* What is the ultimate goal of your proposal?
PROPOSAL : Thumbnail view in desktop GNOME panel The idea is to make a an applet for gnome panel which will allow the desktop panel to show thumbnail view of applications running in background or foreground as the user moves the mouse over the tabs . * What components/modules will it touch/change or create?
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GNOME panel -
Window Selector widget -
Window List widget -
OpenGl -
Compiz
* What benefits does it have for GNOME and its community? After its implimentation in gnome , it will provide more pleasing look to the gnome and more functionality. Not just an eye-candy , thumbnaill view has become an important feature in present day operating systems . It allows the user to look quickly into "in" what all he is working concurrently. * Why you'd like to complete this particular project? GNOME is a highly stable and efficient desktop environment but it lacks some of the features compared to other properitory operating system . This feature that we suggest, will add a splendid view to GNOME panel. * How do you plan to achieve completion of your project? We are currently studing the source code of the GNOME panel and have got the idea about it. We have tested some minute changes like "tooltip text" on mouse hover, and think that a dedicated hardwork over it could get us achieve the result.As in KDE, it keeps the latest thumnails of all the running windows in a record, that is it asks Opengl (or XRenderer) to keep the latest thumbnail view of all windows (wether hidden or in view). What we will do is that we will add this functionality in gnome also. And then we can use the 'Window List' applet of the Gnome panel to show this thumbnail whenever the user hovers the mouse over it. TIMELINE/IMPORTANT DATES :- We have devided the timeline as set of 5 +1 stages , as follows :- Stage 1: learning the source code, and environment of gnome applets. As this is the first time that we are coding for GNOME. It can take a max of 2 weeks Stage 2: Writing the actual code to implemetn a small thumbnail viewer. (About 1.5 weeks) Stage 3: Integrating the viewer to the "Window list" applet. About 1 week. Stage 4: Visually enhancing the appearance of the feature.About 1 week. Stage 5: Testing and removing inefficient and buggy code...(around 1 week) Stage 6 :- Extending and Generalising the concept to gnome, if time permits . P.S. :-As mentioned, we have started our prepration for the project , so i suppose the stage 1 time will be shrtened , which we we will use to extend the abilities of the code(basically for stage 6 ) * Why do you think you are be the best person to work on this project? We have already got an insight into the project, and are already on course.We have started preliminary works ,so we wont be wasting much of time in exploring the options at the time of gsoc.As they say ,starting early is always profitable.That gives us edge over others .Above all,this is our idea and if our code becomes the part of gnome , the feeling that our thought(and obviously code) is affecting millions across the globe is unmatchable .And that will be our biggest motivation. * What are your past experiences (if any) with the open source world? This would be my first tryst with the Open source. Aspiration comes with ability;For past somone time we have been exploring gnome,what librarys it uses, wrote small scripts in python too, And now I think with proper channelized efforts, I might actually pull off an open source project. Open source is democracy in software, and it certainly would be a privilege to contribute back to the open source community. We feel as if we are not new to this open source community There is a feature in KDE such that it stores the latest thumbnail view of each window(hidden or visible) in a record.What we plan to do is as follows: step 1: A small feature is to be added in the 'window list' GNOME desktop panel to record mouse hover action. step 2: This will call our applet giving it the handle of the window under the mouse (be it a hidden window or a visible window. step 3: The applet will then fetch the updated thumbnail image of the window contents. step 4: This image can then be easily displayed along with the tooltips Attaching a sample image of what we want to do with the panel and window selector widget .Final result ,see the thumbnail below
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HIMANSHU PANDEY
Computer Science





