[ooo-build] request for comments: GSoC proposal for OneNote in OpenOffice

[Fridrich Strba]

Hello, Abhishek,

Thank you for your interest in GoOo and Google Summer of Code. Your
proposal looks quite huge thing to do. I would advise that you undertake
the standard exercise mentioned here
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/ooo-build/SummerOfCode/2010#Theexercise
This exercise helps us to evaluate the capacity of a student to actually
achieve something during the GSoC period.

We hope that you'll come back with the result of the exercise so that we
can enter into the merits of your application.

Cheers

Fridrich

On Tue, 2010-03-23 at 23:24 +0530, Abhishek Anand wrote:
> Hi all,
> I would be highly grateful if you spare some of your time and let me
> know your views about this proposal for an equivalent of OneNote in
> OpenOffice. I want to undertake this as a GSoC project
> --------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> Microsoft One Note is the only reason I’m unable to switch to Linux.
> Openoffice is the ideal place for such an application. OneNote is a
> brilliant combination of 2 line of products:  Microsoft Word and
> Windows Journal. In addition to combining functionalities of both, it
> has many useful features like:
> 
> 1.      Organizing capability: In the days of Windows Journal, I had
> one file for each lecture of a semester. Organizing them was
> difficult. OneNote on the other hand organizes files(sections) into
> groups and notebooks and hence accessing them becomes much more
> convenient.
> 
> 2.      Ability to add text/handwriting/image/video etc anywhere in a
> document: A one note page in auto(default) mode extends happily in all
> 4 directions when you write/add text at a boundary Contrast this Word
> which enforces strict page formatting which is not very appropriate
> for making informal notes 
> 
> 3.       Searching capability: This, according to me is the coolest
> feature in one note. It can search for text with high accuracy in my
> illegible handwriting, pictures, audio and video contained in the
> OneNote notebook.
> 
> 4.      Collaboration features: Multiple users can collaborate on a
> notebook. OneNote  This feature is already available in Jarnall, a
> java based application available in linux
> 
> 5.      Support for inline links: Inline links are a great way to
> refer to some other paragraph of the notebook. 
> 
> 6.      Support for outlook: Outlook events can be created right
> inside notebook.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Apart from the above mentioned features, I also want to add one which
> is missing in OneNote: the ability to record the strokes of pen and
> audio in a synchronized way and the replaying it. This can be a great
> tool for people who give lectures as they can record them in a
> space-efficient way
> 
>  Developing such an application right from scratch seems infeasible in
> 2 months. Therefore, I plan to branch-off  from the OpenOffice Writer
> code and add the handwriting support and the above mentioned features.
> Here is some concrete description about how I plan to go about it In
> chronological order:
> 
> 1)     Add support for handwriting: Thanks to the linuxwacom project,
> stylus is supported in linux as a pointing device.  I’m not well
> versed with the internals of the file formats we can somehow hack them
> to store the spatio-temporal info required for handwriting
> recognition. Storing timing info will aid in handwriting recognition
> and the recording feature. Also, I’m doing  courses in Computer Vision
> and Multimedia systems. So, by the time this semester ends, I’ll be
> well versed with techniques for recognition of text in
> images/videos/handwritings.
> 
> 2)     For the organization, OneNote’s model of a notebook as a folder
> seems very appropriate. It allows us to create a hierarchy of groups
> of sections which is internally stored as a hierarchy of folders. I
> visualize the same model for the OpenOffice version of OneNote
> 
> 3)     OneNote indexes the videos/images/audios whenever the system is
> idle. I plan to write a daemon for this task in linux. This daemon can
> run as a low-priority process in the system. Like OneNote, I also want
> to automatically adjust the priority based on battery status in
> laptops
> 
> 4)     For collaboration, I’ll write a custom server which will run on
> the machine on which the shared notebook resides.
> 
> 5)     Adding support for Inline links should be trivial.
> 
> 6)     I will integrate it with evolution. I guess this will involve
> writing an addon for Evolution to accept events from OpenOffice
> OneNote
> 
>  
> 
>  --------------------------
> 
> Regards,
> Abhishek Anand
> final year student,
> Dept of Computer Science,
> IIT Guwahati
> 
> 
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