Hello to everyone.

So this is the final report on the work I completed throughout the Google Summer of Code contribution period (May-September). There's a lot to share and discuss, but I'll try to keep this brief.

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Mentors:

Sonny Piers and Andy Holmes

Project:

Make GNOME Platform demos for Workbench

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About Workbench:

Workbench lets you experiment with GNOME technologies, no matter if tinkering for the first time or building and testing a GTK user interface.

Among other things, Workbench comes with

• Live GTK/CSS preview

• Library of 100+ examples

• JavaScript, Rust and Vala support

• Declarative user interface syntax

• Autosave, sessions and projects

• Code linter and formatter

• Offline documentation

• Terminal output

• 1000+ icons

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Tasks performed:

✅ Created beginner-friendly and easy-to-understand examples/demos for all widgets of GTK 4.10 and Libadwaita 1.3 to help newcomers understand how to use them effectively.

✅ Provided ready-to-use code snippets of the widgets/APIs covered, making it easier for developers to integrate them into their projects.

✅ Covered GLib/GIO and Libportal APIs and create relevant examples to help developers understand how to use them in their applications

✅ Created demos while taking UI and UX design concepts into account to showcase how to make aesthetically pleasing and functional user interfaces.

✅ Covered GNOME HIG Patterns to ensure that the examples and demos follow the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines, making them consistent with other GNOME applications and user-friendly for users

✅ Implemented Search function in Workbench

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Further Tasks to be performed:

• Port and integrate the existing implemented search function from a demo as a feature into Workbench.

• Adding new demos with the forthcoming GTK and Adwaita releases.

• Update existing demos as GJS, GIO, and GLib versions are updated and new features are added.

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My Contributions:

I was amazed and thrilled to learn that I had written about 3800 lines of code in the previous few months. I have contributed the following:

• Gtk.Switch

• Gtk.Spinner

• Gtk.Button

• Gtk.Scale

• Gtk.Calendar

• Gtk.ProgressBar

• Gtk.ToggleButton

• Portal.Screenshot

• Gtk.FontDialog

• Adw.AboutWindow

• Gtk.TextView

• Portal.ColorPicker

• Portal.Email

• Portal.Wallpaper

• Portal.Account

• Gtk.Frame

• Gtk.ListModel

• Gtk.ActionBar

• Portal.Location

• Gtk.ListView

• Gtk.Separator

• Gtk.ColumnView

• Gtk.FileLauncher

• Gtk.UriLauncher

• Adw.Clamp

• Adw.NavigationView

• Adw.ToolbarView

• Gtk.FileDialog

• Adw.MessageDialog.choose()

• Gio.FileMonitor

• Documentation(GTKCssLanguageServer)

CodeFind Feature:

Apart from the demo coverage I also implemented a codefind feature as a library entry in the workbench.

• Implemented a code-search feature similar to GNOME Text Editor

• Highlights matched search results

• Supports both case and non-case-sensitive search

• Implemented move to next search and move to previous search functions

• Keybindings for ease of access

Currently, this feature is implemented as a library entry in Workbench, which is further planned to be integrated shortly.

Going Beyond:

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute to GJS (GNOME Javascript) because we completed what we had planned a week or two before the last week of the coding period, and my mentor allowed me to concentrate on something apart from the project.

• Made console.log format GError correctly

  Before:

    gjs> try {imports.gi.Gio.File.new_for_path('/foo').load_contents(null) } catch (err) { console.error(err) }
    (gjs:68852): Gjs-Console-CRITICAL **: 21:22:41.833: {
        "stack": "@typein:7:47\n@<stdin>:1:42\n",
        "fileName": "typein",
        "lineNumber": 7,
        "columnNumber": 47
    }
  

  After:

    gjs> try {imports.gi.Gio.File.new_for_path('/foo').load_contents(null) } catch (err) { console.error(err) }
    (gjs:68852): Gjs-Console-CRITICAL **: 21:22:41.833: Gio.IOErrorEnum: Error opening file /foo: No such file or directory
    @typein:9:47
    @<stdin>:1:42
  

• Improved console.log output

  Before:

    gjs> console.log(new TextDecoder())
    Gjs-Console-Message: 21:38:35.467: {
        "encoding": "utf-8",
        "ignoreBOM": false,
        "fatal": false
    }
  

  After:

    gjs> console.log(new TextDecoder())
    Gjs-Console-Message: 21:38:35.467: TextDecoder {
        "encoding": "utf-8",
        "ignoreBOM": false,
        "fatal": false
    }
  

More information about this issue can be found here

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Post GSoC plans:

• Dive deeper into GNOME technologies and contribute more, particularly in GJS (GNOME Javascript).

• Continuing exploration of other Open-Source Communities.

• Creating more complex projects using what I learned here.

• Engaging with newcomers more regularly to assist them in breaking into open-source software development

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Hardships during GSoC:

• Keeping up with coding and schoolwork (yes, I attended normal, full-time classes for the majority of the coding period)

• Keeping up with the time zone differences (my mentors and I are in completely different time zones)

• Proactively learning and adjusting to new tasks. (Each week, we were given a new topic to demonstrate, ensuring continual and adaptable learning.)

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My learnings:

• Working as a team to resolve issues.

• Communicating with team members ensuring no blockers

• Iterative Development

• Writing clean code

• Remote software development practices

• Documentation and technical writing skills

• Work Discipline

• Personal growth

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Achievement:

I am thrilled to share that Workbench now has over 100+ interactive demos!

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THANK YOU!

GNOME , my mentors Sonny Piers and Andy Holmes, my teammates, and everyone who supported me during this period. This summer has been a roller coaster journey for me, from coding to documentation to an international sponsored trip; it's been a blast. I'm looking forward to contributing more actively and learning to the best of my ability.

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