Summer of Code 2007

Similarly to the last year, OpenOffice.org would like to participate in the Summer of Code initiative sponsored by Google.

This page is here to collect the suitable suggestions. So - if you have a task that is challenging enough, and are willing to mentor the task, feel free to add it below. Each entry should contain the task description, required skills and personal contact. Links to the To-Dos are appreciated provided that the taks is well described there ;-)

We would be glad to support a few projects. Mentoring capacities are limited, so we depend on your dedication during the preparation of the detailed specification and description of the outcome.

For further general questions about the initiative Google prepared a FAQ.

The Tasks

===Example entry===

This is just an example - the real entry must not start with a space at the beginning
of the line.
A full description of the task should be here; one that will help to see that this task
is important,  and interesting to hack on.  Alternatively it could be an exact link to
the description that is already in To-Dos.

* Required skills/knowledge: Language, technology1, technology2, ...

; Contact
: dev@project.openoffice.org
: The.Mentor at organization com

Draw/Impress: SVG Import Filter

SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is a vector graphics format that describes 2D graphics in XML.

There's no native SVG import filter for OOo. There exists an external one, but unfortunately it has very strong dependencies - Java 5.0, and Batik. The goal of this task is to create a new implementation that does not require any too big libraries.

A proof of concept implementation written in C++ using the UNO Draw API, and a lighweight libsvg library exists (see here), but it needs a lot of work to be really usable. Also libsvg does not seem to be too actively maintained, so maybe it would be desirable to use something other library than libsvg; but similarly to it, the solution should be lighweight.

More information is available in Kendy's blog.

• Required skills/knowledge: C++, XML knowledge is a plus

Contact

Jan Holesovsky - kendy at openoffice org

Fridrich Strba - fridrich_strba at openoffice org

Calc: Integration of R into Calc

Create an add-on component that allows a Calc user to let the R environment do calculations on data from Calc cells and put the results into the spreadsheet again.

This should include a dialog to select input parameters and options, and allow results to be values or graph images. Note that the incompatible licenses (R is under GPL) have to be taken care of, possibly by starting R as a separate process.

Some more thoughts on the subject have been collected at Statistical Data Analysis Tool#Third Party Library Integration.

• Required skills/knowledge: Some familiarity with statistical methods

Contact

dev@sc.openoffice.org

Niklas.Nebel at sun.com

Writer: New "Notes" feature

The current "Notes" feature in Writer lacks usability and doesn't look appealing. A complete new way to add, edit and view notes is something that can be done without deep knowledge about the internal document core and layout of the Writer.

Contact

dev@sw.openoffice.org

Mathias.Bauer at sun.com

Writer: RTF Generator

The current RTF export is not as good as the import to Word (.doc) format. Parsing the generated Word format stream with a Word tokenizer and handing over the generated events to an RTF generator would lead to an RTF filter with the same quality as the binary Word export filter. Remark: the tokenizer itself isn't complete but in its current state covers enough parts of the Word format to make this a valuable project for the planned time span.

Contact

dev@sw.openoffice.org

Henning.Brinkmann at sun.com