Konqueror Now Supports Opensearch Too

I just merged my branch of Konqueror searchbar plugin that supports Opensearch [1] mainly to replace my own implementation of search suggestion. Opensearch has an xml formatted open search description, that may contain search url and suggestion service url. To parse the xml, I borrowed Arora’s open search xml parser and writer, written by Jakub Wieczorek.

The suggestions list from the searchbar still looks the same:

The searchbar also supports opensearch autodiscovery [2], meaning that if you find a site that provides a search implementation, you can easily add that new search provider to the searchbar. Additionally, you can set a new shortcut for that newly defined search provider, so that you can use that webshortcut inside the normal konqueror location bar or anything that supports webshortcut.

Here are two screenshots of the searchbar detecting an opensearch autodiscovery link element and the searchbar asking for a webshortcut for the newly added searchbar:

Why do I need to bother to add autodiscovery feature that is rarely used by user? Well, I also don’t know, maybe just to make it comparable to other browsers like FF or arora or IE8 :p

[1].http://www.opensearch.org/Home
[2].http://www.opensearch.org/Specifications/OpenSearch/1.1#Autodiscovery_in_HTML.2FXHTML

Hello World and A Little Feature for Konqueror

My blog has been syndicated in planet KDE for quite a long time. But I haven’t really write a blog (again). Well, I think this might be a good time to start it again. First of all, I need to introduce myself, I was one of KDE Google SoC students in 2007 and 2008. I was working for KOffice for both of the Google SoCs.

But this time I won’t talk about KOffice, but instead about Konqueror. Few weeks ago I implemented a Google suggestion feature for Konqueror searchbar (because I miss that feature from FF – and also inspired by this and this). It was quite a simple patch, and it only worked for Google suggestion API. After submitting the patch to kfm-devel list, Germain Garand (the KHTML guru) suggested that I need to make this improvement more generic, meaning that it should be able to use other search suggestion engines apart from Google. I have finished the improvement about two months ago, but because of the freeze I couldn’t commit it. But since trunk is open again for KDE 4.4, I just committed this improvement to the searchbar plugin source code in KDE extragear.

Mandatory screenshot:

Currently it only supports Google (with parser from Ariya Hidayat – thanks Ariya!) , but I’m working on Yahoo suggestion engine. Other suggestion engines can be added easily as well (Bing anyone? – If it has any :p).

Also, still on my TODO list: A checkbox to enable/disable this feature.

Edit: I just found out there is something called OpenSearch. Seems that this can be used to create even more general engine without any need to write code for any provider specific parser. I’ll look into that tomorrow.

Edit 2: Bing also has suggestion API! (Not that I’m fan of Bing :p I’m still a google fan)

Debian Installation

So I already have a laptop, and the laptop is installed with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium. The harddisk size is 80 GB, but first 7 GB is taken by Acer recovery system, and 35 GB is used by Vista. So left around 36 GB for my Debian installation. I created 3 partitions on that 36 GB, 25 GB for /, 10 GB for data, and the rest is for swap space.

Problem #1

At the first time, I wanted to install Debian to my laptop from a USB stick. I found few nice articles about that, and followed all the instructions. But something weird happened, to copy the installer files (including the kernel), I needed to copy boot.img.gz to /dev/sda1 (my USB stick) using command zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/sda1. Maybe I was very tired so I can’t focus on what I was doing, I typed: zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/hda1. Guess what happen? I destroyed my / partition (on my old PC, not my new laptop), fortunately only few data there, and I still have one working partition (from my old 40 GB harddisk).

Problem #2

I still have a netinst CD from August 2006 (when I installed my-currently-destroyed Debian), the debian installer cannot detect my laptop DVD drive. After downloading the latest testing business card iso, the DVD is now detected.

Problem #3

So the installer proceed to installing the base system, I tried with 2 Singapore mirrors listed by the installer, both had some packages failed to download and the installation stuck there. I then entered the mirror manually, seemed that it solved the problem. And yes, the installer was able to download all necessary packages. But again, the base system installation failed because a dependency problem: a version of package didn’t match the required version (I forgot the package name).

I didn’t give up, I boot the installer but as rescue system, I entered the system, and I installed the Linux kernel and the grub boot loader manually. As long as I can boot to my installed system, I can finish the installation (previously I also had to do this, but I forget what problem occurred). After that, I put correct entry in the menu.lst, and install some basic packages (X.org) and KDE.

X.org originally only recognized 1024×768 resolution, but after installing 915resolution from Debian, the screen resolution was adjusted automatically and I can get 1280 x 800 in my 15.4″ widescreen display.

A screenshot from my new Debian GNU/Linux lenny/sid + KDE 3.5.6:

From KDE

However, still many things that have to be done:

• Set up the KDE4 + KOffice2 development environment
• Set up laptop hardware: sound card, wireless, power management, modem, 3D acceleration
• Start GSoC

New Laptop

On Tuesday, 17th April 2007 I ordered a laptop from Harvey-Norman (purchasing a laptop from Harvey-Norman eh?). The laptop is an Acer Aspire 5613ZWLMi, powered with an Intel Pentium Dual Core, 1.6 GHz with total 1 MB L2 cache (512 KB L2 cache for each core). I’ve never heard of this processor before, but after googling from the internet, I found that Pentium Dual Core is an OEM processor, this processor family appears in some brands’ value line notebooks in early 2007. Technically speaking, this is a Core Duo processor with L2 cache reduced to total 1 MB, the model is T2060 (compare: T2050, a Core Duo with 2 MB L2 cache). The laptop itself is quite cheap, it costs SGD 1199 or around USD 800, but I also bought additional 4 years warranty (so total is 5 years warranty) which costs SGD 175. The warranty itself is quite nice, it covers hardware service and replacement after 1st year warranty from Acer, and if the hardware part cannot be serviced or no replacement available, they will replace the laptop with a new one.
The configuration for the laptop itself:

• Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Processor T2080 (1.73GHz, 533MHz FSB, 1MB L2 cache)
• 1GB DDR II RAM
• 15.4″ WXGA TFT LCD, 1280 x 800, 16.7M colours
• Intel® 943GML integrated 3D graphics
• 80GB HDD
• DVD-Super Multi Double-Layer drive (DVD+/-RW)

This is the best price / performace laptop I’ve ever seen, I was considering Dell laptops since their cheapest one costs around SGD 1100. But after seeing this Acer model, I realized that the Dell is quite expensive, especially since the processor is only AMD Sempron 3500+ and only 512 MB of DDR2 SDRAM. I also found some Celeron models from Lenovo at around SGD 900, but they can be considered expensive for Celerons.
This laptop comes with preinstsalled Windows Vista Home Premium. The Vista partition takes around 35 GB, left 36 GB for my Linux (Acer uses first 7 GB for the Windows recovery system). The Vista Aero is quite nice, I’m pretty like it. But unfortunately I won’t use Vista as main OS .

GSoC 2007 Accepted (Part 2)

Ok, continue blogging today after few busy days. For my GSoC 2007 project, my assigned KDE mentor is Tomas Mecir. He is a KSpread developer, not a KWord developer. But this should not be a problem, since he also knows well the basic structure of KOffice. For KWord specific things, I may need to ask other developers (apart from reading the API and source code of course). Also whenever possible, I will need to make sure the tools are also useful for other KOffice applications (in my mind the closest candidate of sharing those tools is KPresenter). For the development environment of KDE4 (kdelibs4) and KOffice2, I already have them in my Debian box (an old Athlon XP-2200+), from KDE anonymous SVN of course. Few days ago, I just purchased a laptop (an Acer one, quite cheap), and I still need to set up the Linux (Debian – my distribution of choice) and of course I need to se up the KDE4 + KOffice2 development environment again. I’ll write about the laptop again tomorrow, or whenever I have free time
Btw, thanks to Darmawan who posted the 1st comment on my 1st blog, congratulations to you too. Nice to see other Indonesian in GSoC 2007, also nice that he is from a university in my hometown (Bandung), I will be going back to Bandung around end of June. (I saw the information from GSoC 2007 student profiles).

GSoC 2007 Accepted (Part 1)

Finally I’m accepted for this year Google Summer of Code (GSoC 2007). For this year, the student application started on 14th March (together with announcement of accepted mentoring application) and ended on 26th March 2007. I only submitted one proposal, Text-tool plugins for KOffice apps. Actually I wanted to write another proposal, but I didn’t have enough time to write that (I already spent few days to see actual KOffice source code + reading some previous student proposals from 2005 and 2006). Why did I choose the Text-tool plugins project (this is from the list of KDE SoC ideas)?

• I want something related to KWord / KPresenter. This project (as I stated in the proposal) will mainly benefit KWord, but it’s not limited to KWord only, because of the modular design of KOffice2. Now KWord is being developed at a very fast pace (by KWord guru Thomas Zander)
• I want to implement basic things that are needed for a word processor, the tools that I’m going to implement are essentials for a word processor.
• I don’t want to work on something that is too complex for me to finish during summer (I’ve had already enough headache with my internship project), I want this to be a fun project during summer.

I asked Thomas Zander to review it before submitting it and luckily he was willing to read it (thanks Thomas . I submitted the proposal quite early (around 18-19 March IIRC).
The announcement day was 12 April 2007, 5 pm Pacific Time, or around 13 April 8 am Singapore Time (Thursday). I had been checking the google soc page since Wednesday, and Wednesday night to Thursday morning I hardly slept, I woke up few times and checked the internet again and again, but nothing there. Then I went to my internship office, hoping that at the time I arrived (8 am) an email from google already sent to my mail. But unfortunately it was not the case, after checking up the SoC discussion, I knew that it was delayed for few hours. Suddenly someone posted to the groups, that he got application status changed to not accepted. Curious, I also checked mine, and found that the status was not accepted. I almost got heart attack, but few minutes later few people replied that the status was temporary, all were not accepted at that time. I read a really funny comment from one of the students:

On a related note, a huge number of Summer of Code result-awaiting nerds just suffered a collective heart attack

LOL, I’m one of them Fortunately, few minutes (or few hours later), I read a post stating that the result for some organizations had been released, and after checking KDE page, my application is there! And also the status had changed to application accepted! That day I was also sick, maybe because I didn’t sleep well during the night, but still I was full of happiness!

Thank God for all the blessing!