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

[Abhishek Anand]

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
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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



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Regards,
Abhishek Anand
final year student,
Dept of Computer Science,
IIT Guwahati
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