Wrapping up the summer's work | Google Summer of Code 2013

Although it has been quite some time since I last blogged on my work on the GSoC (blame the exams and then the last minute work I had to do), it has just been confirmed that I have passed my final evaluations for the same. I would use this blog post as an overview of the work that I have completed in the summer.

GSoC weeks 10-11 | Creating sassy CSS

The primary task going into week 10 (after my last blog post) was to complete the flipswitches (keeping in mind the accessibility of course) so that it could be integrated into the ATutor system preferences page.

The problem with this was that I was going to replace radio buttons with the flipswitches and most of the ones available online were make for checkboxes, which meant catching the events via JavaScript and preventing the default actions were just not going to be enough as that would involve major changes in the back end.

GSoC Week 9 | Polishing old branches

Continuing off where I left last week, the primary work this week involved three things. The redesign of the system preferences page has given me the highest number of issues because, well, it's too big and all the code has been manually written in a page!

GSoC Week 8 | Exploring new things

Officially, we are done with two thirds of the GSoC period now. Not bad, huh? Let me tell you what I did this week. We had three things to get over with before starting converting the CSS files to SASS.

The first was, of course, the dropdowns and improved navigation. I made minor changes to make sure every element in the fit well into the menu. I added a separator to make the dropdown look like a menu rather than a single unified area with some links in it.

Google Summer of Code 2013 Participation

Here is the GSoC 2013 participation by countries!

GSoC Week 7 | Polishing Previous Work

It's been another week in the Google Summer of Code and time seems to be running fast now. Last week, I passed my mid term evaluations and never realized it was much of a deal until I saw some happy posts on Facebook and a few blogs! Now that I think of it, I knew I would pass it, as I had done a lot- a tad bit more than what I had mentioned in my proposal!

GSoC Week 6 | Half the journey completed

It's completion of week 6 and that's officially half way through the Google Summer of Code 2013. Now that I look back, I have been going at a pretty comfortable speed and just ahead of the deliverables mentioned in my application. Having said that, I guess it's time to reflect back on the changes I did in my last week.

GSoC Weeks 4-5 | More UI Changes

As the days roll by, I have started writing more and more code for making changes to the front end. Week 4 started with changes to my previous work to bring in perfection.

First, the browse courses page. I had already implemented real time search in the page. However, the search options were taking up too much space. Alex suggested that it should be something like this-

Search: |==============| o Advanced

GSoC Week 3 | UI changes

After a comfortable two weeks of mostly AJAXification, it was time I did something which truly resembled the title of the project. I started the week with some code changes from the browse courses branch and a mind to do some changes which would affect the UI directly. Going back to our original discussions during the community bonding period, we had decided that there were four areas of ATutor that urgently needed changes- the browse courses page, the help page, instructor's manage page and the main navigation system. I had done some basic changes to the browse courses page, so I decided to start on the navigation and help page.

GSoC Week 2 | Birthday Week

First things first. I got the FedEx package on Monday, which contained the card, a diary and a pen. It was great and definitely worth the wait! The first use of the money was to get an Amazon Kindle, something I wanted for a long time.

The week also included my birthday and I could afford to work less on that day owing to the fact that I had done a lot of work in the last fortnight.

GSoC Week 1 | AJAXification continues

It's the first weekend of the GSoC coding period and I must say I have been really satisfied with my work yet. I believe I have completed more than forty hours in these six days, changing over a thousand lines of code in the process. The reason, you ask? It's of course my mentor, Alexey Novak (and the home cooked food that I am getting). His involvement has been great so far. Considering that he has a full time job- he manages to give me detailed code reviews after every single push. You can check our discussion here.

GSoC official coding period starts | Work Progress

The official coding period in this year's Google Summer of Code has finally begun. Three weeks between declaration of results and start of the coding is a big time. That is why I had started coding almost ten days ago! This was to make sure I had a head start, which gives me a better chance of tackling unforeseen delays.

First, let's talk about the tasks that I have started looking into but come later in the GSoC. One such thing is adding an accessible flipswitch in place of Enable-Disable radio buttons. Here is a cool one that I found, which also keeps accessibility in mind. Note that it uses bootstrap, but that should not be a problem as I would be reusing only those classes that are necessary.

Mighty Javascript | GSoC Week Zero - Laying Foundations

Although Akshit had told me about the existence of the book 'Javascript: The Good Parts' back in January, I hadn't really bothered to go through much of it. How would I have known in January that I would be contributing Javascript to an open source organization?

The first few weeks in my GSoC project involves AJAXification of the interface of ATutor. Apart from developing an AJAX demo, I had had extensive discussions on the UI redesign with my mentor, Alex. We also plan to change the existing CSS to SASS so that small changes don't require changes to multiple files of different templates.

GSoC Week minus 1 | Ajax Demo and UI Redesign discussions

Before we start, let me just remind you that if you know me at all, you would know my craze for AJAX. Naturally, it was obvious that any GSoC proposal of mine would invariably contain a lot of AJAX stuff (Check my proposal here).

The first seven weeks, till the mid term evaluation, my primary work is to AJAXify the certain elements of ATutor. Just to make sure that we were on the same page, Alex, my mentor, asked me to give him a demonstration of the AJAXification.

Google Summer of Code Checklist

Pre-requisites: Except having a good grasp in one programming language, you need to have the knowledge of git/svn/mercurial/bzr. The reason is that all open source communities use one of these tools to manage their code. Collaborative development would have been very difficult otherwise...

ATutor and the idea of accessibility

When the list of organizations were announced back in early April, I had no idea if I would even be considered for any project. Almost two months later, it feels that I have come a long way. Bluntly put, my work would be to make ATutor look better.

Most web developers are fascinated by how easy HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery have made their lives! However, although they are making > 95% of people happy with their smooth websites, the rest struggle with dealing with.

Google Summer of Code 2013 | My Story

Quite recently, I came up with a post on how I started contributing to open source, and explained that the only organization that I was following didn't make it through to the selected mentoring organizations of Google Summer of Code. That was a difficult situation for me. Being a Geology student and when every classmate of mine had at least two interns to boast of, I hadn't even bothered to apply properly to professors or companies. The GSoC was my last hope. However, everything seemed grim.

Thanking the souls that made my GSoC possible!

Getting a Google Summer of Code project wasn't so easy and it certainly wouldn't have been possible without the help of others. Here is the list that I found too long to be published in a Facebook status update!

Please note that anyone I have mentioned here can ask for a chapo anytime, provided I am carrying my wallet (which I frequently don't). For everyone else, I would ask you a round of questions regarding my GSoC so that I am sure you are not asking for one just for the sake of the hype.

UI Redesign (Usability Research and Development) | Google Summer of Code 2013 Proposal

Short description: The aim of this project is to change the user interface of ATutor, making it more user friendly in the process. This would be done in two phases- AJAXification of many features, and then making a new design for ATutor, keeping in mind the accessibility of the project at every point. At the end, ATutor would be a better application to use.