Hi, also, from me, Josh,
We have had some previous communication, but let me welcome you
officially to LyX's very first year of participation in GSoC. We're
excited to be doing this, and we hope very much that the experience will
be a good one for you and for LyX.
As you know, the next three weeks or so are dedicated to "community
bonding". In practice, this is supposed to provide an opportunity for
you to become integrated into the development community here, so that
you are comfortable asking questions, etc, once you actually start coding.
Interaction among LyX developers happens almost entirely on the
lyx-devel mailing list, and you should join the list immediately, if you
have not already done so. It would also be worth your subscribing to
lyx-cvs, the misnamed list that receives messages from git when commits
are made. The best way to get a sense for how things work around here is
to watch how things work around here.
My memory is that you have already set up a functional development
environment. If not, please let us know, and we'll help get that
working. You should work off the master branch, which is what will
shortly become LyX 2.1.0.
Are you familiar with git? If so, then great. If not, then have a look at
http://wiki.lyx.org/Devel/Git
http://wiki.lyx.org/Devel/LyXGit
which gives some basic guidance to how to use it. Julien and I, and
others on the list who know git much better than we do, can answer any
questions you may have. But the basic workflow is pretty well described
on those pages, and we will develop one as a group as we proceed.
Somehow, somewhere, we will set up a git repo for this project, so that
you can share your work there. We are still deciding exactly how and
where to do this.
It would be really useful if you could spend some time using LyX, to get
a sense for how it functions. The particular project in which you are
engaged has less to do with the GUI, of course, than with backend
operations, but the overall goal here is to make LyX a great platform
for ePub, and having some sense for how the pieces fit together will be
helpful. LyX's "semantic" model for writing is different from most other
text processors, though it will feel familiar if you have used LaTeX in
the past.
Julien and I have been thinking it would be useful if we post a general
message to lyx-users and lyx-devel, telling everyone this project is
underway and soliciting ideas for what needs to be done to make LyX a
great ePub platform. A page on the wiki might be useful, too. We have
quite a few ideas collected already, and Rob Oakes, who is mentoring
another project, has thought quite a bit about this. But there are many
LyX users who will have ideas, and it would be good to brainstorm a bit
before we get started.
You can find a list of existing XHTML export bugs on my page on the wiki:
http://www.lyx.org/trac/wiki/HomeRgh
The list is down toward the bottom. This will give you some sense for
what complaints people have had to this point.
Otherwise, you should take a couple days to get set up, letting me and
Julien know how things are going. We can talk more, the three of us,
once you are set up, about how best to direct your energies in the near
future. You and I talked a bit a while ago about how the export facility
works, but it will be good to focus on that for a while at some point.
One thing perhaps to think about, on the XHTML side, is how footnotes
should be handled. The way it is done now is kind of cool, but a bit too
cool, as it seems not to work on several platforms, and it definitely is
too fancy for ePub. More generally, you might want to try exporting the
User's Guide, or some other manual, to LyXHTML, and then looking it over
in a browser. This will give you a sense for what is working well and
what needs help.
Hope that doesn't seem overwhelming!
Congratulations, again, and welcome to the LyX community.
Richard
