GUADEC, and SoC progress report
Posted by Sayamindu 1 year, 1 month ago
Finally got my visa for the UK (it was pretty smooth, contrary to my expectations). I had heard a number of horror stories on visa interviews, but I wasn’t even called for an interview. I simply dropped off my application (with my passport and a lot of accompanying documents) at the VFS office in Kolkata and collected a sealed envelope containing my passport on the next day. Pretty smooth process, I would say.
As per my plans (to be confirmed by Monday) I’ll be arriving at Birmingham on the 13th evening. I plan to stay during the entire GUADEC, then maybe visit London (or some other interesting place) for a day or two, and then finally, I leave on the 26th afternoon.
As far as my SoC work, things have been progressing at a somewhat slow (mainly due to my impending exams), but steady pace. I have already created a working patch for global desktop items (I had some initial trouble understanding Nautilus code, but in the end managed to figure it out, thanks to Federico and some nice documentation that comes with the Nautilus source). The patch allows Nautilus to show the files in a given directory (specified via Gconf) as read only icons on the Desktop (similar to Trash, Computer, etc). And in case you are getting worried about desktop clutter, don’t worry, it is turned off by default :-). And if you are still worried, you can go through this post that I made at the nautilus mailing list. The original proposal can be found here.
Here’s a Theora video of the patched Nautilus in action. The global items directory is set to /var/lib/gnome/desktop in Gconf, and all the files in that directory are being displayed as read only links on the user Desktop.
Next in line is to polish up the patch, and simultaneously work on the enhancement to Sabayon that would make the management of these global items easier.
I wonder if this couldn’t also be adapted to do something like global templates.
@lovelace
Global templates is a doable concept, but I’m not working on it atm. Maybe after SoC is over, I can take a look.
I hope that the global directory will eventually change to something more neutral, b/c later who knows who will want to implement something like this, there shouldn’t be any gnome related stuff in the path.
Hi Sayamindu
I do not know if you remember me, Chandita Mukherjee, always moving around with a camera at Asia Source. I suddenly thought of you because my organisation Comet is doing a festival of alternative approaches to learning called bal vividha in Kolkata in November.
The fair will be held at BITM on Gurusaday Road. The fair will have a day long programme, (which we call the colloquium) on the theme of “Child in the Age of Digital Revolution” or something like that which alludes to the tremendous potential of information communication technologies for children and schools. We will also want to introduce Free Software into this situation.
I was wondering if you would like to serve as the convenor of this group and work with the coordinator of the festival Subha Das Mollick. The work would mean that you would have to help work out the flow of the day’s programme, invite the speakers, work out with them what they will say and other matters concerning the programme. It would be great if we could call some people in the educational establishment, such as the Secretary of school education at Writer’s Building, some prominent school principals and others who may be FOSS proponents etc.
Is there an active LUG in Kolkata? Do you think we could get some of them interested?
Before I keep hatching more plans, let’s see if this works for you! Please reply to me at the earliest.
The festival committee will be meeting on the 11th of June at 11am at BITM. It would be great if you could be there.
With warmest regards
Chandita