didrocks' blog

This session is giving some fundamentals on Quickly, let's dive into them!

Two components: core and template

There is mainly two parts in Quickly: Quickly Core is a command line parser and context checker. It has builtin commands and can handle and launch template commands. Quickly templates are group of commands and files that are used on a certain purpose: you can create templates to manage your documents, a LaTeX skeleton, or to easily create projects gathering a certain number of technologies.

Consequently, using templates, you can create a project which will be binded to your templates. Templates can be written in whatever language you wish. That's the reason why we don't use optparse in Quickly Core component.

The application can be extended to run on other systems, and use different tools, etc... There is nothing stopping you from doing that. However, if you stray off the chosen path, some of the commands may no longer work for you.

We would love to see, for instance, a fedora-project template, gnome-project one, plasmoid-project, zeitgeist-plugin... and this tour will give you some trick to help you create one (in part 6).

But again, consider that you can create your template for everything, like managing your documents (without even creating any project). You can give some commands to create a new "company's set of documents" for a secretary ; he/she will complete them and then "quickly share" (for instance) for uploading it in the company's sharing documentation server. Quickly Core is not binding into developing only, power is completely given to template developers.

The ubuntu-project templates

The ubuntu-project template is the first template released today (some more coming for creating gedit plugins and ubuntu-game template).

The ubuntu-project template enables you to easily create a project using a given set of strong opinionated chosen technology ubuntu's people are mostly using:

• Python for the language
• pygtk for the UI framework
• Glade for the UI editor
• Gedit for the code editor
• bzr for version control
• Launchpad for code hosting
• desktopcouch for storage/database

The idea is to make choices (as Ubuntu make choices in their default applications list) for developers wondering what technology is "good to use for...". Choosing in a technology jungle can sometimes be a mess. Nevertheless, this is just a the skeleton: nothing prevents you for removing the desktopcouch part if you don't want to use it for instance (same for other pieces of technology).

It's also easy to create your own template from ubuntu-project to remove what part you don't want (if you are found of git and don't want to use bzr, for example). More on that in next sections.

Also note, there is no Quickly runtime or base class library. Using the Ubuntu Project won't bring in any dependency on Quickly itself.

Templates, context and command management.

General

So, we have builtin and template command and you can also be inside or outside a project. All that forms a context.

A project created with the create command will be associated with the template used in the create command like in:
$ quickly create ubuntu-project foo^[1]
This command can only be launched outside any Quickly project and needs a template to be specified on the command line.

Then, when you are in a project, you can launch $ quickly <command> to launch the <command> from the binded templates or Quickly builtin command. No need to specify a template.

Also, you can launch any command wherever you wish in the project hierarchy (subfolder, subsubfolder...), the command will behave the way it's designed.

Get the list of all available commands.

Nothing more easy, just run wherever you wish:

$ quickly commands
[builtins]      commands
[builtins]      getstarted
[builtins]      help
[builtins]      quickly
[ubuntu-project]        change-lp-project
[ubuntu-project]        create
[ubuntu-project]        dialog
[ubuntu-project]        edit
[ubuntu-project]        glade
[ubuntu-project]        license
[ubuntu-project]        package
[ubuntu-project]        release
[ubuntu-project]        run
[ubuntu-project]        save
[ubuntu-project]        share
[ubuntu-project]        tutorial

builtins are... builtins command and others are templates owning commands. You can even check there that commands is a builtin one.

Choosing the template

You can still launch commands from another template in your current project. Let's say you need the "awesome" command from the bar template to be launched in your current ubuntu-project "templated" project, you still can with $ quickly --template bar awesome^[2]

Attributes of commands/Advanced brain breaker :)

WARNING: this part can be seen as quite tricky. It's needed if you really want to understand the template and builtin commands behavior or want to create your own template. If you don't understand/want to read it, don't desesperate and just jump into the "Ok, you killed me, what do I really need to know?" section :-)

Command attributes

As already said, some commands (templates and builtin ones) can either:

• be launched outside a project only (case of "create" from ubuntu-project template command, for instance)
• be launched inside a project only (case of "release" from ubuntu-project template command, for instance)
• be launched outside or inside a project (case of "tutorial" from ubuntu-project template command, "commands" builtin command, for instance)

The check is done during command launch (and shell-completion filtering as well) to ensure user doesn't perform any mistake (as users make some mistakes sometimes, don't they? ;)). For instance, if you try to launch a command which can only be launched inside a project: didrocks@laptop:~/not_a_quickly_project$ quickly --template ubuntu-project release
ERROR: Can't find project in /home/didrocks/not_a_quickly_project.
Ensure you launch this command from a quickly project directory.
Aborting

Template command launched outside a project must be followed by a template if not specified as an option. Of course, this enables Quickly Core to know in which template to find the command. This will give:

$ quickly create ubuntu-project foo
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^
                     template  command arg

or:

$ quickly -t ubuntu-project create foo
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^        ^^^
          template as an option  command arg

Same for tutorial command, which is an ubuntu-project command:

$ quickly tutorial ubuntu-project
                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
                   template following command

or:

$ quickly -t ubuntu-project tutorial
          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
         template as an option

Note: -t templatename can be set wherever on the command line.

As we will see in a later part, shell-completion automatically propose template commands that can be launched outside a project if you are outside a project, or inside if you are ... in a project folder. :)

As builtin commands are generalists, most of them doesn't need any template. But some have the attribute "followed by template" which will need also a template (example: 'help', 'quickly') specified on the command line.

An additional attribute we will se later is "followed by command" (case of the help command). There will be a dedicated part of the help.

Launch a template command outside a project

In case you launch a template command which is part of a template without specifying the template (either with -t option or following the command), you will have a message like that:
$ quickly tutorial
ERROR: tutorial command must be followed by a template and no template was found on the command line.
Candidates template are: footemplate, ubuntu-project
Arborting.

That means that both footemplate and ubuntu-project templates have a tutorial command and Quickly in all its kindness found them to help you. :)

So, then, you can try to launch (if quickly tutorial doesn't take any additional argument, which is the case): $ quickly tutorial footemplate or $ quickly tutorial ubuntu-project.

Ok, you killed me, what do I really need to know?

Phew, this was the harder part of Quickly's concept. Now, the following will seem to be really easy once you get this. In any case, shell-completion will only propose in the current context what you need/can launch (we will discuss that later). So, if you are lost, just let you guided by it, it will propose whenever template/command args you need to specified in the current context. :)

Only knowing what is a template and a project should be sufficient for a daily (and happy? ;)) Quickly user.

Next part will be on getting help on commands.

Well, coming back from vacation, I had a couple of hours to "kill" in the train.

I saw a few days ago the awesome work of Davyd Madeley on animating GTK+ and Clutter-Gtk from client-side-windows based on the first step from Alexander's Larson. Reading the comments some people say "this is sooooo cool, but totally unuseful".

That's the reason why I tried to figure out some pratical examples where some animations can teach about the component/widget the user is currently interacting with. Giving some blink effects so that people can understand a concept has already been successfull: take the example of the cube in compiz which has helped a bunch of GNU/Linux newcomers to understand what really a worspace is.

In my experience, the tab concept is quite difficult for some people like my mother, not having the habit of it (it has never come to her minds that it's like a traditional phone notebook). So, maybe some animations can help them to realize what it is.

I built Davyd's version of clutter-gtk and other stuffs and then, began to write some realistic animations on the GTK Notebook component. BEWARE: as the frame can't be currently reparented and as I need to have one actor by frame, the current implementation is very hackish and just there for some proof of concept (code here for all animations below).

The first one is just a fade in/fade out, very unobtrusive.

Ogg version here.

Second is a little more noticeable, with the new frame coming and overlapping the previous one.

Ogg version here

Third is maybe the best in term of representation: we change the current "sheet" (the frame) and put the new one in front:

Ogg version here

The two last ones are more for fun. Not that they don't represent (even maybe better than the previous one) the real behavior of such a component, but they take a lot of space on the screen:

Rotating from the left:

Ogg version here

An finally, rotating from the bottom:

Ogg version here

So, what do you think about those, does that bring a better user feedback? Maybe we can explore that way to make a properly binding between clutter and GTK for making such things. With Clutter, GTK components can be more interactive and attractive.

Of course, we still need a default fallback for not forcing clutter, though.

Here we go! After 5 days of presentation on differents projects related to Free Software, the whole ubuntu-fr team is exhausted and happy of the result. This event is especially a great place to meet again and again friends of FOSS ecosystem (contributors, other distribution administrators…).

We also used for the first time the ubuntu-fr.org flag we got from ubuntu Peru taken at last UDS thanks to nxvl.

This edition was particularly oriented on migration and change management to FLOSS. Like each year, conferences, round tables, and workshops were proposed to the visitors during those 5 days. Therefore experts, beginners, professionnals or just curious people were able to find the interlocutors who had provided answers to their questions among the various addressed themes. Moreover there was the associative village where anyone could have a walk. Furthermore, people were invited to discover this universe which doesn’t just focus only on the IT domain. Indeed, the 10th RMLL was the opportunity to introduce new themes: "Free Hardware", and "Free Art & Culture".

Thanks again to all ubuntu-fr people present at the event. We gave 3 talks: one on organizing a Free Software event (by olive), one on ubuntu-fr organization (Christophe Sauthier) and the last one on the release process of Ubuntu (myself), following Lucas Nussbaum's speech on collaboration between Free software projects: the example between Debian and Ubuntu. No troll included of course. ;)

RMLL site.

Après quelques heures où le serveur faisait des siennes et un reboot manuel était devenu obligatoire, je n'ai aucune excuse pour procrastiner :)

Après une introduction par Jono, Mark et Scott James lors d'une session en plénière où la connexion Wi-Fi rencontrait quelques problèmes (ne jamais compter sur une connexion Internet valable quand vous tenez une conférence avec des geeks connectés massivement ;)), il était temps de commencer les sessions de l'UDS.

J'ai suivi quelques sujets dans les sessions environnement de bureau (desktop), où je vais pouvoir donner un petit coup de main ainsi que des sujets sur la communauté. Comment attirer de nouvelles personnes dans la communauté de développement de la distribution (où, comme on a l'habitude de répéter, il ne suffit pas d'être développeur !) ? Bref, des idées ont fusé et il ne reste « plus qu'à » les implémenter.

J'ai également participé passivement à la dernière session consacrée à Kubuntu (oui Anthony, c'était pour toi :p). Il se fait tard, il est temps d'avoir une bonne nuit de sommeil, vu que Christophe a mis hier soir plus de 3 heures à passer un niveau dans un obscure jeu en flash (oui, il était parti au départ pour bosser sur une carte, mais pas celle d'un jeu !)… On a donc pu dormir que 4 petites heures. Bref, l'UDS, c'est difficile ;)

Thanks to Canonical sponsorship program, I'm abled to attend to the Ubuntu Developer Summit handled at Barcelona, Spain!

The hostel is luxurious - especially the view from the room I share with the great "4K man" at the 15th floor, obligatory screenshot photo tomorrow - and the athmosphere is awesome (already met a lot of people I usally speak with in IRC). Of course, I have already hugged Daniel Holbach. ;)

Consequently, tomorrow, discussions on Ubuntu will begin. I will try to post on planet ubuntu in a daily basis in my main interests that are desktop/server/community topics.

For French people, there is some quite similar (but not exactly same) post entry here.

J'avais eu aux dernières Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre l'occasion de discuter pendant une petite heure des bienfaits du logiciel libre et de parler de la distribution Ubuntu à une représentante du département de Corrèze. Cette personne était venue faire le tour de ce qu'il existait dans le monde du Libre et je pense que toutes les intervenants rencontrés ont permis de faire un état réel des lieux.

Même si malheureusement l'association ubuntu-fr n'a pas été contactée par la suite, apparemment, la présentation a porté ses fruits : un déploiement massif sur les ordinateurs portables de cette région est en cours, et ce sur Ubuntu !

Pour de plus amples informations, c'est sur linuxfr.

Je fais juste un petit appel à tous ceux qui déploient de telles solutions : je pense que les associations d'utilisateurs qui promeuvent une distribution/solution sont toujours heureuses d'être contactées et d'aider autant qu'elles le peuvent ! Pensez-y la prochaine fois ;)

Que dire de plus ? Merci à tous ceux qui ont fait de cette Ubuntu Party un succès, totalisant plus de 4000 visiteurs en deux jours !

Ces deux journées ont été placées sous les signes de la convivialité : entraide, échanges et partages humains. Bref, Ubuntu n'a jamais aussi bien rencontré sa traduction, « humanité ».

Les conférences diffusées en directes par l'Internet, ont abordé de vastes sujets techniques et moins techniques, comme par exemple informatiques et libertés, le projet GNOME, la virtualisation, la fondation Mozilla, le projet Debian, les formats ouverts, sans oublier l'éveil citoyen de la conférence de la quadrature du net concernant la loi HADOPI.

La nocturne, qui s'inscrivait dans le cadre de la nuit des musées fut particulièrement appréciée, tout comme le niveau des cours, activités et conférences données. Accessibles aussi bien au néophytes (prise en main d'Ubuntu, aller plus loin) qu'aux initiés (cours sur la ligne de commande, bug jam, personnalisation d'Ubuntu), nous avons pu rencontrer un large publique. Lprod a également fait un travail remarquable dans la démonstration des possibilités vidéos et audios de notre chère distribution.

Tout comme l'ordinateur de nombreuses personnes, les mugs en plastiques recyclés ont été mis à jour pour cette édition et arborent maintenant un petit koala qui sera la mascotte la future version d'Ubuntu, la 9.10, « karmic koala ». C'était également l'occasion de découvrir la mise à jour du livre libre « Simple Comme Ubuntu » où la course fut rude pour sortir le livre à temps. Un grand merci à Mathieu pour la réactivité de l'éditeur In Libro Veritas.

Oxyradio a également pu couvrir l'intégralité de l'évènement dans un sprint éhonté. Bravo à vous \o/

Les résultats de la tombola de dimanche sont accessibles sur le site de l'Ubuntu Party tout comme plus de photos dans la section multimédia. À suivre dans la semaine : les enregistrements vidéos/audios des conférences, et très bientôt des podcasts d’oxyradio !

Plus de 4000 visiteurs, égalant le record de novembre dernier : ce n'était pas gagné d'avance et peu de personnes dans l'équipe organisatrice pensait arriver à nouveau à ce résultat. Et ceci, particulièrement en mai, époque plus propice aux congés et examens. Mais les chiffres donnés par la cité des sciences et de l'industrie sont là et nous a donné tort.

C'est donc l'occasion rêvée de vous dire un grand merci : installeurs, personnes présentes à l'accueil, aux boutiques, les conférenciers, les associations présentes (parinux, framasoft, l'april, mozilla), oxyradio… Nous vous devons tous ce résultat ! Sans vous, ubuntu-fr ne serait pas une association avec laquelle nous avons envie d'y mettre tant d'énergie. J'y inclue bien entendu les équipes de modération (forum, IRC) et tous ceux qui travaillent sur le site, car c'est aussi grâce à vous que tout cela arrive. Merci également à tous ceux qui nous envoient régulièrement des dons. Nous n'avons que peu de temps pour vous répondre, nous le faisons maintenant : MERCI !

N'oublions jamais : « je suis ce que je suis grâce à ce que nous sommes tous ». Rendez-vous à la prochaine Ubuntu Party parisienne les 28 et 29 novembre.

En attendant, n'oubliez pas les autres Ubuntu party en France référencées sur la page d'accueil d'ubuntu-fr et sur Ubuntu-party.

Les photos sont toutes en CC:BY : quesh, mauriz, ricomorotrad

Last Friday, ubuntu-fr had our release party in Paris, gathering a whole bunch of Ubuntu Party organizers. There were some added Mozilla contributors and April members.

It was great to share with more than 30 people this dinner, composed of flammekueche. Jokes and discussions/trolls on the new release were part of the party, of course! :)

There were a birthday feist next to our group and can you guess what they got as an unexpected present? Exactly! An jaunty CD and an Ubuntu Party flyer with no extra charge. ;)

Next round? The Ubuntu Party in Paris, dedicated to a larger audience, with conferences, installations, training sessions, multimedia demonstrations, animation, events… and lots more!

We had 3000 flyers for free^[1] and distributed them during Solution Linux. Hope to see a lot of people there!

Credit for photos to XioNoX and olive (:p). juli for the flyer.

Les horaires et quelques précisions ont été apportées :

Dans le cadre de l'évènement « Libre en Fête », ubuntu-fr sera présent dans une salle à la mairie du 3ème pour tenir un stand, organiser des tables rondes et quelques présentations de la distribution ubuntu, de l'association, son objectif, ses besoins, ses actions…

Cela se déroulera ce samedi de 16h à 18h.

En parallèle, à l'espace public numérique du 3ème, (62, rue de Bretagne 75003 PARIS) se tiendront des cours des cours d'initiation pour aider les débutants à prendre en main et essayer Ubuntu, de 12 à 18h. Plus d'info ici.

PS : les liens sont du google map car openstreemap semble capricieux ce matin ;)