segunda-feira, 30 de abril de 2012

LaKademy - Days of code and fun.


Hi everyone,

I'm posting directly from Porto Alegre, Brazil, where it is happening the LaKademy 2012. I came this year as a newcomer (passed in GSoC this year), and expect to keep working hard to help the community and attend to other KDE events too.

I arrived in Porto Alegre on Thursday (April 26th) at night and only had time to rest a little to start working hard on Friday (inauguration day of the event). I did not know anyone that came here (except  Lamarque (my GSoC mentor), so, it is a good opportunity to know everybody and integrate myself in the Latin America KDE community.

My GSoC project is to develop a new plasmoid for Plasma NetworkManagement using QML (link). So, on Friday (April 27th) I talked to Lamarque about the best way to implement the new connections List Model to show wireless networks in the area. After that we defined the architecture that fits better to our purposes and I started implementing it. So, on Friday I could create the first part of the code, but, couldn't see anything on the screen yet. At night, as usual, everyone went to drink a beer somewhere near the hostel. These times are really fun and we laugh a lot.

First day of LaKademy
On the second day, we went to FLISOL, had some meetings there and they set up a room for us, so, we could work from there too. By the end of that day, I could see some connections inside my QML Plasmoid, so, I was able to see the implementation working on the screen. One thing that I really like about events like LaKademy is that everyone is always willing to help you with problems that you might have, this is very useful and made me see how important events like these are.

LaKademy room at FLISOL

The third day started with a meeting about KDE Promo, the meeting was very good and some things were decided to be done to help promote KDE in all Latin America. Besides this meeting, I implemented a way to show all wireless connections on the Plasmoid Popup, and update their signal strength (my main goal for this lakademy! :) ). However, I was still facing a segmentation fault error, that I decided to solve on the next day.

Promo meeting in LaKademy

Today is my last day here T LaKademy and I finally fixed the segmentation fault in my code, so, I am now showing all the wireless network connections near my computer, on the QML Plasmoid Popup.  The Popup is also updated when a network appears or disappears. The screen of my current implementation is showed below:

QML screen for Plasma NM Popup
I intend now to concentrate my efforts in showing other interface connection types that Plasma NM supports, so, I can advance my work for summer of code and anticipate some problems that I might encounter.

I really enjoyed participating of LaKademy and wonder to participate of other events that community will provide. Thanks to everyone.

LaKademy participants

That's all. I hope to post soon here. Bye!


7 comentários:

  1. Nice work on the QML-ifying! I'd suggest to make it a bit cleaner. For example we don't really need the "security" icon - we could have an overlay over the "wifi" icon on the left (also I personally think the lock symbolizes it better, but that may be just my feeling;) I'm not sure what exactly happens now when you connect, but you could move that currently connected-to network up above all others and put the disconnect button next to it or below it, that would clearly show you the current network (sorry if it's done already, I'm judging from the screenshot ;)

    Keep up the good work :)

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    Respostas
    1. In fact, that's how ubuntu's nm applet looks like [1]. Very clean, simple and elegant. Also for completness, here's how the gnome3 nm applet looks like [2].

      If I may, I'd suggest to go slightly in that direction as well ;)

      [1] - http://jaap.haitsma.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/nm12.png
      [2] - http://www.linuxexpres.cz/uploads/gallery/detail/4533.jpg

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  2. Plasma NM uses the lock icon to indicate a VPN connection is active and we already have a overlay on the icon of the connection with default route, that would result in two overlays on the icon of the default connection. Anyway, the shield has three states (unencrypted, wep and wpa), not two. I know some people do no care about the encryption type but I also do not see why change the shield from what they are now.

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    Respostas
    1. The thing is that "no encryption" icon is still a shield. That may suggest "this network is protected".

      I personally see the red shield with white cross as "this is a network you cannot connect to" (ie. "you can't pass this shield").

      As for the default route overlay - that's why I suggested to move it above all other networks and clearly put "You are connected to this network" label there (more like "Active connection"). It would also make the list more clear as you won't have to look for the small icon overlay to see the network you are connected to. Therefore you could save some more icons and make the UI less crowded :)

      (I hope I don't sound too negative or something, you both did great job, I'm just trying to constructively suggest few improvements for simple users ;)

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    2. Hi Marty, in fact there are no problem with you suggesting things that we can do. Feedback is always important :)

      In fact, the screenshot that I made is not the final version of the Plasmoid Popup using QML, we intend to show the disconnect button only in the connections that the user is really connected to (as we intend to change the icon too - thing that is made in current version of plasmoid).

      I understand your concerns about the encryption icons that are used, but, I don't see it as a major issue yet. To show the current connected network, I'm thinking about reordering the list and changing the style of the component (make connection name bold, for example), but, that's a thing I only intend to work later.

      Thanks for commenting and feel free to do it whenever you want :)

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  3. Excellent work. Waiting for more :-)

    - Rajeesh

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  4. Good job :-)) waiting for broadband and bluetooth connections :-))

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