GSoC 2011 Tables Post GSoC Tasks

This is a list of tasks relating to tables that are up for grabs. Some of the tasks are small and relatively simple, some are more complex, and others are really complex. For each task I have written some thoughts and ideas on how to solve them.

TODO: Write these.

Task Progress

Task	Difficulty	Status
Cell / Table Properties in Property Palette	Medium	In Progress
Cell Text Formatting	Medium	In Progress
Load / Save	Medium	In Progress
Painting for Print Output	Medium	In Progress
Style Editing	Medium	In Progress
Cleanup of Resizing Code (Strategies)	Medium	TODO
Extend Unit Testing Python Script	Easy	TODO
Write C++ Unit Tests Where Possible	Easy	TODO
Row / Columns Selection Canvas Gestures	Easy	TODO
Optimize Table Painting	Hard	TODO
Import from CSV	Medium	TODO
Import from ODS	Hard	TODO
Horizontal on Top/Vertical on Top Border Painting	Hard	TODO
Odd/Even Row/Column Formatting in Table Style	Medium	TODO
Extend Scripter API and Port to ScripterNG	Medium	TODO
Adjust Table to Content	Hard	TODO
Separate Border Model	Hard	TODO
Breaking Tables over Multiple Frames	(Very!) Hard	TODO

Task Descriptions

Urgent Tasks

Style Editing

Support for editing all the properties of table / cell styles should be added to the StyleManager. The work is quite straightforward, and similar to the work that needs to be done in the Properties Palette (see below).

Cell / Table Properties in Property Palette

The existing "Table" property palette should be made more robust and support all properties of the table. A combobox for selecting the table style, as well as a "Remove Direct Table Formatting" button should be added. A new "Cell" property palette should be added, supporting all properties of cells.

Cell Text Formatting

The existing "Text" property palette should be modified to support formatting of paragraphs and spans of selected text in tables. Modifications to the relevant slots in ScribusDoc is probably also necessary.

Load / Save

Loading saving of both tables and cells, as well as table style and cells styles have to be written. This requires modification of the scribus15format load/save plugin and the saxx(...) functions of the styles, and possibly other places as well.

Painting for Print Output

The table item is currently only painted on the canvas. The first step will be to add support for tables to PDFLibCore, to support output to PDF. Hopefully most code in the CollapsedTablePainter, which paints a table on the canvas, can be reused. The easiest way will probably be to create a CollapsedTablePainter::paintTablePDF(PageItem_Table* table, PDFLibCore*, QString& output) which will do the work, but then CollapsedTablePainter will have to be made a friend of PDFLibCore to be able to access it's convenience functions for generating PS/PDF commands. I will have to look at it closer. After that, support for the other outputs needs to be added as well.

Small Tasks

Cleanup of Resizing Code (Strategies)

At the moment, the code in the the RowResize and ColumnResize canvas gesture for resizing the table overlay is pretty similar to the code in PageItem_Table that does the actual resizing of the table. Resizing is just a manipulation of a couple of lists of qreal. To avoid code duplication this code could be generalized into "resizing strategies" and put in e.g. tableutils.h/cpp to be shared.

Extend Unit Testing Python Script

This is pretty self-explanatory. The script scribus/tests/script/test_tables.py currently tests some basic functionality of the table, but more tests could be added. Adding a test is as simple as adding a new method to the TableTests class. Any added methods will be runned automatically when the script runs.

Write C++ Unit Tests Where Possible

There is not much, but there is some code that can be unit tested in an isolated manner without having to have a full Scribus application running. An example is the collapseBorders(...) function in tableutils.h/cpp. So adding unit tests for these in scribus/tests would be a good idea.