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Developers´ page for notes/ideas about Google Summer of Code 2011 submission Google Summer of Code 2011 discussionTable of contents (hide)
1. Links
2. Suggestions(This is a playground for brainstorming about possible projects. The real ideas page is Summer of Code 2011 Ideas).
paragraph type or charstyle
some errors because the user messed it up with a text editor.
- Missing "end_something" can be added when something new unexpectedly begins. - Crashing should not happen, and a file should be really bad to get rejected as "apparently not a .layout file at all." [1] http://www.mail-archive.com/lyx-devel@lists.lyx.org/msg144165.html [2] http://ksvi.mff.cuni.cz/~holan/SWP/zadani/LyXLE.txt
We can use Lulu for this. Lots of good material already there; we should collect the best, make it consistent, clean it up, and make it look like a book. This is not the same as putting the existing documentation between covers! A book is different. I see it as the kind of item that I would give to a person that has just discovered his/her need to start using LyX, either personally, or within an organization -- like a journal publisher, a university's publishing service, or the documentation department of a technology company, to mention some. The book should make this initial process smoother. I would hope though that the book would remain a useful reference also after that -- requiring an index. SF: A suggestion that was made for the (aborted) application to GSoC 2008. I think it's an excellent idea and would be willing to mentor it. Project: Write a book that explains how to use Lyx to produce beautiful documents in a few selected scenarios (a letter, a short paper, a book-size document, a presentation). Brief Explanation: Many new users of Lyx are intimidated by the different approach to text editing Lyx takes: focus on the structure of the document and let the formatting engine (LaTex) worry about the document's final appearance. LyX comes with excellent documentation, but a book is different. It should (gently) guide the user through a few commmon tasks from beginning to end, rather than serve as a reference document. It is the kind of item give to a person that has just discovered his/her need to start using LyX, either personally, or within an organization. O'Reilly technical books provide an excellent illustration of what the LyX book may be (among many examples, see "The Drupal Book" http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596515805. Existing LyX documentation will provide the starting point. The student will need to come up with a selection of scenarios (in cooperation with the mentor) and write the book chapters on the basis of the existing documentation and her own experiences with LyX. Expected result: A draft of a complete LyX book Knowledge prerequisites: Good English writing skills. No programming skills nor LaTex knowledge required (indeed, knowledge of LaTeX may be counterproductive). Prospective Mentor(s): Stefano
Feel free to add more suggestions, as well as adding comments to the various sections. You can move suggestion you feel are less good to the end (with a comment/motivation about it!) 3. MentorsProspective mentors: we will need your Google account data for the application and a brief bio. Put both in the (Mentors´ Bios?) page, with the email in transmogrified (non-harvestable) form (or remember to communicate it in private when the time is nigh). People who have volunteered to be mentors.
4. 2011 Application4.1 Organization NameLyX 4.2 DescriptionLyX is a document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents and not simply their appearance. LyX combines the power and flexibility of TeX/LaTeX with the ease of use of a graphical interface. This results in world-class support for creation of mathematical content (via a fully integrated equation editor) and structured documents like academic articles, theses, and books. In addition, staples of scientific authoring such as reference list and index creation come standard. But you can also use LyX to create a letter or a novel or a theatre play or film script. A broad array of ready, well-designed document layouts are built in. 4.3 Home Page4.4 Main Organization LicenseGPL 4.5 Why is your organization applying to participate in GSoC 2011? What do you hope to gain by participating?The GSoC would be an opportunity to bring into the project new developers interested in typography and in writing software. It may also allow us to start work on a few of the longstanding feature requests that are regularly discussed within the community, but seem too demanding to contemplate during the normal development cycle. The implementation of even some of the proposed ideas would directly benefit the LyX community, but would also provide additional incentives to potential users to start using LyX in their regular writing and publishing activities. This potentially will attract also more developers. And we recognize that the driving force of open source software development is based upon enthusiastic and knowledgeable contributors. A large part of the LyX users are working within the field of academics and lots of them came into first contact with LyX when writing their master's and/or graduate thesis. Also, most of the current developers started in this way to assist the development of LyX. Therefore, we think that especially students are an interesting group of users for us to motivate to get to know LyX, to spread the usage of it among their fellow students and to contribute to the LyX project. 4.6 If accepted, would this be your first year participating in GSoC?Yes. 4.7 What is the URL for your ideas page?http://wiki.lyx.org/Devel/SummerOfCode2011Ideas 4.8 What criteria did you use to select the individuals who will act as mentors for your organization? Please be as specific as possible.Mentors were recruited from amongst existing LyX contributors. Longstanding developers who are familiar with our existing source code and have shown the ability to guide new contributors will be chosen. They all have experienced large support when entering the project themselves, they acquired the technicalities which are required by the project, and they have shared this knowledge with the new or less experienced developers. Besides having an active developers' community, LyX heavily depends on a large share of members of the user community which have proven to contribute to the project for over a long time. They have shown to be able to help out newly started users as well as to support the developers in the development by bringing up ideas, sharing experiences and providing feedback. Also, this year's GSoC application is supported by members of this comunity. Therefore, we strive to sign up a (co-)mentor from the users' community to share the mentorship or to assist the mentor in the project. This will guarantee both practical support and technical support for the student. We foresee that this guidance will help to assure a newly developed feature which easily integrates into the existing codebase and which offers the most usability for the users. 4.9 What is your plan for dealing with disappearing students?Students will be asked to participate in discussions on the LyX mailing list (at least weekly), so they can seek the input from the larger community on design and coding issues. Weekly follow-up by mentors by email. If unable to reach via email, by phone. The students are also requested to submit the code they have written to a public repository, as regularly as possible. Allowing the mentors to see the progress and comment on it. If a student is unable to be reached via email or phone after two weeks, more drastic steps (including failing the student) will be considered. Stefano: I am not sure the last sentence is appropriate. Neither we nor Google is in the business of passing/failing students, I believe. If the student disappears they have failed themselves, and we have failed as well---since no code will come to the LyX project 4.10 What is your plan for dealing with disappearing mentors?Mentors have been actively recruited from within the LyX developer community. They are known both for the quality of their code, as well as for their commitment to the project. As in the case of students, mentors will be asked to keep in regular touch with the larger community via the LyX mailing list. The LyX admins will check every few weeks with mentor/student pairs to make sure everything is working fine. In cases where a mentor is not able to complete their responsibilities, however, effort will be made to first contact the mentor privately. If no resolution can be reached, the backup mentor or GSoC administrator will step in to provide support and encouragement. 4.11 Does your organization have an application template you would like to see students use?
The template is here: GSoC2011ApplicationTemplate. SF: Someone with Wiki formatting skills better than mine should improve the look. 4.12 What steps will you take to encourage students to interact with your project's community before, during and after the program?The LyX community makes use of two very active mailing lists. The user's list as well as the developers list. Once an interested student has contacted the project, she will will be encouraged to subscribe to both lists as these are the primary means of communication for the project. While drafting the proposal, the student will be encouraged to go through a formal design process. She might make use of the users list to solicit opinions on the feature design and then seek the advice of the developer's list as to how the new features might be implemented. During the program, the student will be encouraged to send regular updates to the list (and not just to her mentor) in addition to code patches. The other students and mentors will be encouraged to review and comment on the patches, and in so doing, become acquainted with the wider developer community. << How do we want to help encourage participation after the summer is over? >> 4.13 If you are a small or new organization applying to GSoC, please list a larger, established GSoC organization or a Googler that can vouch for you here.KDE (Leo confirmed it) 4.14 Anything else you'd like to tell us?<< Perhaps something about how LyX is uniquely positioned as a tool for working with both electronic and print documents? >> 4.15 Backup Admin (Link ID): Vincent (not the real ID)Categories: Development, GSoC, Misc |