MoinMoin<=>DocBook XML Summer of Code Proposal

[Patrick W. Barnes]

We have a Summer of Code proposal to work on MoinMoin DocBook XML conversion 
tools.  This student identifies himself as the original author of the 
existing MoinMoin DocBook XML formatter.

There isn't a mentor assigned yet, so if someone from the Docs team would like 
to step forward to mentor this person, they can sign up as a mentor through 
Google and we'll assign the proposal to them.

Mentor Sign-Up:
http://code.google.com/soc/mentor_step1.html

Mentor Home:
http://code.google.com/soc/mentor_home.html

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Title/Summary: MoinMoin DocBook XML Conversion Tools
Student: Mikko Virkkilä
Student Email: mvirkkil at cc.hut.fi
Student Major: Automation and systems technology
Student Degree: masters
Student Graduation: 2008 
Student Home Page: http://users.tkk.fi/~mvirkkil

Organization: The Fedora Project
Assigned Mentor: No Mentor Assigned

Name: Mikko Virkkilä
Email: mvirkkil at cc.hut.fi
IM:
I am going to work during the summer, so I expect to be working on this 
project during evenings and weekends. As my gf is going to move to another 
town for the summer, so I'm going to have a lot of time to spare in the 
afternoons and evenings.

In addition to working, I have no holidays, classes or anything else to work 
around.

My school will start again at the end of August.

= Experience =
I've done development using Java, C/C++, Python and various web related 
techniques like XML, CSS, Javascript, XSTL, and I'm familiar with database 
programming. I'm also the administrator of the my Guild's (the Guild of 
Automation and Systems Technology) server, and know my way around 
shellscripts and linux.

I'm the original author for the MoinMoin->Docbook formatter, so I'm intimately 
familiar with it, as well as that part of the MoinMoin infrastructure.

I've worked on MoinMoin, and did a cleanup of the gnome-app-install program 
(which was never accepted upstream). I've also worked with TheOpenCD project. 
I've created the WebSANE sane-frontend (http://websane.berlios.de). 

= School =
I'm studying at the Helsinki University of Techology where I have been 
studying for 3 years. The department is called Automation and 
Systemstechnology, but is also geard towards media and communication.

= Details =
I'm proposing to finish the MoinMoin->Docbook formatter, and fix any bugs that 
I find. This will in practice mean that some MoinMoin macros will need to be 
cleaned up. To make sure the formatter will remain working through the 
development cycles in the future, I will also write tests, with which it is 
easy to confirm that the generator is still working. All this will also be 
documented. Also some tools to support working with docbook inside moinmoin 
will be created. These include a mass exporter and a mass importer.

Book importer, which will allow for exporting existing Docbook formatted books 
in to the wiki from the commandline. Each book will be split in to multiple 
chapters and pages. What worries me here is the possible loss of information. 
It is not possible to represent all information in a docbook using the wiki 
syntax. I'm hoping to find some way around this limitation, probably by 
embedding the extra information in to the page with one or several special 
macros. This script will use only readily available tools. It will also 
upload the necessary images.

The Book exporter will format a moin moin page specially created for 
generating a docbook-book. The page will include links to the different 
chapters in the docbook. It will format these pages and create a complete 
docbook from them. 

For simple docbook books, the results of first importing a book to the wiki, 
and then exporting it should yield a book equivalent to the original.

== Milestones ==
 * 26.5 Start
 * 5.6. Work on cleanup and bugs in existing formatter done.
 * 15.6. Proof of concept for book importer
 * 30.6. Proof of concept for book exporter
 * 15.7. Storing _all_ information of a dookbook-book in the wiki possible 
(probably by adding calls to special docbook macros) but possibly not 
completely implemented.
 * 30.7 Importing and exporting a book works
 * 15.8 Tests done. All documentation done. Project done.

== Deliverables ==
 * Add any currently missing features incl better table support.
 * Book exporter in the form of a special moinmoin generator plugin
 * Tests (possibly unittests, depending no what the MoinMoin developers feel 
comfortable with) to ensure that the generator works.
 * Shellscripts to get a complete docbook book from the wiki (or individual 
pages) complete with images etc.

All code will be documented. Usage instructions will be written.

= Why me =
As I'm the original author of the existing MoinMoin->Docbook code, so I'm very 
familiar with it. I'm also familiar with some MoinMoin developers, and many 
parts of the MoinMoin code.

I am exited about this project, because many other projects use MoinMoin as 
their wiki, and I know for a fact that the Ubuntu documentation team have 
been very interested in using the Wiki as a means to create DocBook pages. 

For people not familiar to Docbook, who want to write documentation and usage 
instructions, a wiki will be a simple way to do so. Creating tools for people 
to collaborate, on writing documentation for open source projects, is to me a 
worthwile project.

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-- 
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64 at n-man.com

http://www.n-man.com/

LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/nman64

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