I took a moment recently to write down my thoughts, after doing a little coding on the MathML Editor in XUL project for abacus.mozdev.org (yes, I know, the site is still vanilla).
As of 22 Feb, here's what my notes say:
* The template editor now works, at least in terms of creating templates.
* Interactions with the server (storing templates, retrieving them, selecting them for editing) don't work.
* I need to launch abacus.mozdev.org and see if I can actually run this little PHP+MySQL-based applet on the site. If not, I need another home for the templates under development.
* Undecided how to handle xml:lang and the markup language selection. (I figured it out the next day, but I haven't coded it in yet.)
* The actual MathML editor itself is not yet developed.
***** Documentation very badly needed, or no one will ever understand how to use the thing.
* MySQL database design is almost ready; I still have to have some way of figuring out how to tag a set of templates as a 'release', and how to give those templates a proper version number.
* The "fill-in-the-blank" widget works.
* The "fitb-set" widget (for designating a repeated section of code including fitb's) doesn't work yet.
* I don't have a demo using the MathML editor built yet.
* I need to export a SQL query to rebuild the tables from scratch, for docs.
* I need to reorganize what I do have for the mozdev file system
* I need to write a primer on how to use MathML and the MathML editor's mEdit namespace together
* I need to reorganize the template editor to better use the screen space it has, with my DOM utilities to keep everything synchronized.
* I need to finish the serverpost specs.
* I need to support subsets of common controls (say, a login & password together) in the serverpost.
* If possible, I need to tie in the template editor with Bugzilla for mozdev if possible (probably just through an iframe).
* I need a system for an editor to specify how many fitb elements to generate, given fitb-set elements.
* I need to lock down the usage of the mEdit namespace to prevent mischief.
* I need some sort of icon picker that will let the template developer (a human being) choose an icon to represent a particular mathematical operation.
**** I need to document all this stuff so that people reading this blog entry will have some idea what I'm actually talking about. (Oh, wait, I said that already, didn't I?) ;)
Don't worry, guys, answers are coming. Give me a computer that runs Apache locally and has a recent Mozilla, and you'll see some of the toys I'm building. Maybe at Dev Day three days hence.
UPDATE: After Dev Day, caillon mentioned to me someone else is almost done building a MathML editor. I really would like to find out who and take a look at what they've got (both source code and appearance).
My boss and I have decided to part ways. At first it wasn't very cordial, but after a quick phone call a couple hours later, we'd calmed down, and then I confirmed the decision.
It's been a long time coming. But now, I find myself needing a new job.
Anybody willing to hire someone familiar with XML and Mozilla, who wants to develop new toys for Mozilla? Anybody willing to hire someone for a MathML editor in Mozilla?
It doesn't have to be work relating to Mozilla. That would be nice, but some sort of stable employment where I can afford to live and get around would be quite acceptable. All I'm looking for is a fair deal -- for both parties.
I've done data entry before; I actually loved it. I'm not much good at advertising, and I'm capable of physical labor, but if it's office- or computer-related, I can definitely hold my own.
My Internet service got cut off again (this time, likely to be permanent -- thanks boss). But that's not this entry.
I spent about two weeks in my spare time hammering together a nice, working XUL widget to interactively modify the DOM of a MathML+generic XML fragment. I bumped into a large number of problems, including some fun with XUL trees.
Yesterday, I had the bright idea that maybe I should show the user the content as a string of XML code in a textarea. Of course, if they can see it, they should be able to edit it directly, right?
After less than ten minutes working with the textarea, it occured to me that the textarea was so much easier to use than the XUL widget I had so painstakingly developed. I guess I'm glad that code didn't go anywhere but in my blog.
(1) File a bug.
(2) Write up a demo and evangelize on why this is a good idea.
(3) Spend two weeks turning your demo into a working piece of code.
(4) Write up a spec because someone asks for one.
(5) Spend another week fixing your working code to conform to the spec, and start tweaking the spec.
(6) Write documentation on the whole thing.
(7) After doing steps 1-6, only then do you ask if the module owner would actually like to have your code checked into the place you've been writing your patch for. UNTIL THEN, assume you can do whatever the hell you want.
Most importantly, never, EVER read http://www.mozilla.org/hacking/new-features.html . They don't know what they're talking about.
On the other hand, if you want to add new code to the tree, it might be wise to think about more than the code you're writing... <alex:grin type="rueful"/>
I posted my draft on http:serverpost a few minutes ago, and I was stunned to see 227 comments on my blog total. I didn't know I was ever that popular...
Turns out it's apparently called blog spamming. It was obviously artificial (a whole bunch of people I've never seen before, talking about something other than Mozilla, all on the same day, within minutes or even seconds of each other, repeating the same stuff over and over again, etc.)
At first, I thought they were trying to advertise something, but after reading a few of the comments, I'll be damned if I could figure out what... so whatever they were trying to do, they failed.
Confusing, and time-consuming to clean out. But stephend had it worse: 3000+ comments. Ouch.
One guy did fool me into reading his post with the name, "Baron David". For obvious reasons, I glanced. dbaron may want to see about filing a lawsuit to protect his good name, if anyone ever figures out who it was who did this.
All I can say is, "Go figure." It's not like I'm that big a person in the Mozilla community.
This is in response to Ian Hickson's legitimate request for a specification of how my proposed