Google Summer of Code

Welcome to Inkscape!

For quite a few years Inkscape has been successfully participating in Google Summer of Code.

GSoC is a program where Google funds the development of specific features in open source software by university students. You don't need to be a Computer Science student to apply. Features to be developed are picked by Inkscape administrators from the pool of proposals submitted by students.

We've mentored about half a dozen students a year since GSoC started. Many students enjoyed their work and continue to be involved; perhaps your mentor will be a past GSoC student! We have a high rate of acceptance of student code into the core codebase. Indeed, GSoC projects have been a key source of some of Inkscape's best features in the past several releases.

If you are interested in joining us this summer, it is time to get your proposal ready. You can choose a proposal from our list of suggestions or come up with one of your own. In either either case, you must give us a detailed outline of what you plan to do. It is highly recommended that you discuss your idea as early as possible with Inkscape developers. They not only can give you guidance as you flesh out your proposal but ultimately you must convince them that you can do the work planned in the time allotted.

Student Applications

• Google program information:
  • Home page.
  • Summer of Code Application form.

• Inkscape-specific information:
  • SOC Application Template.
  • Inkscape Roadmap - to see our overall objectives.
  • SOC Writing Project Proposals - some guidelines for proposals.
  • SOC Selection Criteria - how we rate applications.

Student Applications for GSoC 2014 must be submitted to the GSoC site by 19:00 UTC on March 21st 2014.

The "two patches" rule

We require two patches from each potential GSoC student, before accepting the student for GSoC participation (it is the same requirement as for obtaining rights to commit changes to the Bazaar code repository). The reason for this requirement is that you can show us that you have succeeded in building Inkscape on your PC, and that you have understood a little piece of Inkscape's code and are able to improve it. Inkscape is a large project, and you really should not try to understand all the code. Many (all?) developers know only parts of the program code! You can join our jabber/IRC channel and ask developers for help.

Suggested "easy" bug fixes or improvements

To get you started on Inkscape development, you can find (probably) easy-to-fix bugs or small improvements that require very little knowledge of the whole program by searching our bug-tracker for bugs tagged with 'easy-fix'.

Performance Evaluation

GSoC has two formal evaluation points, at the mid-term and at the end. These evaluations determine if you receive the stipend from Google. In order to receive a pass for the evaluations you will need to show adequate progress toward your project's goals.

To help you meet your goals and so that your mentor can better evaluate your progress you need to:

• Have frequent, public discussions of your progress. (Don't rely on just your mentor for advice.)
• Have a public Inkscape branch for your code to which you commit regularly.
• Give weekly status reports.

For the final pass, you will normally be required to merge your code into Inkscape trunk.

Remember: we want you to succeed!

Suggested Ideas

Please note that your project proposal must be realistic: if you promise too much, we will most likely think you have not understood at all what it is about and will reject your proposal.

Generic ideas

• Font editing and creation features, e.g. designing SVG fonts using styles
• kidscape - Condensed version of Inkscape aimed at young kids and small form factor devices
• Cutter control - Enable Inkscape's use with vinyl cutters.

Import/export projects

• Importing of 3D scene files in 16 file formats using Open Asset Import Library
• xar-to-svg converter - Converter for Xara Xtreme to Inkscape
• KML SVG translation - For use of Inkscape with Google Earth or Maps

Internal work & performance improvements

• Improve startup time and initialization performance (a.o. improving font cache).
• Continue C++ification (including more use of the gtkmm-framework as well as well as string classes (std::string and glib::ustring) in favor of C-strings).
• Improving 2Geom where necessary (e.g. boolops and python bindings).
• ICC Color Management for cairo outputs - Would allow Inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with Cairo.
• Text layout rewrite: Move flow-text into Inkscape name space. Add support for hyphenation, paragraph indentation, underlining, etc.

Better SVG standard coverage

• Full SVG viewbox support
• Multiple Page support
• Improve SVG compliance. Current status of W3C test suite compliance.
• Implement SVG 2.0 (and related) items such as:
  • Vector Effects (non-destructive boolean-ops would be a good start)
  • Marker color matching stroke
  • Solid-color support (Named colors, would deprecate the single-stop gradient approach we currently use)
  • CSS3 color support
  • CSS3 2d transforms (duplicates current attributes)
  • Stroke position
  • Stroke dash adjustment

Note: Some of the above items are somewhat low hanging fruit and would need a few of them to make a good proposal, others alone are worthy of a full GSoC project.

Improve Inkscape SVG for use on Web

A proposal should fix most if not all of these problems:

• Fix "plain" SVG to not remove <script> section, etc.
• Add option to set viewbox attribute to Document Properties.
• Easily add/edit hyperlinks.
• Better CSS support.
• Option to add title to SVG (searchability and accessibility).
• Remove XML prolog/DOCTYPE.
• Move sodipodi namespace items to Inkscape namespace.

Live Path Effects related

• More Live Path Effects - There is a lengthy list of ideas to choose from here.

Tools and shapes related

• Multi shape editing - ability to edit more than 1 shape (like ellipse or star) at once, with extra features like resizing rectangles by dragging their edges.
• Transformation Anchors
• Further development of Shape Opera, a simple Javascript framework for morphing Inkscape PATH shapes.
• Extend the Symbols dialog to include generic objects.
• Connector tool improvements - Expose new libavoid functionality: orthogonal routing, connector ports, curved connectors. (Mentor: Michael Wybrow)
• Fillet/Chamfer tool
• Move Mesh gradients to Inkscape name space with appropriate editing interface and export fallback. Note, Inkscape trunk has an experimental implementation based on the proposed mesh syntax for SVG 2.

Please do not feel limited to the above ideas - some of our best contributions have been unique ideas that students had in mind from other sources!

For more ideas, please see https://blueprints.launchpad.net/inkscape/

Successful SOC Projects from Previous Years

• 2005
  • Connectors
  • Inkboard
  • Open Clip Art Library (OCAL) Interface
  • DXF Import / Export
• 2006
  • Support for SVG Filters
  • Filter Effects
  • PDF export
  • Inkboard Protocol Spec / Lib Conversion
• 2007
  • Text Style Improvements
  • PDF import
  • Live Path Effects
  • 3D Box Tool
  • UI for SVG Filter Effects
  • Raster Functionality
  • Importing from, and Exporting to, a remote ccHost instance
• 2008
  • SVG Fonts support
  • 2Geom refactoring project - port most geometry code to 2Geom
  • lib2geom: interactive applications showing off the power of lib2geom
  • Tech drawing abilities
  • A test suite
• 2009
  • Node tool rewrite
  • D-Bus scripting API
  • Connector tool improvements
  • ICC/CMYK workflow
• 2010
  • Cairo-based rendering
  • C++ification of SP Layer
• 2011
  • Rendering caching
  • Javascript support improvements
  • CSS support improvements
• 2012
  • Usibility Improvements for Guides
  • On-canvas support for Tessellations
  • Creating python bindings for lib2geom
• 2013
  • Recolor Tool
  • Improved Units Support
  • Electronics CAD Support
  • New From Templates Dialog
  • New Raster to Vector Algorithm