Hi Inkscape developers,
I teach computer science in France (in this school: http://www.polytech.upmc.fr/version-english.html ) and my fourth-year students are required to work on a project for a few months (2-3 months), for about 2 days a week. Instead of asking them to do "random" projects, I would like them to (try to) contribute to open source projects.
In particular, I would love that they contribute to Inkscape.
We have three main constraints in the choice of the project: - be do-able by 2 students in a few months; - be a challenge interesting enough to provide work to 2 students for a few months; - include a design phase (understanding the topic, asking questions, designing a planning, find algorithms, etc.) and a coding phase (this excludes code cleaning, documentation, bug-fixes, etc.).
Ideally, I would like the students to be mentored by an Inkscape developer who could answer their questions and give some directions; I'd like a least to be sure that the project is interesting for inkscape developers. You can think about this like something similar to the Google Summer of Code. The main difference is that we don't really select candidates so the students may not be very good and the project can obviously fail; but sometimes they can also be very efficient and motivated!
I've checked the google summer of code page (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Google_Summer_Of_Code). The import/export code might be interesting to try with them. The font designing idea and the ICC support migh also be cool. Are these proposition still up-to-date? I'm of course open to other ideas.
Something I was thinking about: I often use Inkscape to design posters and I'd really like to have an option to use the Knuth-Plass algorithm and hyphenation (at least in English). I know that they're not in the SVG specifications but this could be only for pdf exports. Another feature which would be useful is to be able to link text blocks (as do Indesign and Xpress) [again, this is not in the svg specs]. This would make an interesting challenge for our students.
What do you think? Would some of you be interested in helping us? What task would you suggest? At any rate I need your help to calibrate a task (or several tasks) so it's not too hard but challenging enough.
Thank you and merry Christmas.
Best regards,
On 12/23/10, Jean-Baptiste Mouret / Mandor wrote:
I've checked the google summer of code page (http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Google_Summer_Of_Code). The import/export code might be interesting to try with them. The font designing idea and the ICC support migh also be cool.
The font design project simply cannot be finished in 2-3 months by few people, and the prerequisite for it is a rather good understanding of type design. I simply don't know if that applies to your students.
CMS in Cairo is rather difficult as well and the prerequisite is good understanding of color management as well. Albeit if nobody starts doing that, nothing will ever be done. We've been discussing that with Cairo for several years already.
Out of the projects that are mentioned there XAR converter is certainly doable by such a taskforce, maybe even Fillet/Chamfer tool.
Make sure you've looked at https://blueprints.launchpad.net/inkscape/. Some of those are partly implemented in dedicated branches (https://code.launchpad.net/inkscape).
Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org
-----Original Message----- From: Jean-Baptiste Mouret / Mandor [mailto:jeanbaptiste.mouret@...400...] Sent: donderdag 23 december 2010 15:50 To: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: [Inkscape-devel] Fourth-year student projects
...
Something I was thinking about: I often use Inkscape to design posters and I'd really like to have an option to use the Knuth-Plass algorithm and hyphenation (at least in English). I know that they're not in the SVG specifications but this could be only for pdf exports. Another feature which would be useful is to be able to link text blocks (as do Indesign and Xpress) [again, this is not in the svg specs]. This would make an interesting challenge for our students.
Perhaps something similar, that would be of great help in making posters: adding functionality to easily type special symbols in text, like 'mu' for micrometer, or ligatures for 'fi' if the font supports it.
I guess for only 24 days of work, the project should be really small. Are they familiar with using Inkscape?
Cheers, Johan
On 12/23/10, J.B.C.Engelen wrote:
Perhaps something similar, that would be of great help in making posters: adding functionality to easily type special symbols in text, like 'mu' for micrometer, or ligatures for 'fi' if the font supports it.
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.48#Glyphs_Dialog
:-P
Alexandre Prokoudine http://libregraphicsworld.org
-----Original Message----- From: Alexandre Prokoudine [mailto:alexandre.prokoudine@...400...] Sent: donderdag 23 december 2010 18:09 To: Inkscape Devel List Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Fourth-year student projects
On 12/23/10, J.B.C.Engelen wrote:
Perhaps something similar, that would be of great help in making posters: adding functionality to easily type special symbols in
text, like 'mu'
for micrometer, or ligatures for 'fi' if the font supports it.
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Release_notes/0.48#Gly
phs_Dialog
:-P
Very nice! Although I am having trouble quickly finding ligatures. Perhaps a search box could be added. And also my colleagues will not understand "glyphs...", as they are probably searching for something like "insert symbol". Still, a nice feature, thanks Alexandre for pointing it out :-)
Cheers, Johan
Hi all,
On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 5:36 PM, Alexandre Prokoudine <alexandre.prokoudine@...400...> wrote:
Out of the projects that are mentioned there XAR converter is certainly doable by such a taskforce, maybe even Fillet/Chamfer tool.
Thank you for your answers. I will talk about this with my colleagues but these two options seems interesting; the XAR converter is maybe easier as a first project because it should not be too dependent of Inkscape internals. But I also like the Fillet/Chamfer tool...
We will start the project at the beginning of February; I will let you know what we plan to do as soon as possible.
Best regards,
participants (3)
-
unknown＠example.com -
Alexandre Prokoudine -
Jean-Baptiste Mouret / Mandor