[xmlvm-users] XMLVM TODOs

[Arno P. <ar...@pu...>]

Guys,

some of you have offered help and I want to discuss potential projects 
that are up for grabs. Of course it depends on your skills and 
interests. From Android to iPhone, from Java to Objective-C, there is 
plenty to do.

1. Documentation: Let me start with the least favorite, but still very 
important job of documentation. If someone out there enjoys writing 
technical documentation, XMLVM would get a major boost by offering 
better documentation. Right now we have an HTML version in 
xmlvm/doc/homepage/manual that is the best we have right now. We have 
begun to convert this to DocBook in xmlvm/doc/manual/docbook. Anyone 
interested in continuing the conversion to DocBook and/or adding new 
documentation? A little HOWTO and a tutorial would be nice.

2. Java/Cocoa: directory xmlvm/src/xmlvm2objc/compat-lib/java contains 
the Java sources of the Cocoa classes. The implementation of those 
classes are also our own iPhone emulator. There are plenty of missing 
API as well as API that was never implemented. Possible projects would 
be to add missing Cocoa API and/or implement API that has not yet been 
implemented. Another project might be to extend the emulator to run in 
iPad mode. Our Java emulator is written entirely in Java and makes use 
of Java2D. If that interests you, let me know.

3. C wrappers: as I mentioned several times on the mailing list, we are 
swiftly moving towards the new C backend. One piece of work where we can 
use your help is to implement the C wrappers. If you look at directory 
xmlvm/src/xmlvm2c/compat-lib/iphone you see the generated wrappers 
(those wrappers where actually automatically generated from the Java 
Cocoa API mentioned above). If you look in org_xmlvm_iphone_UIImage.m 
you get an idea of the kind of implementation that needs to be done. 
That is kind of a high-priority job since we need those wrappers in 
order to move to the new backend. This job requires good knowledge of 
Objective-C and Cocoa.

4. Android to iPhone: if you check directory xmlvm/src/android2iphone 
you will see Java classes that mimic the Android API, but are 
implemented using our Java version of Cocoa. This is the basis of the 
"Android app running on an iPhone". If you check this directory, you 
will quickly find out that there are many, many Android classes missing. 
This job is tricky because there is not always an obvious mapping from 
Android API to Cocoa API (just think of Android's layout manager that 
has nothing corresponding on the iPhone). Other API are easier. E.g., 
one little project could be to map the location API. This TODO requires 
good knowledge of both Android and iPhone. You can work mostly in Java 
but also need to extend the Cocoa API as needed (this is what I wrote in 
(1)).

Well, guys, here you have it. XMLVM is Open Source and you are free to 
use it in your products. But we can only make fast progress if the 
community helps making XMLVM better. If you are interested in one of 
these jobs, please send a note to me or over the mailing list so we can 
better coordinate your efforts.

Arno