Heyyy! My name is Calisto Mathias. I’m a First Year Undergraduate student pursuing my Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) in Information Technology from The National Institute of Technology, Surathkal. In this post, I’d like to discuss about my GSoC proposal idea for the year 2024, take in suggestions on what I could do better, and get to know the community better Open Source contribution has always blown me away but I’m passionate about it and would really like to contribute into something that I could make a difference - in this case - that’s Haiku I can’t wait to hear back from all of the community. I have been active for some time now on the IRC channel as well so I would love to get to know and communicate more through that medium as well. Btw, it’s my first time doing Open Source too
The Tracker Query window is like a door to Haiku’s power, but right now, its look and feel in the Find Window are a bit confusing. It’s not so easy to use, especially with all the going back and forth to make searches better. This might discourage people who aren’t tech-savvy. My main plan for GSoC 2024 is to make the Tracker Query window more user-friendly. That’s the core of my GSoC 2024 proposal!
In the past, there have been many attempts and ideas that have been raised but never really looked into. Two of the most significant ones form a very solid foundational base for a reworking of the window itself. I’m thinking of taking on this challenge as part of my project while also fixing along new bugs that pop up along the way as well as ones that already exist in the application. Some of the changes that I propose are (with reference to Humdinger’s previous ideas) :
- Reworking the UI to allow for a favorites menu bar where users can have a few templates stored. Clicking on these would load up the template immediately and reduce their work in filling up the fields and drop-down menus.
- Creating and showing live query results on the Tracker’s Find Window. This would allow users to see their queries as they are being typed in for a more easy-to-use application.
- Associating search fields with their attribute columns in the results view so that users (who are majorly visually directed) can easily understand how and what their query is doing exactly. This would drastically increase the usability of the application as well as reduce the amount of time spent by users on drafting their queries
- Allowing users to save certain specific query templates for easy access in the future without have to refill details repetitively.
- Fixing Bugs and adding small other features in the Tracker Application as a whole, wherever possible
Tickets of Reference
Through my GSoC project, I aim to fix the following two tickets by combining the best features out of both of them and bring forward the best enhancement to the application as possible. You can take a look at them for reference as well, though, I have pasted the UI Mockup created by Humdinger. I plan to make changes to this to make the user interface look more even but would love to hear suggestions on the same.
Haiku Interface Rework Mock-Up (By Humdinger)
Original Proposed Rework of the Tracker Query Window (By Humdinger)
Would this be a good starting point?