User:Shikhar/Worklog

Status as of...

Wednesday, June 30, 2008

Locked out of git because my laptop power adapter died today. (Note to self: backup private key!!)

I decided to ditch Tinymail, and go with Python standard library as I had originally planned (poplib, imaplib, smtplib, email module, mailbox.Maildir), and I am making better progress. The Tinymail Python bindings need a lot of work and I don't think I have the skills or understanding to contribute to that.

Now I feel a lot better about delivering on my aims for the activity. From what exists in git, writing and sending emails is now possible. What went into that: interface for writing emails, SMTP implementation, thread for sending so GUI doesn't get locked up.

However the sent message was not stored, but now it can be because I have been working on a mailstore that combines a maildir with a sqlite db for storing metadata (tags, cached headers, flags).

I am working on a POP implementation now. I think POP is very relevant in intermittent-connectivity situations where you just want to suck all the mail in when a connection is present. (An IMAP implementation which does the same thing i.e. no server sync'ing or such will not be so hard)

In the next few days I will start on the UI for reading and organizing email.

Happy about:

• Project moving forward
• I like the mailstore API
• I am learning a lot

inter alia :-)

Monday, July 14, 2008

Happy to report that GUI hacking is going very well

There are some problems I have experienced with the Python bindings for Tinymail that I hope to sort out with help from Mark Doffman in the coming days.

I think end of this month for the slipped milestone is achievable. I'd be happy with that...

Sunday, June 29, 2008

• Studied the existing Python test implementation, which gave me a basic idea
• I think I am starting to get a feel of the tinymail implementation
• I revised the schedule to reflect reality
  • The milestone is in two weeks for an activity with email reading/writing and account management (even if just from a configuration file). Should keep me motivated since it's not too far.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

I haven't been communicating with Phillip because right now there isn't much he could help me with, and it's all things I have to do for myself: get familiar with GTK+ above all else; an interesting but time-consuming exercise. I made the basic mail activity and narrowed down and put in place some of the widgets I will use.

Still to begin addressing the actual functionality. So on the agenda for what is left of the week is to experiment with Tinymail, and come July be in a position to do the kind of work that can belong in a repository.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

I think at least my development environment is mostly set up

• Compiled Tinymail --with-python-bindings. Tested the python demo made by Phillip. It runs just fine from a sugar-jhbuild environment.
• However, I had trouble compiling it on the XO. scp'ing the built package across didn't lead to any success with importing tinymail in python on the XO. This will have to be sorted out.
• Made some mockups on paper
• Started work on a Sugar activity

Thursday, June 12, 2008

I got back home on June 3. Since then, I've had far too much to deal with and haven't really done much which sucks. So I want to devote a lot more time everyday in the next few weeks.

But a status report is in order:

• Upgraded DSL to 1mbps (pretty much the max around here..)
• Received 2 XO's under the contributor's program (thank you OLPC! I had asked for one but I'll make sure they are put to good use. Wonderful little machines.)
  • Developer keys received
  • One XO runs Update.1 703 and the other Joyride 2035
• Mark Doffman was kind enough to update his Python bindings for Tinymail

Notes

At some point, Tinymail packaging will have to be addressed