Goolge Summer of Code 2012 – Ambassador/Event plugin for openSUSE Connect – Event#1
Introduce my self
My name is Athanasios-Ilias Rousinopoulos. I am an openSUSE Ambassador and an active member of openSUSE Community. This year i participate in Google Summer of Code with openSUSE .[0]. My project is called “Ambassador/Event plugin for openSUSE Connect”.
Introduce my project
As an openSUSE Ambassador [1] i participate in conferences , make presentations and promote openSUSE to the people. openSUSE Connect is the social network of openSUSE Project (based on Elgg ). In my opinion openSUSE Connect it is more than a useful tool. Ambassadors , members of openSUSE community do use it in order to communicate , form groups , follow other people, create events ,create polls etc. Although it is a useful tool , it does suffer from some deficiencies. As an ambassador i found using the wiki in order to manage the community events not a good idea at all. As mentioned before openSUSE Connect is based on Elgg. Elgg is an open source social networking engine that provides a robust framework on which to build all kinds of social environments. [2]. Elgg provides well-organized documentation [3] for developers. Furthermore Bug tracker is also available [4] . Besides Elgg has its own API Reference [5] which developers can use it. Finally he goal of my project is to create a plugin (developed in Elgg) which allows the users planning of events in openSUSE Connect , instead of using the wiki pages so as to create an event. Using this plugin by the community can be more beneficial
Progress
Event #1 (23/04-07/05) [Community Bonding period begins]
What did i do
Until now i did made my “Contact first steps” [6] which means i talked with my mentor , informed him about my plan. Furthermore i started using Trello as a project management tool. Focusing more on the project i read openSUSE connect’s main features and Installed it as well [7] , [8] , [9]. openSUSE Connect allows create and develop new widgets , plugins and new themes by using the Elgg platform. During installing openSUSE Connect i did face some problems , so i edited the documentation [10] in order to make the installation process easier and more successful. After the installation process i read Elgg’s Wiki Main page [11] , how Elgg’s Engine works , and made my firsts steps with Elgg Plugin Development. [12] ,[13], [14]. Elgg’s offers some introduction tutorials so as to begin developing your plugin. In addition Elgg offers about 1500 plugins which you can download them and install them as well. Finally i installed PHP plugin for Eclipse and started using it.
What i am going to do
This week i will focus more on Elgg’s Plugin Development and try to implement the first tutorials [15] . Furthermore i am going to focus on Elgg Plugin Development and read upon the current used event plugin.
Problems & Solutions
After the installation process i wasn’t able to access Elgg due to an Error message. Also while configuring “System settings” i had to add a folder which is not placed in Connect’s installation folder. These problems are already solved and descibed more detailed here [16]
Conclusion
These are my first 14 days in the project. I feel very happy about participating in Google Summer of Code with openSUSE Project. In my opinion this project would be beneficial for members of openSUSE Community and Open Source community as well. Finally my reports about my progress will be posted in weekly basis and will be called “Event # “.
