Lucas Rocha: Reader Mode in Firefox Beta for Android

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Yes, Reader Mode is now available on Firefox Beta for Android! Go read my previous blog post about it for an overview of the feature. Brian and I have been working hard to get it in shape for the release and things are now much more solid.

So, what’s new since I announced Reader Mode? Besides tons of bug fixes, there are two things I’d like to highlight. First, we went through a new design iteration that adds a magazine style to the Reader, looks great! Secondly, we’ve made some major performance improvements. Entering Reader Mode is now instantaneous—the way it should be. There some extra major performance improvements and bug fixes to land in Beta soon by the way.

You can help us make Reader Mode even better! It’s simple: install Firefox Beta on your Android phone or tablet and use Reader Mode on your favourite news sites, blogs, etc. Let us know if Reader Mode if offered as expected on readable content (and not offered on pages that are not really articles) and if content is rendered as expected in Reader Mode. Report any issues you find.

I hope you love Reader Mode as much as we do. I can’t wait to get it in the hands of our users in Firefox 16!

Fábio Nogueira: Software Freedom Day 2012 (Salvador – Bahia)

O Software Freedom Day (SFD) ou em português, Dia da Liberdade do Software é uma celebração mundial do Software Livre e de Código Aberto (SL/CA). O objetivo dessa festa é mostrar ao público em todo o mundo os benefícios de usar SL/CA de alta qualidade na educação, no governo, em casa, e nos negócios, ou seja, em todos os lugares! A organização sem fins lucrativos Software Freedom International coordena o SFD em nível global, oferecendo apoio, brindes e um ponto de colaboração, mas times de voluntários em todo o mundo organizam os eventos SFD locais para atingir suas próprias comunidades.

E Salvador não poderia ficar de fora! Com o objetivo principal de fomentar o uso de ferramentas de código aberto, celebraremos com aproximadamente 10 palestras, neste sábado (15/09) na FTC (Faculdade de Tecnologia e Ciências). Este evento é promovido pelo grupo de usuários do Ekaaty e membros do PSL-BA, sem deixa de contar com o grande apoio da Colivre.

Caso esteja fora de Salvador, verifique uma cidade participante mais próxima de você em http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2012/Brazil.

Contamos com a sua presença!

Ps.: Divulgo em breve toda a sua programação!

Felipe Borges: #GSoC Final Report

Hey,

I can believe it’s over. This Summer passed way too fast! It was a great opportunity of learning more about free software development, programming, and GNOME.

To describe and evaluate my Google Summer of Code, I have chosen an interview-style post. I think this is the most efficient way of describing my internship experience.

What do you consider the best aspect of participating in GSoC?

The satisfaction of feeling part of something bigger than yourself. To work side-by-side with people really engaged in software development.

What do you consider the most challenging part of your internship?

Definitely it was conciliating the program with my university duties, since it’s not summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Although getting familiar with large projects, such as Tracker, was hard as well.

How was your mentor?

Cosimo is a great person and has been a great mentor. He has been patient in leading me to the right direction, pointing me what to do, and teaching me what was needed.

What would you do different if you could do it again?

It’s easy to point mistakes but they are part of the learning process. You got to learn from your mistakes to not repeat them.

I could have started my work in Documents UI sooner to have more time to polish/enhance/improve it. Also, I could have asked [more] for help and completed the Tracker task in lesser time.

Which tips would you give to future students?

• Ask for help/tips/advice. I’ve lost a lot of time in tasks that my mentor could answer in seconds.
• Attend GUADEC!
• Show your code!

What one thing did the GNOME community do that you consider very helpful for your project and would suggest they continue to do?

Incentivate interns to attend GUADEC. It is an environment of creativity and innovation which certainly will inspire students to get involved even more with the community.

Removable-devices support in Documents

The original proposal was: “To make GNOME Documents able to manage and view files on plugged in removable devices. Including extending Tracker to provide the APIs we need to implement the feature.”

What has been achieved?

Tracker:

The ‘IndexFileForProcess‘ API method has been created. It lets client-applications call Tracker to index files/directories/mount-points transparently on an application basis (you can read more about it in my last report). This mechanism works nicely for what we want in Documents.

Documents:

Documents is able to recognize a plugged-in removable device, create a ‘virtual’ collection containing all the documents inside the device.

What was left behind?

• Users should be able to Import files from removable devices to the local disk.
• An already imported document shouldn’t be imported again.

Software is never done! So I’m committing myself to getting these things [gnome] done.

What’s next?

In addition to finish what’s left in my task, I want to apply for a GNOME Foundation membership, and keep contributing to GNOME.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank the GNOME community for helping students get involved with free software development, Google for giving me the opportunity of work with GNOME, Cosimo Cecchi for guiding me in my project, and you for reading this long report.

Cheers!
Felipe.

Felipe Borges: #GSoC Report V

Hey, this is not my GSoC final report.

I didn’t expect to be still talking about my work on Tracker at this time, but Martyn Russel has made some nice suggestions of modifications to my code on his review of my patch. The ‘IndexMount’ DBus method has been exchanged for an ‘IndexFileForProcess’ DBus method. It’s a more generic mechanism which allows Tracker to index files on a client-application basis.

It works almost equally to the old ‘IndexMount’. Receives a request-to-index a file/directory/mount-point and watches the bus name of the calling application. It stops the indexing process when no bus names are associated to the file.

I am not that late, I am also working in Documents. Currently Documents loads plugged-in removable devices, uses the Tracker mechanism I’ve described in the previous paragraph to index them, and creates a Device Collection into the overview containing documents inside the device.

I am preparing a preview for my GSoC Final Report (that I will post tomorrow).

See you!