GSoC 2010 Mid term evaluations

Mid term evaluations are here and I hope to have a progress meeting with my mentor to get his detailed feedback on the project.

I have packaged the MailNews sync engine into an xpi file and uploaded it to the mailnews sync project site (http://code.google.com/p/weave-mailnews-sync/downloads/list). It requires Firefox 1.4 (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10868/) to work (it is basically an extension of an extension!). The MailNews Sync extension currently syncs status, flag and tag data of Feed and Newsgroup items between different Seamonkey instances. I tested it on Seamonkey 2.0. I couldn't test it on Seamonkey trunk 2.1 yet but I'm hoping that everything will work smoothly there as well. Since comm-central build is not working (sm tinderbox is having a few hot days..) I will test with currently available nightly build.

Few things left to be done this week:

- Decide on a solid test plan for MailNews sync engine
- Start testing and bug fixing for mailnews engine

Update!

I have posted the MailNews engine test plan to the project site ( http://code.google.com/p/weave-mailnews-sync/wiki/TestPlan?ts=1279510088&updated=TestPlan ). Testing will be done using 4 configurations.

Week 1 (18th to 24th July) :Config 01&02
Week 2 (25th to 31st July) : Config 03&04

All issues will be reported and tracked on http://code.google.com/p/weave-mailnews-sync/issues/list.

Testing begin today!

Adding thunderbird support to mail news extension

Writing the new mailnews engines into a separate extension somehow made it easier for me to keep track of my own code. Of course writing the code directly inside the weave extension was easier but I found keeping track of my code to be a bit messy process. So the plan is to to now continue development in the separate extension and submit the patches to weave once the code is tested and fully functional.

This week I added thunderbird support to the mailnews-sync extension. I used weave-ext.xpi and weaver.xpi made to add weave functionality to thunderbird by Shane Caraveo (aka. mixedpuppy). The xpis can be found on his blog here: http://shane.caraveo.com/2010/05/28/addon-roundup/. I have updated the svn with the tb support code (http://svn2.xp-dev.com/svn/mailnews-sync/trunk/). The extension works on current thunderbird build (3.2a1pre which is ominously named as the 'Shredder').

Next week is going to be busy with final year project presentations and demos but I plan to test and complete the mailnews read status up&down sync within the week. I also need to follow up with the tabs sync patch on bugzilla.

Other news:

Lightning in Seamonkey

I recently tried out the lightning extension in Seamonkey and it seems to me to be the perfect calendar app. I used to be a fan of Google Calendar but I needed to be online and logged into Gmail to view it so I stopped using it after awhile. Lighting seems just super for me. There is another student from the junior batch in my university who is working on Lighting for his GSoC project this year. More details can be found on his blog here: http://meharuban.blogspot.com/

Got my GSoC 2010 package today!

Was very happy to receive my GSoC package today. I am now the proud owner of a Google pen, 2 GSoC 2010 laptop stickers, a GSoC 2010 notepad and my very first visa card! I haven't planned what I will do with the money although I have a general idea of saving up for my masters studies which will either be on business or IT, i still have to decide..

Seamonkey & me..

This week I had a chat with my mentor Robert Kaiser and he gave me some insights into the history of Seamonkey and the way forward for the project. Here is the link to the Seamonkey 2.0 & the Vision beyond article :http://home.kairo.at/blog/2009-02/the_draft_new_seamonkey_vision. I am really interested in having the 'all is a tab' option in Seamonkey and hope to contribute to making that vision a reality soon after my GSoC work:)

Official start of Google Summer of Code is today..

It's May 24th! Official date to begin coding for Google Summer of Code. Of course I already started coding before the official start date because I have to manage the summer of code work with my final semester of study in university.

What I have done so far

-Submitted a patch to get Tabs sync working on weave (see: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=567583)

-Wrote a separate extension to get/set read/unread status of mailnews (working on feeds currently) messages

(see: http://svn2.xp-dev.com/svn/smread/trunk/)

-Started work on weave engine for mailnews sync (however I still haven't managed to install the engine into weave so that still has to be done)

Mid term evaluations are due July 12 by which time I should have the new mailnews engine functional for both upsync and down sync. I will be posting weekly updates on this blog so stay tuned:)

Google Summer Of Code 2010!

Wow. I'm selected to Google Summer Of Code 2010! This is my first time applying and since its my final year in university, i thought it would probably be my last chance too! So I was so afraid to check results and see a rejection. I didn't check email until 12.30am (the time of announcement in local time), and I couldn't believe it when i saw the Congratulations email! I checked on the gsoc site as well just to make sure the Google mail program hadn't got it wrong smehw!:D

Then I did a quick chat with my other friends who got selected and thanked my mentor(Robert Kaiser) for selecting me and also thanked Igor Velkov(my assistant mentor of sorts:)). I still have a long list of people to thank though! Everyone who has encouraged me in anyway to enroll for Google Summer Of Code!

GSoC is a big step for me, because I hope to learn all about Opensource programming from it and hopefully it will help me achieve my long term goals and ambitions in life:)

The project I am selected to participate in is a Mozilla project for the Seamonkey internet application suite, which is a browser and email and news all rolled into one. It's just like using Firefox with Email and News built in. And even better the project is an addon and still better its about data synchronization! This is so relevant to my final year project in university that it seems like just the perfect project for me!:)

The project is about implementing tabs and mailnews status sync engines for WeaveSync addon for Seamonkey. I have already started up some work on this and hosted it here (http://svn2.xp-dev.com/svn/smread/trunk/).

So what is a Seamonkey? This is one of the first questions I had when deciding to apply for this project. Seamonkey is a kind of shrimp and it was a code name for the original Mozilla Netscape suite. This later became Seamonkey. There are pics of seamonkeys on wikipedia but I prefer the Seamonkey icon which is quite lovely:)



If you haven't tried Seamonkey yet I suggest you check it out now. You can download it here. http://www.seamonkey-project.org/. It's the perfect solution for keeping track of all the blogs and new sites you follow and keeping track of your email properly:) And with the WeaveSync addon for tabs and mailnews sync coming up soon its gonna get a whole lot better!;)

Thank you to the Seamonkey, Mozilla and Google opensource communities for giving me this wonderful opportunity!