This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code prog...
Public Lab is an open community which collaboratively develops accessible, open source, Do-It-Yourself technologies for investigating local environmental health and justice issues.
| 220 CURRENT | warren |
April 05, 2022 16:12
| over 2 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab. Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2022 IdeasNote that these projects could fit in either a smaller or larger project timeline, depending on the applicant's experience, or the depth of detail the applicant wants to go into on each item. We're happy to discuss this with you! Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
Outcomes: Reduction in codebase size and complexity, easier maintainability and higher code quality and consistency. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Refine User Interfaces across PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: As teachers increasingly use PublicLab.org in the classroom, we are looking to improve a collection of User Interface/User eXperience (UI/UX) and related features on the platform. Some are navigational, some are stylistic, and some introduce new interfaces or ways of browsing content. For any project involving a design change, we are interested in seeing mockups/designs first, discussing with community representatives, and then developing code. Projects would include the following: This project will:
Outcomes: An improved, more coherent UI on PublicLab.org for educators in particular. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda MapKnitter LocalPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/, https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org is a complex and powerful system which lets you upload your own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. We are looking for ways this could be done without depending on a server in the long-term, and want to try making use of the latest in JavaScript image processing to prototype full-resolution image processing and download in the browser. This project sets groundwork for working locally/offline or from a static page using just the core browser-based library Leaflet.DistortableImage, then goes on to attempt a completely in-browser map stitching exporting process. This project will:
Stretch goals:
Outcomes: The ability to create and export maps from a static HTML/JS-based page, even offline. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Infragram.org full-screen UI and video upload(There is a matching UI-focused Outreachy project idea below. If a fellow is selected, that will absorb much of the UI design portion of this project but collaboration and coordination will still be required for implementation.) Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram Description: The Infragram project brings together a range of different efforts to make Do-It-Yourself plant health comparisons possible with infrared photography. Infragram.org enables people with Infragram-modified cameras to upload photos for analysis and conversion using techniques like NDVI (used in satellite imaging analysis). It also allows for live streaming from a modified webcam. This project will overhaul the UI of Infragram to be full-screen, accept multiple resolutions of video, output multiple resolutions, and will allow dragging in a recorded video instead of a still image for conversion. This project will:
Outcomes: A better layout and UI for Infragram.org, and ability to use it on uploaded videos. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h, or 175h if focus is on non-UI portions only Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Outreachy projects:Outreachy: Infragram.org full-screen UI designThis project is reserved for Outreachy applicants. There is a matching project for GSoC applicants above. Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram Description: The Infragram project brings together a range of different efforts to make Do-It-Yourself plant health comparisons possible with infrared photography. Infragram.org enables people with Infragram-modified cameras to upload photos for analysis and conversion using techniques like NDVI (used in satellite imaging analysis). It also allows for live streaming from a modified webcam. This project will overhaul the UI of Infragram to be full-screen and create space for new features like multiple resolutions of video, dragging in a recorded video instead of a still image for conversion, and pop up panels with Q&A, tips, tutorials, and more, so that they can feature more helpful guidance text. This project will:
Outcomes: A better layout and full-screen UI for Infragram.org. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Outreachy: MapKnitter.org Spam Management systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, but MapKnitter.org has persistent spam, even though users rely on PublicLab.org to log in. We have a range of ideas to improve the situation, ranging from integrating MapKnitter.org with PublicLab’s spam management system, creating a unified visual style between the systems, implementing user status restrictions for moderated users and maps, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2021 IdeasAn in-depth discussion of these ideas has been posted at https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/9257; please feel free to ask questions or offer ideas there! Education-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 219 | warren |
February 25, 2022 17:47
| almost 3 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2022 IdeasNote that these projects could fit in either a smaller or larger project timeline, depending on the applicant's experience, or the depth of detail the applicant wants to go into on each item. We're happy to discuss this with you! Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
Outcomes: Reduction in codebase size and complexity, easier maintainability and higher code quality and consistency. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Refine User Interfaces across PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: As teachers increasingly use PublicLab.org in the classroom, we are looking to improve a collection of User Interface/User eXperience (UI/UX) and related features on the platform. Some are navigational, some are stylistic, and some introduce new interfaces or ways of browsing content. For any project involving a design change, we are interested in seeing mockups/designs first, discussing with community representatives, and then developing code. Projects would include the following: This project will:
Outcomes: An improved, more coherent UI on PublicLab.org for educators in particular. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda MapKnitter LocalPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/, https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org is a complex and powerful system which lets you upload your own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. We are looking for ways this could be done without depending on a server in the long-term, and want to try making use of the latest in JavaScript image processing to prototype full-resolution image processing and download in the browser. This project sets groundwork for working locally/offline or from a static page using just the core browser-based library Leaflet.DistortableImage, then goes on to attempt a completely in-browser map stitching exporting process. This project will:
Stretch goals:
Outcomes: The ability to create and export maps from a static HTML/JS-based page, even offline. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Infragram.org full-screen UI and video upload(There is a matching UI-focused Outreachy project idea below. If a fellow is selected, that will absorb much of the UI design portion of this project but collaboration and coordination will still be required for implementation.) Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram Description: The Infragram project brings together a range of different efforts to make Do-It-Yourself plant health comparisons possible with infrared photography. Infragram.org enables people with Infragram-modified cameras to upload photos for analysis and conversion using techniques like NDVI (used in satellite imaging analysis). It also allows for live streaming from a modified webcam. This project will overhaul the UI of Infragram to be full-screen, accept multiple resolutions of video, output multiple resolutions, and will allow dragging in a recorded video instead of a still image for conversion. This project will:
Outcomes: A better layout and UI for Infragram.org, and ability to use it on uploaded videos. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h, or 175h if focus is on non-UI portions only Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Outreachy projects:Outreachy: Infragram.org full-screen UI designThis project is reserved for Outreachy applicants. There is a matching project for GSoC applicants above. Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram Description: The Infragram project brings together a range of different efforts to make Do-It-Yourself plant health comparisons possible with infrared photography. Infragram.org enables people with Infragram-modified cameras to upload photos for analysis and conversion using techniques like NDVI (used in satellite imaging analysis). It also allows for live streaming from a modified webcam. This project will overhaul the UI of Infragram to be full-screen and create space for new features like multiple resolutions of video, dragging in a recorded video instead of a still image for conversion, and pop up panels with Q&A, tips, tutorials, and more, so that they can feature more helpful guidance text. This project will:
Outcomes: A better layout and full-screen UI for Infragram.org. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Outreachy: MapKnitter.org Spam Management systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, but MapKnitter.org has persistent spam, even though users rely on PublicLab.org to log in. We have a range of ideas to improve the situation, ranging from integrating MapKnitter.org with PublicLab’s spam management system, creating a unified visual style between the systems, implementing user status restrictions for moderated users and maps, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2021 IdeasAn in-depth discussion of these ideas has been posted at https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/9257; please feel free to ask questions or offer ideas there! Education-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 218 | warren |
February 25, 2022 17:22
| almost 3 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2022 IdeasNote that these projects could fit in either a smaller or larger project timeline, depending on the applicant's experience, or the depth of detail the applicant wants to go into on each item. We're happy to discuss this with you! Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
Outcomes: Reduction in codebase size and complexity, easier maintainability and higher code quality and consistency. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Refine User Interfaces across PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: As teachers increasingly use PublicLab.org in the classroom, we are looking to improve a collection of User Interface/User eXperience (UI/UX) and related features on the platform. Some are navigational, some are stylistic, and some introduce new interfaces or ways of browsing content. For any project involving a design change, we are interested in seeing mockups/designs first, discussing with community representatives, and then developing code. Projects would include the following: This project will:
Outcomes: An improved, more coherent UI on PublicLab.org for educators in particular. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda MapKnitter LocalPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/, https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org is a complex and powerful system which lets you upload your own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. We are looking for ways this could be done without depending on a server in the long-term, and want to try making use of the latest in JavaScript image processing to prototype full-resolution image processing and download in the browser. This project sets groundwork for working locally/offline or from a static page using just the core browser-based library Leaflet.DistortableImage, then goes on to attempt a completely in-browser map stitching exporting process. This project will:
Stretch goals:
Outcomes: The ability to create and export maps from a static HTML/JS-based page, even offline. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Infragram.org full-screen UI and video upload(There is a matching UI-focused Outreachy project idea below. If a fellow is selected, that will absorb much of the UI design portion of this project but collaboration and coordination will still be required for implementation.) Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram Description: The Infragram project brings together a range of different efforts to make Do-It-Yourself plant health comparisons possible with infrared photography. Infragram.org enables people with Infragram-modified cameras to upload photos for analysis and conversion using techniques like NDVI (used in satellite imaging analysis). It also allows for live streaming from a modified webcam. This project will overhaul the UI of Infragram to be full-screen, accept multiple resolutions of video, output multiple resolutions, and will allow dragging in a recorded video instead of a still image for conversion. This project will:
Outcomes: A better layout and UI for Infragram.org, and ability to use it on uploaded videos. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h, or 175h if focus is on non-UI portions only Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Outreachy projects:Outreachy: Infragram.org full-screen UI designThis project is reserved for Outreachy applicants. There is a matching project for GSoC applicants above. Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram Description: The Infragram project brings together a range of different efforts to make Do-It-Yourself plant health comparisons possible with infrared photography. Infragram.org enables people with Infragram-modified cameras to upload photos for analysis and conversion using techniques like NDVI (used in satellite imaging analysis). It also allows for live streaming from a modified webcam. This project will overhaul the UI of Infragram to be full-screen and create space for new features like multiple resolutions of video, dragging in a recorded video instead of a still image for conversion, and pop up panels with Q&A, tips, tutorials, and more, so that they can feature more helpful guidance text. This project will:
Outcomes: A better layout and full-screen UI for Infragram.org. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Outreachy: MapKnitter.org Spam Management systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, but MapKnitter.org has persistent spam, even though users rely on PublicLab.org to log in. We have a range of ideas to improve the situation, ranging from integrating MapKnitter.org with PublicLab’s spam management system, creating a unified visual style between the systems, implementing user status restrictions for moderated users and maps, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2021 IdeasAn in-depth discussion of these ideas has been posted at https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/9257; please feel free to ask questions or offer ideas there! Education-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 217 | warren |
February 25, 2022 17:21
| almost 3 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2022 IdeasNote that these projects could fit in either a smaller or larger project timeline, depending on the applicant's experience, or the depth of detail the applicant wants to go into on each item. We're happy to discuss this with you! Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
Outcomes: Reduction in codebase size and complexity, easier maintainability and higher code quality and consistency. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Refine User Interfaces across PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: As teachers increasingly use PublicLab.org in the classroom, we are looking to improve a collection of User Interface/User eXperience (UI/UX) and related features on the platform. Some are navigational, some are stylistic, and some introduce new interfaces or ways of browsing content. For any project involving a design change, we are interested in seeing mockups/designs first, discussing with community representatives, and then developing code. Projects would include the following: This project will:
Outcomes: An improved, more coherent UI on PublicLab.org for educators in particular. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda MapKnitter LocalPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/, https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org is a complex and powerful system which lets you upload your own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. We are looking for ways this could be done without depending on a server in the long-term, and want to try making use of the latest in JavaScript image processing to prototype full-resolution image processing and download in the browser. This project sets groundwork for working locally/offline or from a static page using just the core browser-based library Leaflet.DistortableImage, then goes on to attempt a completely in-browser map stitching exporting process. This project will:
Stretch goals:
Outcomes: The ability to create and export maps from a static HTML/JS-based page, even offline. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Infragram.org full-screen UI and video upload(There is a matching UI-focused Outreachy project idea below. If a fellow is selected, that will absorb much of the UI design portion of this project but collaboration and coordination will still be required for implementation.) Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram Description: The Infragram project brings together a range of different efforts to make Do-It-Yourself plant health comparisons possible with infrared photography. Infragram.org enables people with Infragram-modified cameras to upload photos for analysis and conversion using techniques like NDVI (used in satellite imaging analysis). It also allows for live streaming from a modified webcam. This project will overhaul the UI of Infragram to be full-screen, accept multiple resolutions of video, output multiple resolutions, and will allow dragging in a recorded video instead of a still image for conversion. This project will: * Allow cross-browser drag-and-drop on the entire page instead of just selecting an image * Design a new interface (using Bootstrap 4; current version is Bootstrap 3) for Infragram.org which is full screen with a toolbar, solicit and incorporate input from user community * Move Q&A feature into a Help menu * Add a popup “Welcome” modal box which guides your first few steps based on tutorial at https://publiclab.org/n/15075 and more at https://publiclab.org/infragram#Activities * Integrate new cross-platform WebRTC video library for Safari iOS support: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram/issues/39 * accept multiple resolutions of video * Allow drag and drop of a video, which will play on loop and have controls to scroll through, pause, etc. Note that this won’t actually upload the video but will process it locally. * Allow conversion of the whole video (this will be difficult) by recording from the canvas (see https://webrtc.github.io/samples/src/content/capture/canvas-record/ and https://medium.com/@amatewasu/how-to-record-a-canvas-element-d4d0826d3591) * allow selecting multiple output resolutions as well * Write UI tests for new Infragram UI, using Jest (https://jestjs.io/) * Stretch goal: allow zooming/panning of video within canvas * Stretch goal: allow selecting an area of the screen and calculating an average color value (or average NDVI value from the scale) * Stretch goal: expand the colorize menu to describe each colormap and offer thumbnails (could use https://sequencer.publiclab.org to achieve this) Outcomes: A better layout and UI for Infragram.org, and ability to use it on uploaded videos. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h, or 175h if focus is on non-UI portions only Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Outreachy projects:Outreachy: Infragram.org full-screen UI designThis project is reserved for Outreachy applicants. There is a matching project for GSoC applicants above. Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram Description: The Infragram project brings together a range of different efforts to make Do-It-Yourself plant health comparisons possible with infrared photography. Infragram.org enables people with Infragram-modified cameras to upload photos for analysis and conversion using techniques like NDVI (used in satellite imaging analysis). It also allows for live streaming from a modified webcam. This project will overhaul the UI of Infragram to be full-screen and create space for new features like multiple resolutions of video, dragging in a recorded video instead of a still image for conversion, and pop up panels with Q&A, tips, tutorials, and more, so that they can feature more helpful guidance text. This project will:
Outcomes: A better layout and full-screen UI for Infragram.org. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Outreachy: MapKnitter.org Spam Management systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, but MapKnitter.org has persistent spam, even though users rely on PublicLab.org to log in. We have a range of ideas to improve the situation, ranging from integrating MapKnitter.org with PublicLab’s spam management system, creating a unified visual style between the systems, implementing user status restrictions for moderated users and maps, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2021 IdeasAn in-depth discussion of these ideas has been posted at https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/9257; please feel free to ask questions or offer ideas there! Education-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 216 | warren |
February 25, 2022 17:12
| almost 3 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2022 IdeasNote that these projects could fit in either a smaller or larger project timeline, depending on the applicant's experience, or the depth of detail the applicant wants to go into on each item. We're happy to discuss this with you! Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
Outcomes: Reduction in codebase size and complexity, easier maintainability and higher code quality and consistency. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Refine User Interfaces across PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: As teachers increasingly use PublicLab.org in the classroom, we are looking to improve a collection of User Interface/User eXperience (UI/UX) and related features on the platform. Some are navigational, some are stylistic, and some introduce new interfaces or ways of browsing content. For any project involving a design change, we are interested in seeing mockups/designs first, discussing with community representatives, and then developing code. Projects would include the following: This project will:
Outcomes: An improved, more coherent UI on PublicLab.org for educators in particular. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda MapKnitter LocalPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/, https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org is a complex and powerful system which lets you upload your own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. We are looking for ways this could be done without depending on a server in the long-term, and want to try making use of the latest in JavaScript image processing to prototype full-resolution image processing and download in the browser. This project sets groundwork for working locally/offline or from a static page using just the core browser-based library Leaflet.DistortableImage, then goes on to attempt a completely in-browser map stitching exporting process. This project will:
Stretch goals:
Outcomes: The ability to create and export maps from a static HTML/JS-based page, even offline. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Infragram.org full-screen UI and video upload(There is a matching UI-focused Outreachy project idea below. If a fellow is selected, that will absorb much of the UI design portion of this project but collaboration and coordination will still be required for implementation.) Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram Description: The Infragram project brings together a range of different efforts to make Do-It-Yourself plant health comparisons possible with infrared photography. Infragram.org enables people with Infragram-modified cameras to upload photos for analysis and conversion using techniques like NDVI (used in satellite imaging analysis). It also allows for live streaming from a modified webcam. This project will overhaul the UI of Infragram to be full-screen, accept multiple resolutions of video, output multiple resolutions, and will allow dragging in a recorded video instead of a still image for conversion. This project will: * Allow cross-browser drag-and-drop on the entire page instead of just selecting an image * Design a new interface for Infragram.org which is full screen with a toolbar, solicit and incorporate input from user community * Move Q&A feature into a Help menu * Add a popup “Welcome” modal box which guides your first few steps based on tutorial at https://publiclab.org/n/15075 and more at https://publiclab.org/infragram#Activities * Integrate new cross-platform WebRTC video library for Safari iOS support: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram/issues/39 * accept multiple resolutions of video * Allow drag and drop of a video, which will play on loop and have controls to scroll through, pause, etc. Note that this won’t actually upload the video but will process it locally. * Allow conversion of the whole video (this will be difficult) by recording from the canvas (see https://webrtc.github.io/samples/src/content/capture/canvas-record/ and https://medium.com/@amatewasu/how-to-record-a-canvas-element-d4d0826d3591) * allow selecting multiple output resolutions as well * Write UI tests for new Infragram UI, using Jest (https://jestjs.io/) * Stretch goal: allow zooming/panning of video within canvas * Stretch goal: allow selecting an area of the screen and calculating an average color value (or average NDVI value from the scale) * Stretch goal: expand the colorize menu to describe each colormap and offer thumbnails (could use https://sequencer.publiclab.org to achieve this) Outcomes: A better layout and UI for Infragram.org, and ability to use it on uploaded videos. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h, or 175h if focus is on non-UI portions only Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Outreachy projects:Outreachy: Infragram.org full-screen UI designThis project is reserved for Outreachy applicants. There is a matching project for GSoC applicants above. Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram Description: The Infragram project brings together a range of different efforts to make Do-It-Yourself plant health comparisons possible with infrared photography. Infragram.org enables people with Infragram-modified cameras to upload photos for analysis and conversion using techniques like NDVI (used in satellite imaging analysis). It also allows for live streaming from a modified webcam. This project will overhaul the UI of Infragram to be full-screen and create space for new features like multiple resolutions of video, dragging in a recorded video instead of a still image for conversion, and pop up panels with Q&A, tips, tutorials, and more, so that they can feature more helpful guidance text. This project will:
Outcomes: A better layout and full-screen UI for Infragram.org. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Outreachy: MapKnitter.org Spam Management systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, but MapKnitter.org has persistent spam, even though users rely on PublicLab.org to log in. We have a range of ideas to improve the situation, ranging from integrating MapKnitter.org with PublicLab’s spam management system, creating a unified visual style between the systems, implementing user status restrictions for moderated users and maps, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2021 IdeasAn in-depth discussion of these ideas has been posted at https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/9257; please feel free to ask questions or offer ideas there! Education-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 215 | warren |
February 25, 2022 16:58
| almost 3 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2022 IdeasNote that these projects could fit in either a smaller or larger project timeline, depending on the applicant's experience, or the depth of detail the applicant wants to go into on each item. We're happy to discuss this with you! Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
Outcomes: Reduction in codebase size and complexity, easier maintainability and higher code quality and consistency. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Refine User Interfaces across PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: As teachers increasingly use PublicLab.org in the classroom, we are looking to improve a collection of User Interface/User eXperience (UI/UX) and related features on the platform. Some are navigational, some are stylistic, and some introduce new interfaces or ways of browsing content. For any project involving a design change, we are interested in seeing mockups/designs first, discussing with community representatives, and then developing code. Projects would include the following: This project will:
Outcomes: An improved, more coherent UI on PublicLab.org for educators in particular. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda MapKnitter LocalPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/, https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org is a complex and powerful system which lets you upload your own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. We are looking for ways this could be done without depending on a server in the long-term, and want to try making use of the latest in JavaScript image processing to prototype full-resolution image processing and download in the browser. This project sets groundwork for working locally/offline or from a static page using just the core browser-based library Leaflet.DistortableImage, then goes on to attempt a completely in-browser map stitching exporting process. This project will:
Stretch goals:
Outcomes: The ability to create and export maps from a static HTML/JS-based page, even offline. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Infragram.org full-screen UI and video upload(There is a matching UI-focused Outreachy project idea below. If a fellow is selected, that will absorb much of the UI design portion of this project but collaboration and coordination will still be required for implementation.) Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram Description: The Infragram project brings together a range of different efforts to make Do-It-Yourself plant health comparisons possible with infrared photography. Infragram.org enables people with Infragram-modified cameras to upload photos for analysis and conversion using techniques like NDVI (used in satellite imaging analysis). It also allows for live streaming from a modified webcam. This project will overhaul the UI of Infragram to be full-screen, accept multiple resolutions of video, output multiple resolutions, and will allow dragging in a recorded video instead of a still image for conversion. This project will: * Allow cross-browser drag-and-drop on the entire page instead of just selecting an image * Design a new interface for Infragram.org which is full screen with a toolbar, solicit and incorporate input from user community * Move Q&A feature into a Help menu * Add a popup “Welcome” modal box which guides your first few steps based on tutorial at https://publiclab.org/n/15075 and more at https://publiclab.org/infragram#Activities * Allow drag and drop of a video, which will play on loop and have controls to scroll through, pause, etc. Note that this won’t actually upload the video but will process it locally. * Allow conversion of the whole video (this will be difficult) by recording from the canvas (see https://webrtc.github.io/samples/src/content/capture/canvas-record/ and https://medium.com/@amatewasu/how-to-record-a-canvas-element-d4d0826d3591) * Write UI tests for new Infragram UI, using Jest (https://jestjs.io/) * Stretch goal: allow zooming/panning of video within canvas * Stretch goal: allow selecting an area of the screen and calculating an average color value (or average NDVI value from the scale) * Stretch goal: expand the colorize menu to describe each colormap and offer thumbnails (could use https://sequencer.publiclab.org to achieve this) Outcomes: A better layout and UI for Infragram.org, and ability to use it on uploaded videos. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h, or 175h if focus is on non-UI portions only Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Outreachy projects:Outreachy: Infragram.org full-screen UI designThis project is reserved for Outreachy applicants. There is a matching project for GSoC applicants above. Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/infragram Description: The Infragram project brings together a range of different efforts to make Do-It-Yourself plant health comparisons possible with infrared photography. Infragram.org enables people with Infragram-modified cameras to upload photos for analysis and conversion using techniques like NDVI (used in satellite imaging analysis). It also allows for live streaming from a modified webcam. This project will overhaul the UI of Infragram to be full-screen and create space for new features like multiple resolutions of video, dragging in a recorded video instead of a still image for conversion, and pop up panels with Q&A, tips, tutorials, and more, so that they can feature more helpful guidance text. This project will:
Outcomes: A better layout and full-screen UI for Infragram.org. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda Outreachy: MapKnitter.org Spam Management systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, but MapKnitter.org has persistent spam, even though users rely on PublicLab.org to log in. We have a range of ideas to improve the situation, ranging from integrating MapKnitter.org with PublicLab’s spam management system, creating a unified visual style between the systems, implementing user status restrictions for moderated users and maps, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2021 IdeasAn in-depth discussion of these ideas has been posted at https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/9257; please feel free to ask questions or offer ideas there! Education-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 214 | warren |
February 25, 2022 16:28
| almost 3 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2022 IdeasNote that these projects could fit in either a smaller or larger project timeline, depending on the applicant's experience, or the depth of detail the applicant wants to go into on each item. We're happy to discuss this with you! Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
Outcomes: Reduction in codebase size and complexity, easier maintainability and higher code quality and consistency. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Refine User Interfaces across PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: As teachers increasingly use PublicLab.org in the classroom, we are looking to improve a collection of User Interface/User eXperience (UI/UX) and related features on the platform. Some are navigational, some are stylistic, and some introduce new interfaces or ways of browsing content. For any project involving a design change, we are interested in seeing mockups/designs first, discussing with community representatives, and then developing code. Projects would include the following: This project will:
Outcomes: An improved, more coherent UI on PublicLab.org for educators in particular. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda MapKnitter LocalPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/, https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org is a complex and powerful system which lets you upload your own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. We are looking for ways this could be done without depending on a server in the long-term, and want to try making use of the latest in JavaScript image processing to prototype full-resolution image processing and download in the browser. This project sets groundwork for working locally/offline or from a static page using just the core browser-based library Leaflet.DistortableImage, then goes on to attempt a completely in-browser map stitching exporting process. This project will:
Stretch goals:
Outcomes: The ability to create and export maps from a static HTML/JS-based page, even offline. List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Project size: 350h OR could be split into 2 175h projects Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren (jywarren), Cess, Tilda 2021 IdeasAn in-depth discussion of these ideas has been posted at https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/9257; please feel free to ask questions or offer ideas there! Education-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 213 | warren |
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| almost 3 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2022 IdeasNote that these projects could fit in either a smaller or larger project timeline, depending on the applicant's experience, or the depth of detail the applicant wants to go into on each item. We're happy to discuss this with you! Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Refine User Interfaces across PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: As teachers increasingly use PublicLab.org in the classroom, we are looking to improve a collection of User Interface/User eXperience (UI/UX) and related features on the platform. Some are navigational, some are stylistic, and some introduce new interfaces or ways of browsing content. For any project involving a design change, we are interested in seeing mockups/designs first, discussing with community representatives, and then developing code. Projects would include the following: This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, Tilda MapKnitter LocalPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/, https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org is a complex and powerful system which lets you upload your own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. We are looking for ways this could be done without depending on a server in the long-term, and want to try making use of the latest in JavaScript image processing to prototype full-resolution image processing and download in the browser. This project sets groundwork for working locally/offline or from a static page using just the core browser-based library Leaflet.DistortableImage, then goes on to attempt a completely in-browser map stitching exporting process. This project will:
Stretch goals:
List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, Tilda 2021 IdeasAn in-depth discussion of these ideas has been posted at https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/9257; please feel free to ask questions or offer ideas there! Education-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 212 | warren |
February 15, 2022 23:05
| almost 3 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2022 IdeasLegacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Refine User Interfaces across PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: As teachers increasingly use PublicLab.org in the classroom, we are looking to improve a collection of User Interface/User eXperience (UI/UX) and related features on the platform. Some are navigational, some are stylistic, and some introduce new interfaces or ways of browsing content. For any project involving a design change, we are interested in seeing mockups/designs first, discussing with community representatives, and then developing code. Projects would include the following: This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, Tilda MapKnitter LocalPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/, https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org is a complex and powerful system which lets you upload your own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. We are looking for ways this could be done without depending on a server in the long-term, and want to try making use of the latest in JavaScript image processing to prototype full-resolution image processing and download in the browser. This project sets groundwork for working locally/offline or from a static page using just the core browser-based library Leaflet.DistortableImage, then goes on to attempt a completely in-browser map stitching exporting process. This project will:
Stretch goals:
List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, Tilda 2021 IdeasAn in-depth discussion of these ideas has been posted at https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/9257; please feel free to ask questions or offer ideas there! Education-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 211 | warren |
February 15, 2022 23:04
| almost 3 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2022 IdeasLegacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Refine User Interfaces across PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: As teachers increasingly use PublicLab.org in the classroom, we are looking to improve a collection of User Interface/User eXperience (UI/UX) and related features on the platform. Some are navigational, some are stylistic, and some introduce new interfaces or ways of browsing content. For any project involving a design change, we are interested in seeing mockups/designs first, discussing with community representatives, and then developing code. Projects would include the following: This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, Tilda MapKnitter LocalPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/, https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org is a complex and powerful system which lets you upload your own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. We are looking for ways this could be done without depending on a server in the long-term, and want to try making use of the latest in JavaScript image processing to prototype full-resolution image processing and download in the browser. This project sets groundwork for working locally/offline or from a static page using just the core browser-based library Leaflet.DistortableImage, then goes on to attempt a completely in-browser map stitching exporting process. This project will:
- Add a geocoding search box to the demo so upon creating a map users can navigate to a specific place
- Add a “drag image onto page to add” feature to the Leaflet.DistortableImage demo so people can import multiple images into maps in the demo at https://publiclab.github.io/Leaflet.DistortableImage/examples/export.html Stretch goals:
List/chat: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, Tilda 2021 IdeasAn in-depth discussion of these ideas has been posted at https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/9257; please feel free to ask questions or offer ideas there! Education-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 210 | warren |
March 02, 2021 21:50
| almost 4 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2021 IdeasAn in-depth discussion of these ideas has been posted at https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/9257; please feel free to ask questions or offer ideas there! Education-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
Revert | |
| 209 | warren |
February 28, 2021 21:35
| almost 4 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2021 IdeasEducation-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 208 | liz |
February 23, 2021 19:27
| almost 4 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2021 IdeasEducation-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 207 | warren |
February 17, 2021 22:29
| almost 4 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2021 IdeasEducation-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 206 | warren |
February 17, 2021 22:28
| almost 4 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2021 IdeasEducation-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE spectral-workbench.js JS/Rails integrationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: Our newly revamped and tested library at spectral-workbench.js was designed to work both on its own (https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js/) or as a JavaScript component in a larger system, the spectralworkbench.org Rails application. Work on the standalone library is nearly complete and this project will take on the integration of the newly revamped and re-organized code into the parent Rails application, following a pattern shown at https://github.com/publiclab/inline-markdown-editor for housing a JS project within a Rails project. Parts of this project are already included for displaying saved and graphed data at pages like https://spectralworkbench.org/spectrums/205427, but the new code will replace the live capture interface at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/, and will need to be able to access the following server-side resources and routes:
The current JavaScript code at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture performs all of this, and should be saved at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/legacy, while the new code should be launched first at https://spectralworkbench.org/capture/new and compared for feature parity with the legacy version before any legacy systems are move or modified. The project will also require some Rails full-stack system tests to confirm functionality in the new UI. List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 205 | warren |
February 17, 2021 19:57
| almost 4 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: http://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2021 IdeasEducation-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 204 | warren |
February 17, 2021 19:44
| almost 4 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on our Gitter chatroom: Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2021 IdeasEducation-related usability upgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Due to the growing community of educators using our PublicLab.org content management system, we are hoping to tackle a collection of systems, features, and fixes focused on educational users, and incorporating feedback from our community of educators. These would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Tag/topic system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Our growing community has seen a major reorganization of content and activity around topic areas in the past year or two, and as this featureset has matured, we are looking to refine and improve it based on community input. This project would include the following:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess Wairimu, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Geographic features refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Public Lab community members are increasingly sharing geographic context while sharing on the PL website. We have a robust geographic metadata system and site-wide prompts to add geotags. This project will focus on key optimizations and additions which will smooth and expand geographic features, including:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Node, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Translation system refinementsPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our internationalization (i18n) system exists but lacks a consistent workflow for importing new translations, as well as suffering from some HTML parsing and UI shortcomings. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE Legacy code deprecationPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: (This project may be combined with another small project) Our codebase retains a variety of old database models, code segments, and removing them is a delicate task involving correcting tests, restructuring the database, and more. This project will:
List: https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab, https://gitter.im/publiclab/publiclab Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeffrey Yoo Warren, Cess, ADD YOUR NAME HERE 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
Revert | |
| 203 | bansal_sidharth2996 |
April 08, 2020 13:21
| over 4 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on the developer mailing list - or in our chat room. We've embedded a small chatroom right here: Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
Revert | |
| 202 | harmanjolly97 |
March 28, 2020 21:35
| over 4 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on the developer mailing list - or in our chat room. We've embedded a small chatroom right here: Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sidharth Bansal, Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sidharth Bansal,Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sidharth Bansal, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sidharth Bansal,Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo, Govind Goel, Harman Singh Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sidharth Bansal, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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| 201 | harmanjolly97 |
March 28, 2020 21:33
| over 4 years ago
This is the ideas page for Public Lab's Rails Girls Summer of Code and Google Summer of Code program, programs for student fellows to work on free and open source projects. Important -- if you're new to Public Lab software contributing, see our Welcome page and our Contributing page Get in touchWe love :heart: to hear from new contributors! Reach out on the developer mailing list - or in our chat room. We've embedded a small chatroom right here: Contribution guidelinesOur Contributing to Public Lab Software page has our preferred guidelines for submitting changes. Please read it over! We also love it when students show that they can work well with us by trying a
How to post a proposal(for students) Please first leave a comment on the post below, and tell us what you're interested in and a bit about your experience. It's also great to hear if you've forked one of our codebases) and installed it on your computer or a test environment. Done with that? How about running tests? Tell us how far you've gotten, and ask us for help -- we're happy to help you get started! Ask questions, and share your ideas:
Questions[questions:soc] 2020 Ideas
The following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Spectral Workbench - Rails and DevOps upgrades (high priority)Part of: Spectral Workbench Description: Spectral Workbench is an open-source tool to perform low-cost spectral analysis and to share those results online. It consists of a Ruby on Rails web application for publishing, archiving, discussing, and analyzing spectra online -- running at . Contains a core library for analyzing and manipulating spectral data, that has been spun out into its own self-contained JavaScript module, which is then included into this application. This a big project, that will involve good knowledge not only in Ruby on Rails and DevOps implementation. It is also a very important project since Spectral Workbench is a core module for the PL ecosystem, as elucidated by this image, some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests, ci/cd pipelines, low-level monitoring tools, a more up-to-date Rails stack and etc. Also some bug fixes, cleaning up and refactoring of the existing system. To list some tasks:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, DevOps Difficulty level: Hard Potential mentors: Sidharth Bansal, Sagarpreet Chadha Editor repair and fortification (high priority)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: This is a big project that should be broken into multiple pieces: (i.e. user facing vs developer facing) The Public Lab Editor (https://github.com/publiclab/PublicLab.Editor/) is a WYSIWYG rich text editor built on the Woofmark library, which is full of bugs. At this point we don't want to change the overall UI design significantly, but are very interested in identifying the many bugs resulting in a bad editing experience for users of PublicLab.org (at https://publiclab.org/post, login required). Potential bugs:
Interface improvements:
Development process refinement: testing, maintainability, ease of contribution Jest UI testing Coverage tracking Workflow for documenting bugs Wiki editor: https://publiclab.org/wiki/new consistency with https://publiclab.org/post editor List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Divy Khare , Sudipto Ghosh Printability of posts and wiki pagesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Some of our users reference content made thru our community while they're offline or away from computer devices. We'd like to encourage and enable this dissemenation of the knowledge on paper. For this project, we'd like our wiki pages and other website posts to be implemented in a way that prints well. Currently, our site uses CSS print stylesheets (https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/05/print-stylesheets-in-2018/). But an option could also be a print-specific page view or optimizing the default view for printing. This project would ideally also create safeguards in the development process to ensure this functionality remains protected from inadvertent breakage by future contributors, during changes to the wiki page and layout. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: HTML/CSS, some JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sidharth Bansal,Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel, Isha Gupta Spam management dashboardPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: We have a range of spam management tools and systems at PublicLab.org, for moderating incoming posts, comments, and wiki page edits. These include Recaptcha, manual review, a page at https://publiclab.org/spam (login and privileges required) and ways to moderate individual comments and revisions. This project would refine these systems, provide them with tests (including full-stack system tests for some), and provide some UI refinements to make spam management easier (bulk moderation, for example), while ensuring that members of the moderation team are on-board with any proposed changes. Stretch goal: option to receive daily digest of unresolved spam candidates Resources: * Style guide: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/05-07-2019/introducing-a-draft-style-guide-for-public-lab * https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/14 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sidharth Bansal, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare, Isha Gupta, Sudipto Ghosh, Harman Singh Leaflet Environmental Layers (LEL): time slider UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: (more coming) add an optional control to the LEL library allowing layer data to be filtered by a time attribute. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Emily Ashley, Sagarpreet Chadha, Divy Khare Site-wide accessibility on PublicLab.orgPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: Improve site-wide accessibility of PublicLab.org, and develop systems to preserve and expand accessibility features as the codebase grows in the future. Project topics may include: alt-text, aria, accessibility scans, colorblindness analysis, intersection with our translation systems (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/milestone/22), integration with our features system (https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/blob/master/doc/DATA_MODEL.md#Features ), adding a checkbox or automated accessibility/linting for pull requests. This would also involve a plan for maintaining coverage for accessibility for future development processes. Resources: * https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/ List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: easy/medium Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sidharth Bansal,Sagarpreet Chadha, Debasish Sahoo,Govind Goel Post Customization Mechanisms (i.e. "power tags")Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A variety of functionality can be added to posts and wiki pages, and in the back-end this is driven by the addition of special tags known as "power tags" -- for example, adding a location to a post, adding co-authors to a post, adding topical associations and adding other types of metadata. But the idea of "power tags" is confusing to people. Regular users should not need to know what power tags are, or how they work, to add these functions to their posts. This project will require user interviews and needfinding to better understand and document what functionality people want to add to their posts and what their goals are, and to build on this information to develop a) a proposed UI for adding functionality, and b) carefully collecting feedback on the proposal to refine it into a usable prototype for adding functions to posts (which will likely use power tags in the back-end to function). This is a system that has developed and changed over time; some users are accustomed to adding new functions to their posts using power-tags directly, but _____ is not legible or intuitive to new users. We are welcoming a re-examination of how the UI of this system works and strongly interested in decoupling the UI from how the underlying system works. Resources: * https://publiclab.org/wiki/power-tags * https://publiclab.org/n/15582 * https://publiclab.org/notes/liz/08-30-2016/check-out-these-activity-grids List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: UI/UX interests, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium/hard Potential mentors: Jeff Warren, Sidharth Bansal, Sagarpreet Chadha 2019 IdeasThe following have been reviewed and formatted by our Summer of Code team. Mentors, please add your name by any project you'd be able to mentor with! Leaflet Environmental LayersPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers Description: LEL - a collection of different environmental map layers in an easy to use Leaflet library. This new library is rapidly seeing many new layers, and we need some additional structure to help make the display/management of this amazing data smoother. This would include:
All of this has been documented and further detailed in this planning issue: https://github.com/publiclab/leaflet-environmental-layers/issues/134 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet JS Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:LEL mentor names here] MapKnitter Rails 5 UpgradesPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter.org lets people upload their own aerial images, position (rubbersheet) them in a web interface over existing map data, and share via web or composite and export for print. It includes several sub-components, including a JS UI, but the core application is written in Rails. As part of our big upcoming upgrades to the MapKnitter platform, a range of Rails changes and improvements will make up the core of this project idea. Some of the changes will be aimed at infrastructure and sustainability, as we can't make big changes or improvements without, for example, better tests and a more up-to-date Rails stack. Others will be bug fixes and cleanup of the existing system. To list some:
To see a full list of sub-projects, see https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/300 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford souravirus Aman Jain [prompt:text:MapKnitter Rails 5 mentor names here] MapKnitter Image ManagementPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: MapKnitter is based around the upload of images, the positioning of those images on a map, and the compositing of those images into map export formats. This project idea focuses on the systems for tracking changes on those images, collecting them into sets, storing image history, and other improvements which we hope will simplify and reconfigure the MapKnitter codebase. This may include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Emmanuel Hayford Aman Jain Gaurav Sachdeva [prompt:text:MapKnitter Image Management mentor names here] MapKnitter Synchronous EditingPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 Description: A long sought feature of MapKnitter is the ability to collaborate in real time on image upload and placement, as if it were Google Docs. This will involve changes from the MapKnitter codebase to the Leaflet.DistortableImage front-end image distortion UI. Parts of this project would likely involve:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails? Difficulty Level: easy/medium/hard Potential mentors:
Emmanuel Hayford Sagarpreet Chadha [prompt:text:MapKnitter synchronous editing mentors names here] MapKnitter UIPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: MapKnitter's interactive image distortion UI is implemented in a Leaflet library called Leaflet.DistortableImage, which needs some major improvements. The changes might be built into the core library or could be developed as a set of extension libraries. Tasks include:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Leaflet Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Sagarpreet Chadha Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:MapKnitter UI mentor names here] MapKnitter Cloud ExporterPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter Description: An serverless Exporting system for MapKnitter maps built around a Docker containerized Image Sequencer image processor, and/or a GDAL/ImageMagick alternative. We are exploring parallel tracks for cloud-based MapKnitter exporting, and one option is a JavaScript based process, while the other is a more traditional approach with a containerized GDAL/ImageMagick approach as currently used in MapKnitter. The base idea is to run the export process as a scalable web service, possibly "serverless" or REST, in Google Cloud and/or other cloud providers like Amazon AWS Lambda (primarily Google Cloud but compatible with others). Importantly, either approach would ideally present the same API so that we could swap or compare their performance. A much more in-depth description of this project can be found here: https://github.com/publiclab/mapknitter/issues/298 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: Ruby on Rails, serverless architecture, nodejs, possibly GDAL Difficulty level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:MapKnitter Cloud Exporter mentor names here] Image Sequencer (multiple possible projects)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer Description: Image Sequencer is a general purpose, step-by-step image processing library in pure JavaScript, which we are building out to support a range of image-analysis tasks across Public Lab and beyond. We have a rang e of big projects we are eager to implement to dramatically improve performance, implement much-needed new module types, and more:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) Harshith Pabbati h [prompt:text:Image Sequencer mentor names here] Community ToolboxPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/community-toolbox Description: Community Toolbox has become a core part of our success in growing our community and welcoming newcomers. Now we seek to refactor, standardize it and build tests to ensure its stabiliity and maintainability. This will include a data storage layer following the MVC schema, though in pure client-side JavaScript. It will include better defined views and modular utility functions. The result will be a library more people and projects can take up to use themselves, as well as more ways to understand a growing community -- who is involved, who is stuck, who is supporting others for any given time period. It could include a "how to" for different orgs, a menu of common views, and integration of the all-contributors spec for defining what kinds of contributions are recognized and valued: https://github.com/all-contributors/all-contributors List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Nodejs Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Community Toolbox mentor names here] Microscope live stitching, auto-stitch in MapKnitter (magnetic attraction)Part of: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer, https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage Description: Multiple Public Lab projects, from microscopy to map stitching, require easy-to-use techniques for joining multiple images into a larger image. While high-end approaches for this often involve "bundle adjustment", we propose a different approach, which either a) runs blob tracking in video or sequential images to determine image offset, or b) runs low-res pattern matching between image pairs, and uses different UI approaches to indicate matches to the user (magnetic attraction, spiderwebs connecting matched points, highlight of matched image pairs). Other variations are possible but we envision a general purpose set of JavaScript utility libraries which accept two images, and output the matching pixel pairs, as well as one which takes sequential input images and attempts to place them on a growing virtual canvas based on matches. Other solutions are welcome but we hope to incorporate these into both Image Sequencer and Leaflet.DistortableImage, as well as potentially a web-based demo for use with a microscope live video feed. Read more on one approach: https://github.com/publiclab/image-sequencer/issues/300 Also see: https://github.com/publiclab/Leaflet.DistortableImage/issues/110 List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, NodeJS Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
Igor Wilbert (@IgorWilbert) [prompt:text:Microscope Live Stitching mentor names here] Spectral Workbench CapturePart of: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench, https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-workbench.js Description: DIY spectrometry has long been part of Public Lab's open source work, but our software is showing its age and is too spaghetti-like. We are slowly refactoring the spectral capture interface from Spectral Workbench into a stand-alone library which can produce spectral data for upload to SpectralWorkbench.org or download locally in CSV or JSON format. UI testing in Jasmine and code modularity using Browserify would both be great. This could ultimately become its own library called
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails (for integration) Difficulty Level: hard Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Spectral Workbench Capture mentor names here] Sensor data upload and display libraryPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: Many people across Public Lab and in DIY environmental work create and need to manage data easily without being a programmer. This will be a web-based JavaScript + HTML library which will allow drag-and-drop of CSV sensor data onto web platforms such as PublicLab.org, but will maintain modularity as a reusable library. It would feature:
List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, some Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
Souravirus [prompt:text:Sensor data upload mentor names here] Public Lab Notifications systemPart of: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2 (though will be in standalone repository) Description: The Notifications API (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/notification) allows for UI notifications on mobile and desktop initiated from JavaScript. This project would build out such a system, with the backing of a new API on The project would be made up of client-side code to display notifications (and prevent multiples from being posted if multiple windows are open), and a back-end API to trigger them when new content is posted, potentially using Action Cable. Read more at: https://github.com/publiclab/plots2/issues/2497 This project may need to be combined with other work to be large enough for a summer's work. List: plots-dev@googlegroups.com, https://publiclab.org/chat Prerequisites: JavaScript, Ruby on Rails Difficulty Level: medium Potential mentors:
[prompt:text:Notifications system mentor names here] |
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