[wp-hackers] Confused regarding ideas for GSOC 2011

[Aaron D. Campbell]

I responded to a similar E-Mail you sent me directly, but thought I'd 
post this here as well:

First of all, you are not limited to one application.  You're more than 
welcome to put together an application for each of these ideas and 
submit all three.  You will only be chosen for one, so make sure to 
mention in each that you have other applications and which one you would 
most like to do.

   1. With the Android for tablets, make sure that you understand there
      are currently some limitations with WordPress's XMLRPC setup.  Be
      careful how much you bite off for this one.  As for the current
      Android App, it of course works on the tablets, but it doesn't
      make the best use of the available space.  I think that a re-work
      of the user interface to really take advantage of the size of the
      tablets is what they're looking for.
   2. Move WordPress: This one didn't turn out as great as it could have
      last year.  I didn't mentor that project, so I don't know all the
      details, but we wanted something that could ultimately make moving
      a WP install simple.  Think about people that don't know how to
      use FTP.  Maybe they know their FTP details, maybe they don't. 
      This would probably require that either the functionality be built
      into core or that the plugin be uploaded to both sides.  Remember
      that there are two basic things this should do:
         1. Move a site from one server to another
                * This basically means you need to bring across all the
                  files as well as the database.  Additionally it should
                  check for things like upload path to make sure it's
                  still valid (upload paths are sometimes absolute and
                  this change from server to server), etc.
         2. Move a site from one domain to another
                * This is actually trickier.  The main reason is that
                  the domain name is in a lot of places:
                      o In the settings
                      o In posts, pages, etc in links, image src
                        elements, etc
                      o In menus
                      o In widgets - which is even more difficult
                        because widget settings including widget content
                        is stored in a serialized array, so the data
                        needs to be unserialized, the domain name
                        changed, then the data needs to be re-serialized
                        and stored.
         3. Both (changing servers at the same time as changing domains)
            - Nothing new here, but it should be able to do both
            simultaneously.
   3. New User Walkthrough: I like your idea of making this a "site
      health" thing that could be useful throughout the life of a site. 
      I definitely recommend that you pursue it if only because it's
      something unique that you came up with.  Remember though that
      while this sounds like a simple thing, you need to make it
      extensible.  Other plugins are going to want to hook into it and
      add their own list of things for new users to do and their own
      ongoing site health info.  For example, a forum (like BBPress or
      SimplePress) might want to have a user upload an avatar or put
      unread threads or private messages into the list, etc.

Good luck!  Also, as a quick side note: WordPress has a capital P in the 
middle <http://twitter.com/#%21/sivel/status/49503908674027520>.  Make 
sure you spell it that way in your applications!

On 3/20/2011 5:15 AM, Gaurav Aggarwal wrote:
> 1* Wordpress Android Tablet Idea*
> 2 *Move WordPress
> 3* User Notification and support*
>
>
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Gaurav Aggarwal
> IIIrd year student
> Delhi College of Engineering