GSoC 2023 - Neutralinojs

Google Summer of Code 2023 ideas and guidelines - Neutralinojs

What is GSoC?

GSoC (Google Summer of Code) is an international program that motivates developers to contribute to open-source projects. Google awards stipends for contributors who successfully complete the GSoC program. GSoc contributors typically work on open-source development tasks under the guidance of organization mentors. Read more details about GSoC from the official website.

How to become a GSoC contributor?

Anyone (including newcomers and beginners) who is older than 18 can become a contributor with the GSoC 2023 program. Please follow the following steps:

Join Neutralinojs Discord channel using this invitation link.
Introduce yourself in the #gsoc channel on Discord.
Become familiar with the main project and sub-projects, start with the documentation, and then codebases.
Watch framework, JavaScript API, and CLI code explanation videos for detailed codebase explanations.
Read both contribution guide and code style guide, then start contributing.
Tell us about tasks that you would like to work on. If you have new ideas, mention them in community channels including your project goals.
Start drafting a proposal by discussing with mentors.
Submit your proposal and achieve the planned milestones based on the GSoC program schedule.

How to start writing a project proposal?

Make sure to follow the above initial steps and become familiar with the project.
Select a project idea out of the mentioned below
If you have an idea of your own / want to initiate one , post its summary and goals in a new GitHub discussion thread.
Wait until project maintainers give a feedback to the post (We can identify possible changes in the early stage).
Start drafting your proposal based on the Neutralinojs GSoC contributor proposal outline.

What is the project proposal template?

Please create your GSoC proposal according to the following outline:

Contact details (Name, Country, Email, GitHub username, Discord username, and a small description about yourself)
Neutralinojs experience (Explain your familiarity with Neutralinojs)
Contributions (Add links to your pull-requests, issues, and discussion threads)
Project description (Describe the project idea)
Goals (Summary of deliverables)
Tasks Timeline (Decompose your goals into tasks and map with the GSoC timeline)
Future contributions (How do you plan to contribute to Neutralinojs in the future?)

GSoC 2023 project ideas

We have listed down some crucial tasks below for contributing. But, feel free to discuss your own ideas with us via Discord or email (neutralinojs[AT]gmail.com). You can contribute Neutralinojs framework, CLI, client library and templates.

Thank you for contributing to open-source 🎉

1. Neutralinojs Builder: a community project to generate Neutralino app packages

Neutralinojs CLI generates platform-specific binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows with a platform-independent resource file. Right now, Neutralinojs application developers need to use various tools to generate application installers (i.e.,: AppImage, NSIS) for each operating system. However, we have no plans to add application installer generation support to the official CLI to keep the CLI implementation minimal and less platform-dependent. Therefore, the Neutralinojs community has initiated a project called "Neutralinojs Builder" to generate application installers. The Neutralinojs builder project is still a POC and experimental, so the idea is to finalize the project based on the suggested technical specification finalized by the framework developers.

Areas: Node.js, Neutralinojs, Application bundling on operating systems

Difficulty rating: Medium

Project size: ~350h

Possible Mentors: Shalitha Suranga, TBD

Suggested technical decisions

Creating a CLI plugin for the solution.
Expose a new command to generate application packages.

# Installing the plugin
neu plugins --add neutralinojs-builder

# neu builder <target> <arch>
neu builder nsis --x64 # NSIS setup for Windows x64
neu builder deb --ia32 # Debian package for GNU/Linux ia32
neu builder appimage --x64 # AppImage for GNU/Linux x64
neu builder deb # GNU/Linux Debian packages for all supported CPU architectures

# Use configuration from neutralino.config.json
neu builder

# Removing the plugin
neu plugins --remove neutralinojs-builder

If the developer run neu builder without any parameters, get the targets from the config file:

"cli": {
  "builder": {
    "linux": {
      "targets": [
        {
          "target": "deb",
          "arch": [
            "x64",
            "ia32",
            "armhf"
          ]
        }
      ]
    },
    "win": {
      "targets": [
        {
          "target": "nsis",
          "arch": [
            "x64",
            "ia32"
          ]
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Even though Neutralinojs provides x64 binaries officially, implement multi-architecture support.
Implement package targets as internal plugins (Import only required modules based on targets). Try to use modules like targets/deb.js, targets/nsis.js for dynamic loading.

2. Support Unicode characters in Neutralinojs Windows version

Issue: neutralinojs/neutralinojs#613

Unicode characters work without any issue on Neutralinojs Linux and macOS versions. But, Neutralinojs Windows version doesn't render Unicode characters correctly. The goal of this task is to use Windows Unicode APIs and fully support Unicode in the Neutralinojs Windows version.

Areas: Windows API, Refactoring, and Text Encoding

Difficulty rating: Medium

Project size: ~350h

Possible Mentors: Shalitha Suranga, TBD

Suggested technical decisions

Create helper functions to convert C++ string to Windows wide char and vice versa (Check this example).
Replace all ASCII Win32 functions with Unicode versions.

3. Make Neutralinojs compatible with older Windows versions

Issue: neutralinojs/neutralinojs#486

Neutralinojs is tested on Windows 10 and 11, but it is not well-tested with previous Windows versions. The goal of this idea is to update Neutralinojs framework source, build scripts, and DevOps workflow to officially support older Windows versions.

Areas: Windows API, DevOps, and Configuration

Difficulty rating: Medium

Project size: ~350h

Possible Mentors: TBD

Suggested technical decisions

None -- cause needs to be indentified first

4. NodeNeutralino: a community project to explain Neutralinojs custom backends

The goal is to create a sample wrapper project to guide developers to use a Node.js backend for a Neutralinojs app with the extension API. This project will use Neutralinojs via Node.js child process API and communicate with the Neutralinojs extension API.

Areas: Node.js and Neutralinojs

Difficulty rating: Easy

Project size: ~175h

Possible Mentors: TBD

Suggested technical decisions

Implement an API similar to Electronjs BrowserWindow class.

Example NodeNeutralino app code:

const { NeutralinoApp } = require('node-neutralino');

// Accepts all configuration options available in Neutralino.window.create
// Don't manipulate the config file -- use internal CLI arguments instead.
const app = new NeutralinoApp({
              url: '/resources', 
              modes: {
                window: {
                  width: 500,
                  height: 500
                }
              }
             });

// Every Neutralino.window API function is available except window.create and draggable regions API
app.window.setFullScreen();
app.window.hide();
app.window.show();

// All other Neutralino APIs are also available
app.storage.setData('testKey', 'testValue');
app.debug.log('Hello');
app.filesystem.createDirectory('TestDir');

// Neutralino.app functions are available directly via the app instance
app.broadcast('testEvent');
app.exit();

Try to implement without any third-party Node module.
Make every function asynchronous and throw Neutralinojs error codes properly.
Use Node.js child process API to spawn Neutralinojs binaries.
Create an app template for Neutralinojs CLI.
Use a project structure similar to the Neutralinojs client library.

5. Fix `os.setTray` function problem for older macOS versions

Issue: neutralinojs/neutralinojs#615

The os.setTray function fails on macOS Catalina and some other versions. The goal of this task to debug the Neutralinojs macOS binary on different macOS versions and apply a generic solution.

Areas: Cocoa API and Debugging

Difficulty rating: Medium

Project size: ~350h

Possible Mentors: TBD

Suggested technical decisions

Add additional configuration code to the webview fork rather than updating window.cpp if possible.

6. Adding window transparent setting to the configuration

Issue: neutralinojs/roadmap#1

Add the transparent (Boolean) option to the configuration to control the webview's opacity on all supported platforms. When the setting is set to true, and the CSS background also has opacity as 0, the user should be able to see through the window clearly. Transparency can be disabled by setting the transparent property to false. The developer can adjust the window transparency level with CSS.

Areas: GTK, Cocoa, Win32 APIs

Difficulty rating: Hard

Project size: ~350h

Possible Mentors: TBD

Suggested technical decisions

Try to implement the solution within window.cpp
Add implementation via a new function named setTransparent() under the window namespace. Invoke from __createWindow.
Use false as the default value.
Add as a CLI argument too (--window-transparent)

7. C++/JavaScript integration test system enhancements

Issue: neutralinojs/neutralinojs#706

Neutralinojs project has a integration test suite for testing both C++ and JavaScript code at once. Currently, Neutralinojs integration tests covers minimal tests to detect possible function breakdowns. The goal of this task is to write a complete test suite covering all aspects of Neutralinojs APIs and global variables. Also, we expect to run the test suite on Windows CI instance too.

Areas: Neutralinojs, Unit/Integration testing, Node.js and GitHub Actions

Difficulty rating: Medium

Project size: ~350h

Possible Mentors: Shalitha Suranga, TBD

Suggested technical decisions

Increase test coverage by adding more test cases.
Test global variables properly.

Contributing

We really appreciate your code contributions. Please read this contribution guide before sending a pull request. Thank you for your contributions.

Contributors

Past programs

GSoC 2022

Image created with contrib.rocks.

riffly/gsoc2023

GSoC 2023 - Neutralinojs

What is GSoC?

How to become a GSoC contributor?

How to start writing a project proposal?

What is the project proposal template?

GSoC 2023 project ideas

1. Neutralinojs Builder: a community project to generate Neutralino app packages

Suggested technical decisions

2. Support Unicode characters in Neutralinojs Windows version

Suggested technical decisions

3. Make Neutralinojs compatible with older Windows versions

Suggested technical decisions

4. NodeNeutralino: a community project to explain Neutralinojs custom backends

Suggested technical decisions

5. Fix os.setTray function problem for older macOS versions

Suggested technical decisions

6. Adding window transparent setting to the configuration

Suggested technical decisions

7. C++/JavaScript integration test system enhancements

Suggested technical decisions

Contributing

Contributors

Past programs

5. Fix `os.setTray` function problem for older macOS versions