GSoC Android proposal

Fri Apr 6 14:35:02 EDT 2012

Hi,
Thanks for the feedback. I will make some modifications to the application
to add specificity and edit the schedule.
As for the part  "How do you plan to achieve completion of your project?", I
assumed that that was the part where the proposal was to be entered.
Because the next sentence just seems to add detail to the question "It
really helps to see a schedule with dates and important
milestones/deliveries (preferably in two weeks increments)."

The application passcode lock is to enable one to be able to lock the
application with the passcode, so that if someone borrows a device
temporarily they do not have to see all your transactions. But maybe this
is not so necessary.

Cheers,
Ngewi

On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 13:58, Muslim Chochlov <muslim.chochlov at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi,
>
> First of all, I have no idea how or why this conversation hit the public
> list (I really hope John can explain that).
> Not only it discloses private information on participants applying to
> GnuCash and Gnome as well, but also violates GSoC program rules. Apart of
> that
> it makes me and I guess students feel quite uncomfortable.
> I really hope this was done by a mistake and unintentionally.
>
> Hello,
>> correct me if I am wrong, but if I understood the goal of the Android app
>> well, then it was such that the transaction/expense history would be
>> recorded on the device, and then imported to the desktop app, and not the
>> other way around.
>>
>
> This is absolutely true and that's the primary goal of the application.
> The thing that I was talking about and which confused John is
> import-export module in the source code of GnuCash.
> So stressing this one more time - application should allow user to:
> - entry data
> - store data
> - export data
>
>
>> As for the coding contribution, I also don't see any modules in the
>> desktop
>> counterpart which are relevant to the Android application (again please
>> correct me if I'm wrong).
>> It should be noted that almost two weeks of the application period were
>> lost by those who were applying to GNUcash before GNOME accepted to serve
>> as an Umbrella org.
>>
>>
> Well, as Marina said this is one of the Gnome requirements that all
> proposals would have a link
> to code contribution. And if I understand her correctly you have a time
> until 20th of April to come up with
> a code contribution, that is you can later add a link in a comment to your
> proposal. Two weeks should be more
> than enough to fix a bug, write a test or do small refactoring.
> Most relevant modules would be src/import-export or src/libqof. Maybe
> Christian or John could help with identifying a thing to be fixed.
>
>
>> @Muslim, I would be interested in knowing areas where your expectations
>> were not met and how the application can be improved (would it be in
>> technical detail, UI wireframing, or something else?). Thanks.
>>
>>
> I'm not going to talk about my expectations or evaluate your work, as
> again this is against GSoC rules. Instead I went through
> your proposal and here are some notes that could help you.
>
> * You did come up with a schedule - that's a good thing and that was what
> your initial draft was definitely lacking.
> * Mockups are very good.
> * "How do you plan to achieve completion of your project?" - still empty.
> If it is in the template I would suggest it better be filled.
> * Now you write " Android application for Android API level 7 and above".
> Are you going to target 7+ platforms and support all of them? If yes then
> you should dedicate some time for that. Otherwise think of skipping this.
> * OpenIntents - what are you going to use them for? Is there something
> that you cannot do with standard Android intent mechanism.
> * "Integration of mobile application with desktop GNUcash" - what do you
> actually mean by that?
> * "Implementation of QIF export format" - you can describe of document a
> format not implement it. Are you talking about exporting feature here?
> * "Application passcode lock" - ?
>
> Overall, a clear schedule is very important to successfully accomplish the
> project. Right now it looks more like a spaghetti. For instance, for the
> midterm you are going to present "standalone Android app for expense
> tracking", but add exporting mechanism only after midterm. Now putting
> yourself in a user place - how useful would you find an application that is
> only capable of storing data to the dark corners of your flash drive?
> Again, why would I need fancy widget on the desktop if my application
> doesn't do the most important task.
>
> Cheers,
> Muslim Chochlov
>
>  On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 04:52, David Reiser <dbreiser at earthlink.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > On Apr 5, 2012, at 5:02 PM, John Ralls wrote:
>> >
>> > >
>> > > On Apr 4, 2012, at 8:00 AM, Muslim Chochlov wrote:
>> > >
>> > >> Hi,
>> > >>
>> > >> The good news are that one student (Ngewi Fet) has submitted his
>> > proposal for mobile application.
>> > >> And AFAIK another one (Atul) is going to submit as well.
>> > >> The bad news are that Ngewi's proposal doesn't seem to make it
>> through.
>> > Apart from basic information about the application
>> > >> he is going to develop there is nothing that can make him stand out
>> of
>> > the crowd of other participants. I don't know how many slots Gnome will
>> > receive
>> > >> but they already have 5-6 very strong proposals and it would be
>> > extremely hard for Ngewi to compete with them. Currently I would rate
>> him
>> > 2-3 out of 5 and I have to admit I expected more from him.
>> > >> You could find his application here [1]
>> > >>
>> > >> [1]
>> >
>> http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/proposal/review/google/gsoc2012/ngewif/1
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > Muslim,
>> > >
>> > > You wrote on your comment to Ngewi's proposal:
>> > >> Also it is very important that you understand how import/export in
>> > GnuCash works and QIF file format. Because this is the main purpose of
>> the
>> > GnuCash mobile application.
>> > >
>> > > You know that there is no export from Gnucash, right? The export menu
>> > items write a chart of accounts to an empty Gnucash file or, on reports,
>> > write out the HTML from the report to file.
>> >
>> > Trunk has a CSV transaction export. I haven't tried a round trip yet,
>> but
>> > the transactions seem to be there in the export file. And you do have
>> to do
>> > one category at a time (Income/expense/asset/liability).
>> > >
>> > > If Ngewi's (or Atul's, if he gets around to writing a proposal) app is
>> > to get information from Gnucash I think that the only option is for it
>> to
>> > parse the XML data file.
>> > >
>> > > On a related note, Marina Zhurakhinskaya (one of the Gnome admins) is
>> > commenting on all proposals that don't have a pointer to an existing
>> > contribution. Do either Atul or Ngewi have the C experience to knock
>> out a
>> > couple of bugs? It's not really germane to their proposals, because
>> those
>> > will be written in Java, but it seems to be a Gnome GSoC requirement.
>> > >
>> > > Regards,
>> > > John Ralls
>> > >
>> >
>> > Dave
>> > --
>> > David Reiser
>> > dbreiser at earthlink.net
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
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>> >
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