[Radwa]

Hello there,
I'm Radwa Khattab, you can call me Rou though. I'm a sophomore in Computer Engineering, Cairo University. 21 years old.

I've known about GSoC since my preparatory year in college, and have been waiting to gain enough skills to apply at it and have good chances at being accepted since then, so here I am now.

After I saw KODI page on GSoC and downloaded it to understand it better, well, I loved its idea immediately--I'm a person who loves entertainment, from movies to books. And after I let it explored my folders of movies and TV-shows and saw the results, almost all of it is great. I decided at that moment that this must be a project I apply to.
But then I noticed that there is no tab for books, and I honestly got a lil' bit sad, 'cuz I will definitely use this program from now on.

Soooo...
That is my NEW IDEA. Why not have a book library as well?  Wait wait, before you say for what purpose wince most people get their books as hard-cover copies.
As in Egypt for one, we buy e-books more than hard-cover books, they are cheaper if speaking about English books not Arabic ones. I, myself, has more than 50 e-book. PDF. But my friends have EPUB as well and other formats. However, sometimes, the copies are a bit ruined, depending on where we get them from. I HATE IT WHEN THERE'S NO COVER! It seems stupid, but some of us tend to care about perfection. I would like to have my library of books. Divided upon categories. Rates. Release Date. Writers...etc. We can build many features. And with the help of the free Goodreads API, it wouldn't be so hard to build.

Beside this idea, I am also interested in "Add a picture library" project, as I noticed it requires SQLite, MySQL and C++. I have build a database web app using MySQL for our database last semester with my team. I am skilled in C++ for 2.5 years now, used it in 2 projects (OOP and Data structure) along with problem solving as I use C++ all the time, even when I participated in ICPC 2018 on Egypt.  And whatever challenges I am to face, I am more than willing to learn new skills, and you wouldn't meet a faster learner than I am, trust me. But I'll admit, I do need guidance to be more efficient.

As for now, I ask you, Razze or any of the mentors, for two things.
1. What do you think about my idea?
2. I don't totally understand the "Add a picture library" project, TBH. Do you want to have something similar to that of movies, but for photos? It doesn't seem entirely logical to me as photos are so random and can't be organized upon categories .. unless if we have like image-processing algorithms, maybe? So we can categorize them upon who is in the photo? I don't know. Could you explain more on the idea and how can I increase my chances at getting accepted as an intern, it would be such an honor working on this project, and I'm already looking forward for it.

MANY THANKS FOR THE HELP, IN ADVANCE. And sorry for the long talk, I am probably much enthusiastic, that's all. 
LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/radwask/
GitHub: https://github.com/RadwaSK

[Razze]

As for now, I ask you, Razze or any of the mentors, for two things.
1. What do you think about my idea?
2. I don't totally understand the "Add a picture library" project, TBH. Do you want to have something similar to that of movies, but for photos? It doesn't seem entirely logical to me as photos are so random and can't be organized upon categories .. unless if we have like image-processing algorithms, maybe? So we can categorize them upon who is in the photo? I don't know. Could you explain more on the idea and how can I increase my chances at getting accepted as an intern, it would be such an honor working on this project, and I'm already looking forward for it.

 Hey Rou, nice to have you!

1. I'm not sure, is that really something some other (open-source) apps can't do? As Kodi at the moment is mostly running on TVs and I don't really think you would read a book on your TV, right?
2. So the matter with pictures is, that you can view them at the moment in Kodi. But Kodi will forget about them and need quiet long to "rescan" them. Try it if you get a chance. It's not keeping the data around, like we do for movies and shows, so the experience should be pretty different.

[Radwa]

Hmmm...
1. Okay, you do have a point. *sad react*

2. I did try most of teh features on the app already. And I think I get what you mean. So, what we shall do is that have our photos' history in a library, like what photos last previewed and ... what else?

[Razze]

Well kinda it's more about the scanned data. History might be possible too, but I'm not sure if that makes much sense.

[jjd-uk]

Photo's can have EXIF, IPTC & XMP metadata (see https://expertphotography.com/metadata-exif-iptc-xmp ) so many people want this metadata added to a Pictures DB so they can filter photo's by things like location and date.

There is a python add-on implementation that could be used as a reference, see support thread at https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=133905 and code at https://github.com/Xycl/plugin.image.mypicsdb

There was also a previous unfinished attempt to add pictures library as a core function that might also be useful as a reference, see https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/1562

[Hudson_Hawk04]

I’ve been a member of this forum for quite sometime now and this time of the year I tend to find myself looking at the different ideas proposed by students for google summer of code. A section for ebooks intrigues me honestly the reading on the screen would be strange, but what if you were able to intragrate text to speech to have them spoken to you. Something similar was discussed in this thread:

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...t+impaired

It has to do with adaptive services for the visually impaired. And a cursory search of text to speech for Kodi in google led to a hit on github and a text to speech engine somewhere in the Kodi repo.

Just food for thought, and best of luck in your studies!

[Radwa]

Photo's can have EXIF, IPTC & XMP metadata (see https://expertphotography.com/metadata-exif-iptc-xmp ) so many people want this metadata added to a Pictures DB so they can filter photo's by things like location and date.

There is a python add-on implementation that could be used as a reference, see support thread at https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=133905 and code at https://github.com/Xycl/plugin.image.mypicsdb

There was also a previous unfinished attempt to add pictures library as a core function that might also be useful as a reference, see https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/pull/1562

I've read the links you posted here, and they were very helpful, I think I understood way more now what exactly you're trying to do in this project. Many thanks!

[Radwa]

I’ve been a member of this forum for quite sometime now and this time of the year I tend to find myself looking at the different ideas proposed by students for google summer of code. A section for ebooks intrigues me honestly the reading on the screen would be strange, but what if you were able to intragrate text to speech to have them spoken to you. Something similar was discussed in this thread:

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...t+impaired

It has to do with adaptive services for the visually impaired. And a cursory search of text to speech for Kodi in google led to a hit on github and a text to speech engine somewhere in the Kodi repo.

Just food for thought, and best of luck in your studies!

 It iiis an interesting idea. However, for books, I don't think it will be worthy of the effort to use a text-to-speech engine and all these algorithms when we literally have audio-books easy to get, right?
If I am to make text-to-speech, it should be on the whole app, I think? I don't mean for movies ofc, but even to go through the app ... ugh I got lost, I am not sure where that would be most helpful in KODI actually, if at all. Would visually impaired people use KODI when it is all about entertainment and watching? I don't think so.
Anyways, the forum and discussion were interesting. Thanks!

[Radwa]

Now that I know more about the idea and what we're going to do. I already downloaded KODI on windows and explored it as an app (I have Ubuntu Linux OS as well, but I preferred windows). I will go off to the repository of the app and clone it and begin exploring the code, then I will try fixing some bugs, more than one hopefully.

I took MOOC's in Data Analysis using SQL, and OOP in Python. And in college, I took Database, OOP, Data Structure, and Graphics courses. And I'm taking Software Engineering, and Multimedia courses this semester.

I'm more than willing to learn anything new for the sake of this project. Really. I won't apply at any project beside it in GSoC as it was the most interesting to me, and I think I will do well in it.
So I would really appreciate your help and guide for me through the application process.
Do you recommend me anything more to do now? Beside studying the code, and looking for bugs.

One last thing, if I got stuck in something in the code, shall I ask here on forums or on the IRC? (It is #KODI on Freenode, right or something else?)

[jjd-uk]

In case there's anything of use again as a reference, there was a discussion thread for the unfinished picture library work I posted the link to, see https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=141169

[jjd-uk]

One last thing, if I got stuck in something in the code, shall I ask here on forums or on the IRC? (It is #KODI on Freenode, right or something else?)

It depends on the type of questions, there is a #kodi-gsoc channel for discussing anything related to the application process and projects, this allows you to connect with the GSoC admins and the potential mentors or any other interested Team members. If you have general build system and code questions there is also #kodi-dev which is open to anyone looking to develop for Kodi. Note most of the Team members use Slack to connect to the IRC channels which uses a bridge, so although you may not see on IRC anyone idling in the channel this does not mean anything posted won't be seen (Slack shows us channel history), however as volunteers who do this in our spare time it might not be possible for someone to get back to you straight away.

[Radwa]

however as volunteers who do this in our spare time it might not be possible for someone to get back to you straight away.

I know that for sure. I truly respect all of you mentors, at any organization for that. May the odds be in your favor, at all times. 
I'll be more free on weekend to study the code. I hope all goes well. Thanks for the help!

[Razze]

I’ve been a member of this forum for quite sometime now and this time of the year I tend to find myself looking at the different ideas proposed by students for google summer of code. A section for ebooks intrigues me honestly the reading on the screen would be strange, but what if you were able to intragrate text to speech to have them spoken to you. Something similar was discussed in this thread:

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid...t+impaired

It has to do with adaptive services for the visually impaired. And a cursory search of text to speech for Kodi in google led to a hit on github and a text to speech engine somewhere in the Kodi repo.

Just food for thought, and best of luck in your studies!

 It iiis an interesting idea. However, for books, I don't think it will be worthy of the effort to use a text-to-speech engine and all these algorithms when we literally have audio-books easy to get, right?
If I am to make text-to-speech, it should be on the whole app, I think? I don't mean for movies ofc, but even to go through the app ... ugh I got lost, I am not sure where that would be most helpful in KODI actually, if at all. Would visually impaired people use KODI when it is all about entertainment and watching? I don't think so.
Anyways, the forum and discussion were interesting. Thanks! 

 There is (was) an addon for this done by a team member (ruuk). So it seems to be relevant at the least.



Please go and apply to multiple orgs if you can. Every org has limited spaces that they get to fill, defined by google and the amount of mentors.

[Radwa]

Please go and apply to multiple orgs if you can. Every org has limited spaces that they get to fill, defined by google and the amount of mentors.

I know you do. But I don't have the time to study more than one project's code and look for bugs. I can either give one project the best of my focus, or none to any, I will be too distracted. I already have three projects in college to finish by late April. :/