(A) Abstract
1. PROJECT PROPOSAL
(B) DESCRIPTIVE
- Problem 1
- Idea
- Problem 2
- Solution
- End Of Summary
2.WHY ME?
3.ACADEMIC
4.DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGY
- Stage 1
- Stage 2
- Stage 3
- Stage 4
- Future
5. REFERENCES
(A)Abstract
1. PROJECT PROPOSAL
Problem?
I am a user I don't want to input the same account information several times in several different applications
I am a developer, I want to create an application to do a certain task but communications might be nice, I don't want to increase the complexity of my applications settings for an optional feature
I am a user, I use Jokosher and would love to use the telepathy-tubes plugin to create an album with my friend while he's on holidays abroad but I don't use Empathy IM, I thought the point of telepathy was to separate the framework from the front end.
Solution:
In comes “About Me” its pretty useless to the user right now, but imagine if it was a central location for users to input the account information.
ONCE, thats how many times you will need to think about adding your msn, picasa settings into an application in gnome.
It will be modular, allowing protocols developed after this release of “About Me” to be added.
It wont be a thousand account settings squeezed onto the screen. It will only show settings for the protocols installed on the system.
Applications would not even need to have their own individual account setup setting dialogs.
I would also like to work on making other things in the about me section modular, allowing the user to input custom strings to the About me section, like adding A Holiday Home section to the Addresses Section etc.
Use cases include :
Conduit being able to show the things which can be synchronized based on the protocols installed and it would be used for synchronisation, no setting up accounts in conduit.
Instant Messengers can focus on IM's and not the user account settings
Productivity applications like Jokosher could add a communication plugin and not worry about account settings, instead the user would enable communications in Jokosher and there available friends would appear from whatever IM accounts you have setup in “About Me”
Future Game implementations of telepathy tubes would alow users of games to access there friends list, msn, google talk etc from within the game withought having to setup the account settings for msn, google talk etc again for the specific use of the game.
Basically I am trying to clean up the gnome desktop of account settings to make it more usable , coherent and less repetitive and disruptive for users.
(B) Descriptive
1. PROJECT PROPOSAL
Currently the about me section in gnome offers gnome users the ability to,
1. Change their password
2. Change their avatar
3. Contact Tab
Email
Telephone
Instant messaging
4. Address Tab
Home
Work
5. Personal Info
Web
Job
This offers in theory a place in which users can input useful information about themselves, but in practice users don't have any incentive to do so rendering this useless and time consuming.
Idea:
Unix saying: "Do one thing and do it well", use case e.g telepathy creating a communication framework, separating protocols to increase productivity and create a better and more modular system of doing things.
Also allows IM developers to concentrate on user experience(ui's and such), and other application developers to integrate communications into their projects in interesting ways without the hassle of having to waste time learning new frameworks and recreating the wheel(e.g Jokosher telepathy integration through telepathy-tubes).
Problem 2:
Although telepathy has succeeded in creating a sane method of handling communication in gnome things like telepathy account settings are still handled by the individual application.
This creates a whole heap of problems when it comes to keeping user information coherent on the desktop.
An example of such a problem is the Jokosher telepathy plugin, right now it is dependent on EmpathyAccountChooser.
There should not be a need for the user to input account information twice, three times or even two thousand and fifty six if they like to use alot of applications :)lol , so Jokosher should not handle the account information itself.
But the user should also not be tied down to a specific instant messenger based on their choice of telepathy-tube enabled applications.
This would go against the telepathy mindset of doing things.
Solution:
The “About Me” section is pretty useless right now but I have always seen promise in it.
Keeping the protocols separate from the applications that use them was a necessary evolution and the telepathy guys understood this from day one.
My proposal is to have the About Me section have a plugin based system. This would allow the user to add and remove Instant Messaging accounts(telepathy protocols) at will.
It would also allow other applications (Instant Messengers, applications which make use of telepathy-tubes(Games, Productivity Apps etc) to have a central location to grab the account settings from.
The plugin based system would not necessarily be confined to instant messaging.
Rather than just inputing the url to your blog you could also input your blog account settings, an applet such as gnome-blog could make use of the information stored in “About Me” and work straight away without independent configuration, if the user decides to use a different application to blog there account settings would be carried over.
End Of Summary:
So thats the summary right now, Make gnome more usable, have users easily integrate their information. Try and decrease the trend of recreating the wheel for developers and also decrease the mundane task on the user of inputting the same data repetitively.
The “About Me” section should be more modular, Giving the gnome user a one stop location to set up telepathy accounts, web accounts, all user related accounts. "Modular" being the key word there, to truly be future proof and customizable it needs to be done in a modular way.
2. WHY ME:
I have aways had a huge interest in Linux even at a young age. Im a gnome guy meaning that I do believe in desktop coherency.
I honestly believe that if the issues with account management I have raised here are not addressed, gnome as a whole will find itself in a very uncomfortable position when it decides to include telepathy as default.
Telepathy should not be viewed as a mere replacement for pidgin, telepathy-tubes is going to integrate itself into more and more applications. This is a good thing but when it comes to usability the current method just doesn't work. People will get frustrated at having to insert the same information over and over.
I have been following telepathy from the start and have a good understanding of the framework, I understand how protocols should now be handled. Think of the “About Me” section as the package manager of protocols.
I have every confidence that I will not only work as hard as I can throughout the google summer of code project but I will also continue work on the project afterwards.
Some of the recent projects which interest me include, Telepathy, Tracker, Elisa, AWN, Conduit, Cheese, AWN etc.
I will buy you a beer :D
I will work as hard as possible to to reach the deadlines, I will communicate and participate with other developers as much as possible. I will try and learn as much as I can throughout the entire experience.
3. ACADEMIC
Advanced Networks and Software Systems modules:
Computer Programming
Computer Architecture
Database Methods
PC Maintenance
Web-Authoring
Communications
Software Development
Spreadsheet Methods
Word Processing
Computerised Accounts/Payroll
Work Experience
4. Development Methodology
Stage 1:
Empathy connection manager communicates with mission controll to get a list of currently available protocols. Empathy creates the profiles itself and asks mission control whether that protocol is available on the system. The fundamental problem with this is if a new protocol is available after a release of empathy then empathy will not be able to detect the protocol because it does not have a protocol profile to match it with yet. In order for about me section to be able to find installed protocols, MSN, Picasa, Google Talk, Google Calander etc we must use a similar system to empathy's profile system. The difference is that About me will not create the profiles itself, I must work with telepathy developers to integrate profiles directly into the protocols. This will future proof About Me because you will not need to install a new version to be able to have it pick up a new available protocol installed on the system.
Stage 2:
Restructure the ui of “About Me” to accommodate an accounts section. The accounts section/tab would encompass “Instant Messenger”, “Picture”, “Calendar”, “Blog” and “Other” categories. The user would be able to add and remove custom categories. Work would also be don't on the other tabs, allowing the user to input custom strings, use cases like adding more emails, creating a holiday home address etc.
Stage 3:
Move over some, protocols e.g Picasa to the new mission control framework, by simply adding profiles to them so they are discoverable.
Stage 4:
Clean up the code and do some finishing touches e.g the user avatar seems to be scaled to a small size and then centered in an oversized gtk frame, This isnt exactly visually appealing and it would be much nicer bigger, at least thats the opinion I have received from various different people.
Future
After GSOC I see the new "About me" section complimenting the gnome online desktop initiative, The server would only have to communicate with mission control, When new protocols are created the data would be sent to mission control which would send it to the servers for online storage of settings if the user decided that is what they wanted.I would also like to integrate projects like cheese and memaker into "About me" section as this would improve the users experience.
5. REFERENCES
Telepathy - http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/
Empathy - http://live.gnome.org/Empathy
Mission Control - http://mission-control.sourceforge.net
Memaker - https://launchpad.net/memaker
About Me - Currently there is no project page for "About Me" this is something I will definitely need to look into. You can find it in System/Preferences/About Me in Ubuntu and most other gnome based distributions. There are a few images below for non Linux users to see what it currently looks like
0 comments:
Post a Comment