[wp-hackers] Re: Google Summer of Code 2007

[Lloyd Budd]

On 3/8/07, DD32 <wordpress at dd32.id.au> wrote:
>
> Would anyone on here (rather than end-users) have any ideas for potential
> students? for example:

If you provide a solid problem oriented idea, then I should be able to
guilt someone into mentoring you ;-) Each of the ideas you present
seem solid. A more experimental idea could also be a great experience.

Matt also added some performance related ones to the ideas page today.
A couple of them look challenging, but the experience and the benefits
are significant!


>    * Making sure that wordpress(And certain plugins) are xhtml valid, and
> that can be serves with application/xhtml+xml (Which many dont use yet,
> however, we should be moving towards that).

This one seems like an easy win. Nick Shanks has filled quite a few
related bugs for core in this area.

There are many related discussion threads and bug reports that I can
help track down if you are interested.

Preventative measures might be interesting.


>    *Perhaps creating a plugin update alert, could be included on the plugin
> activation screen and have an extra field with the latest version number
> in red if newer than the current plugin, The plugin model could be
> extended to either have an extra field for retrieving a text(or xml) file
>   from the plugin developers website of the latest version for that plugin,
> or maybe it could be hosted on a WP server, where plugin devs can modify
> it.

I think Mike A (for bbPress), Mark J, (westi,) and others have related
projects at various levels of functionality and adoption. You could
look at what they have done and where they are heading and collaborate
with them.


>    * OpenID plugin, Ok despite the discussion, I honestly feel it should be
> an optional default plugin, people can rant about it in the other thread,
> but take a look at this for example:
> http://faq.wordpress.com/2007/03/06/what-is-openid/ It'd be great to have
> an option to submit OpenID comments on ALL wordpress blogs, WP.com has
> started this, they allow WP.com blogs to be OpenID Identities, Thats good
> enough push for me. (I gurrently delegate my glod to myopenid.com or
> something with another plugin)

Well, there are already plugins to do both the intermediary service
and the consuming.


> Ok so the last 2 are mainly ideas from the forum. but still stands, do the
> devs have any core-issues(or enhacements) they wouldnt mind seeing someone
> deal with?

Some other areas to consider if submitting your own idea:
    * Improve Administration Interface
    * Batch Categorizing/Operating on Posts
    * Draft Handling
    * Editor
    * Image Handling
    * Smoother Upgrade

Cheers,
Lloyd