On 30-3-2013 19:44, Michael Lyons wrote:

Hey guys,

I would like to work on improving the guides system in inkscape, including adding a dialog listing current guides, and allowing for easier adding/removing/editing of guides. I have never worked with open source software before, but I have used inkscape from a user point of view for a number of years, and hope that gsoc will be an entry point for contributing to the project. I know that gsoc has not announced their accepted organizations yet, but I wanted to get started as soon as possible (to hopefully increase my chances of acceptance).

I have a couple of questions real quick: The project seems to have been started by a user a while back (https://code.launchpad.net/~john-glassmyer/inkscape/guides-improvement), but he didn't take ownership of the spec, so I assume that this project is still available to work on?

Hi Michael,

Last year we had a GSoC project to improve the guide functionality, and I was the mentor for that project. It ended up focusing mainly on "under the hood" refactoring. http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~inkscape.dev/inkscape/guides-improvements/chang...

I've spend quite some time on that and hope to merge it into trunk in the next days.

What is left to do is make a good dialog/UI, with as fancy functionality as you have time to make, which I think is very well suited for a GSoC project.

Also I understand that inkscape has a "two patches" rule before a user is given commit rights. How big do these patches have to be, and should we try to relate these patches to the project we are looking into proposing or is it better to try to fix a bug that is listed as more important?

The patches can be anything, and certainly does not have to relate to your project.

Inkscape has had some great GSoC students, with great contributions to the project. Inkscape has also had big GSoC disappointments, with lost work and lost developer time and spirit. My past experiences with mentoring for GSoC have been disappointing and it will require a very good student impression for me to consider mentoring again... Please keep my disappointment in mind while reading my e-mail.

Some advice to make a good impression on me (and the other mentors): - go beyond the two-patch rule. Get involved with Inkscape development as soon as possible and well before the GSoC application deadline. Want to already work in the direction of your GSoC project? Go ahead! - I will not believe anything you write in your GSoC application. I'm not kidding; I'm considering not reading any application text this year, and just go by the information I have on a student through the maillist and commit log. Therefore, it does not make sense to spend a lot of time on your application. Spend it coding and interacting with our dev community, *proving* that you can what we hope you can. - plan on *finishing* your work, so that it can be merged into trunk. Better: plan on merging part of your work halfway GSoC. Don't let your work go to waste, including the mentor's invested time. It is always very easy to expand your project if you finish early so you won't get bored. The guide dialog project is very incremental and can easily be done in trunk, without requiring a branch, and I love it already because of that. - get on IRC (#inkscape on freenode) and simply chat with the friendly folk there (Jabber is quite empty nowadays)

Regards, Johan