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Personal Details

• Name: Enrico Lamperti
• Ema¡l: Available at my profile
• GTalk: Available on request
• Skype: Available on request

Project Proposal

BuddyPress is a platform for social networks, and therefore it needs social features to be useful. One important way to communicate is by using images. So I would like to create a Photo Gallery plugin for BuddyPress.

The purpose of this plugin will be to provide users a way to share their images using albums, which will be linked and visible from each user’s profile.
Each photo could have a caption and other users’ comments associated.

Groups are extensively used in BuddyPress, and after reading the comments in the BuddyPress Forums where ideas for the GSoC were discussed^[1], I thought it would be helpful to have galleries for groups too.

As a Facebook user, I have noticed that sometimes photos uploaded to a user’s personal gallery are sent to a group too, and hence duplicated. To avoid this misuse, I want each photo to have a list of albums where it appears. For example:
- The user John uploads a photo of his son to a personal album called “Family photos”.
- John joins the group “Proud parents”.
- John wants to add the photo he previously uploaded to “Family photos”, so instead of uploading again the image, he chooses the option “add a photo I have already uploaded” and selects the photo of his son.
Now the photo is linked to the albums “Family photos” from John, and to “Proud parents’ photos”.
If a photo is no longer linked to any album, it is automatically removed.

Two key factors for the success of this plugin will be to have albums that are easy to navigate, and a friendly upload page that allows multiple uploads at once.
To solve the navigation issue, I want to use AJAX to dynamically load the next/previous image of the album and its associated caption and comments.
To allow multiple uploads, we must provide a flash uploader, and as a second choice a simpler HTML upload page for those who have problems with Flash.

Schedule of Deliverables

20^th April to 23^rd May (Community Bonding Period)

• Getting familiar with BuddyPress code and BuddyPress plugins
• Asking the community about the project and what they would like to see implemented in the Photo Galleries plugin

23^rd May to 19^th June

• Working on the basic functions of the gallery: uploading photos (a simple interface), showing albums in users’ profiles, individual photos visible with (at least) its caption

19^th June to 17^th July

• An elemental version of the plugin will be available for testing (so bugs and errors can be solved)
• The upload page will allow multiple uploads
• The individual photos will be navigable using AJAX

17^th July to 7^th August

• Fixing of existing bugs
• Integration of galleries with groups

7^th August to 17^th August

• The plugin will be ready to be tested (and bugs will be fixed)
• The code will be reviewed to add comments where necessary
• Complementary documentation will be written

I will have exams the first days of May (that will not be a problem for the schedule, but probably I will not be so much time online that week), and then exams again in the second half of June (only two subjects I am already familiar with, so I will study a couple of hours every day before those exams — it will not affect the hours applied to this project).

Open Source Development Experience

I do not visit forums frecuently if I am not searching for something. I think a couple of times I tried to help where I was able to do so, but I do not have relevant activity related to Open Source development.
Probably this is not relevant (because it is not so open source related): I participated in a contest made by Mozilla Argentina, making a video to promote Firefox^[2] (and won!).

Work/Internship Experience

I like programming (since I was a kid!). At the age of 16 I made a program for a hidroelectric plant which is still in use. Its main purpose is to monitor and notify about incoming alarms from a remote device and log its events.
Last year they called me again, this time to work with meteorologic information received in a compressed format.
Both programs were interesting experiences for me.

Not so related experiences:

• I taught computer science to high school students of 4th and 5th grade. This was a great experience, I loved it. I could not continue with this because I moved to Buenos Aires to study.
• At an accountant’s office where (besides being the data entry guy) I made a couple of VBA applications to make they work easier.
• With architects, doing a lot of things (from drawing ugly CAD blueprints to amazing 3D models).

Academic Experience

I started college in 2008 (computer engineering). Trough the year I found that computer engineering is not what I want, and I was not motivated by the first year of college, which at my college is a year where we have subjects completely unrelated with the chosen career. So I am now switching to graphics design, because I think I can continue learning by myself computer related topics.

Why WordPress

I use WordPress for my blogs^[3][4], and I feel comfortable with it. I met many cool people in the last WordCamp^[5] at Buenos Aires, and I’m pretty sure the rest of the community is as friendly as them.
I think is time to focus my efforts in giving something back to the community. I like social networks and photography, so coding this project will be a nice experience to start. I want to learn how it is to work in something big like this. And I want to do something that will be useful for a lot of people.

References