RE: Status of Dashboard

["Kevin Kubasik" <kevin kubasik net>]

Hey! Sorry for the delay in response! 

Dashboard development has been stalling and slow for the past several
months. At the moment, I am really the only one who has been continuing
to develop, and most of my work has been experimental at best, and
remains locked in an unbootable ubuntu install. (when I get a few hours,
I can sit down and recover it, but it's really nothing substantial, some
small crash fixes, and updates of sample plugins to new API's. 

Right now there really is only one major roadmap item, and it is the
item that blocks the real development of much else. Dashboard needs a c
library to allow clients (like rhythmbox or something) to generate and
send clue packets to dashboard. In short, something like libbeagle, but
libdashboard. This next request is made to anyone wanting to help: If
you are proficient in C and are willing to help, get in touch, and I can
help explain the specifics of the api/an implementation. The reason C is
so important, is that once a C lib is created, we can automatically
generate wrappers/bindings for most other major languages. Since the
functional core of dashboard is more or less in place, what we need are
backends, plugins, and more intelligent display tiles to truly make it a
useful app. While there are still tons of bugs and the like to track
down, and help with that is always appreciated/needed, until we have
more client plugins, namely support for at least one (preferably all
with 20% of the linux desktop share or more) of each of the following
supported:
* Word Processer 
* E-mail Client
* IM Client
* Web Browser
* File Browser
* Development Env's/Text Editors
* Photo Manager
* Music Player/Manager

While the list is big, most client plugins can be written by the app
writers themselves once we give them a simple and stable api. For
example, abiword has expressed continued interest in writing a plugin,
if we can just give them an updated c library for the new dashboard. 

So ask (nicely!) anyone you know who might be able to help us, and
contact me any time, I'll explain what we need in a second, and am more
than willing to work with someone who knows C well, but just needs help
with the mono serialization part of this. 

Cheers,
Kevin Kubasik

-----Original Message-----
From: dashboard-hackers-bounces gnome org
[mailto:dashboard-hackers-bounces gnome org] On Behalf Of Kevin Godby
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2007 9:24 PM
To: dashboard-hackers gnome org
Subject: Status of Dashboard

Hello.

I'm wondering what the status of Dashboard is. I'm currently working
on choosing a topic for my master's thesis and was considering
something along the lines of Dashboard.

I know that Fredrik worked on it a bit during last year's Google
Summer of Code.   What did he get accomplished?  Also, what does the
roadmap/big picture look like these days?

Thanks!

--Kevin Godby
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