Changes

There are a number of educational applications available on the K Desktop Environment. Sugar, having education in mind, would like to use these applications. The only problem is that these applications  are written for KDE using the Qt toolkit, while Sugar uses the GTK+ toolkit. Therefore for Sugar to have access to these applications they must be made compatible with the GTK+ toolkit.

There are a number of educational applications available on the K Desktop Environment. Sugar, having education in mind, would like to use these applications. The only problem is that these applications  are written for KDE using the Qt toolkit, while Sugar uses the GTK+ toolkit. Therefore for Sugar to have access to these applications they must be made compatible with the GTK+ toolkit.

Trolltech, the developer of the Qt Toolkit, has included QGtkStyle into Qt 4.5. The QGtkStyle class provides a widget style rendered by GTK+ (http://doc.trolltech.com/4.5/qgtkstyle.html). QGtkStyle will allow programs written in Qt to integrate better into desktop environments that use GTK+. Using QGtkStyle as an alternative to recoding an entire program from Qt to GTK+ will dramatically speed up the process of bringing KDEEdu applications to Sugar.  

Trolltech, the developer of the Qt Toolkit, has included QGtkStyle in Qt 4.5. The QGtkStyle class provides a widget style rendered by GTK+ (http://doc.trolltech.com/4.5/qgtkstyle.html). QGtkStyle will allow programs written in Qt to integrate better into desktop environments that use GTK+. Using QGtkStyle as an alternative to recoding an entire program from Qt to GTK+ will dramatically speed up the process of bringing KDEEdu applications to Sugar.  

The only drawback to using QGtkStyle is that the Qt libraries will still be needed to run KDEEdu applications on Sugar. This may pose a problem for hardware with less resources such as the OLPC XO-1. After porting a KDEEdu application to Sugar and finding it stable, I will try to reduce the number of Qt libraries by removing ones that are not needed by the application.

The only drawback to using QGtkStyle is that the Qt libraries will still be needed to run KDEEdu applications on Sugar. This may pose a problem for hardware with less resources such as the OLPC XO-1. After porting a KDEEdu application to Sugar and finding it stable, I will try to reduce the number of Qt libraries by removing ones that are not needed by the application.

* Convince us, in 5-15 sentences, that you will be able to successfully complete your project in the timeline you have described. This is usually where people describe their past experiences, credentials, prior projects, schoolwork, and that sort of thing, but be creative. Link to prior work or other resources as relevant.

* Convince us, in 5-15 sentences, that you will be able to successfully complete your project in the timeline you have described. This is usually where people describe their past experiences, credentials, prior projects, schoolwork, and that sort of thing, but be creative. Link to prior work or other resources as relevant.

This summer I will change my major from Electrical Engineering to Computer Engineering. The change is happening due to my increased interest in programming and open source software. My interest in software started when I took an introductory course on C programming. In this course I successfully developed programs to act as automatic teller machines, inventory databases, etc. I came to realize how useful programming knowledge is in our time. Later in my school career I took a course on Computer Organization. This course was based more on hardware but we used programming to understand the concepts. Our project for this course was to develop a program to act as a MIPS processor emulator; this emulator needed to successful process different instructions based on the MIPS datapath given to us. This would be my first experience with a large and complex program.

This summer I will change my major from Electrical Engineering to Computer Engineering. The change is happening due to my increased interest in programming and open source software. My interest in software started when I took an introductory course on C programming. In this course I successfully developed programs to act as automatic teller machines, inventory databases, etc. I came to realize how useful programming knowledge is in our time. Later in my school career I took a course on Computer Organization. This course was based more on hardware but we used programming to understand some of the concepts. Our project for this course was to develop a program to act as a MIPS processor emulator; this emulator needed to successful process different instructions based on the MIPS datapath given to us. This would be my first experience with a large and complex program.

Eventually, I realized that most of my programming knowledge is based on developing engineering/scientific command line applications. So earlier this year I set a goal for myself to learn to use graphical toolkits. In order to learn the two major toolkits used in my experience, Qt and GTK+, I decided to help port applications between the two toolkits. This was to become my summer project, until I heard about Google Summer of Code and the KDEEdu idea from SugarLabs.  

Eventually, I realized that most of my programming knowledge is based on developing engineering/scientific command line applications. So earlier this year I set a goal for myself to learn to use graphical toolkits. In order to learn the two major toolkits, Qt and GTK+, I decided to help port applications between the two toolkits. This was to become my summer project, until I heard about Google Summer of Code and the KDEEdu idea from SugarLabs.  

I have already decided to dedicate myself to learning the skills needed for this idea over the summer. Nonetheless, I feel that working in a structured way with professionals would be extremely beneficial. My dedication to learning these skills and help from my mentor and the community will make success for this project a reality.

I have already decided to dedicate myself to learning the skills needed for this idea over the summer. Nonetheless, I feel that working in a structured way with professionals would be extremely beneficial to me and the open source community. My dedication to learning these skills and help from my mentor and the community will make success for this project a reality.

====You and the community====

====You and the community====