask for 
"better Gmail support"?
Is there a thread somewhere on the ML I can read to catch up?
Couldn't find it.
I'm not sure how would such a proposal be written, however, especially 
the "fix bugs" part.

§ The Easy Plugins idea is starting to look promising and meaningful to 
me, as well.
If I am not mistaken, it boils down to:

* Build a website
* Put together a new plugin dialog
* Write the C code that does the magic.

A few things:

1. Is there any existing mockup or something, interface-wise?
I've been told by UX people that every time a programmer designs an 
interface, a fairy dies somewhere :)
2. Django allowed?

And, last but not least:
do you have anything against receiving more than a proposal from a 
single student?

Thank you.

Sorry about the incessant questioning, but I'm really scared about 
shooting myself in the foot with a nonsensical proposal, a too easy one 
or an impossibly optimistic one.

-- 
Tobia Tesan
<tobia.tesan at gmail.com>
When you are young, you enjoy a sustained illusion that sooner or later
something marvelous is going to happen, that you are going to transcend
your parents' limitations...  At the same time, you feel sure that in all
the wilderness of possibility; in all the forests of opinion, there is a
vital something that can be known -- known and grasped.  That we will
eventually know it, and convert the whole mystery into a coherent
narrative.  So that then one's true life -- the point of everything --
will emerge from the mist into a pure light, into total comprehension.
But it isn't like that at all.  But if it isn't, where did the idea come
from, to torture and unsettle us?
		-- Brian Aldiss, "Helliconia Summer"