GSoC 2009 Projects

http://audacityteam.org/wiki/images/6/68/GSoC2009.png

The Audacity Team is very pleased to announce that both our GSoC students passed with flying colors, and on September 1, we released a new beta version (1.3.9) with many bugs fixed, thanks to their efforts and those of other team members. We are much closer to our target of a new stable 2.0 release later this year.

One of our mentors this year, Michael Chinen, was a GSoC student last year. Michael and another student from last year, Руслан Ижбулатов (LRN), have continued to make great contributions to Audacity, and we appreciate Google's support last year in starting them working on Audacity.

Thanks to the students, mentors, and Google Open Source Programs Office!

Bugfixing, help-generation script, auto-volume determination
This project is primarily a ‘BugFix Superstar’ application where I commit myself to help Audacity to meet its main objective, fixing bugs so as to reach a stable state for 2.0 release.

Being myself an Audacity user as a DJ and producer I propose to create a new simple and useful feature for pre-record automatic volume detection. I will also work on User Interface improvements.

To meet community needs I've included on my GSoC project the creation of a solution for problems in generation of the zipped manual.




 * Mentored by: Martyn Shaw
 * Idea: Adapted from idea on list.
 * Mid Term Spin Off: 3 ‘P1 or P2 issues’ fixed; 7 ‘P3 to P5 issues’ fixed. Script to generate help zip file client side so that release is no longer blocked on help.
 * Project Background Page: Background
 * Project Progress Page: Progress

Bugfixing, scripting and find-notes improvements
Audacity is currently focused on the next stable release, so bug-fixing and tools to aid release are priorities. This project was aimed at:


 * Fix a selection of the problems from the release checklist
 * Further develop the currently experimental scripting support
 * Work towards completing the 'Find Notes' feature by improving the related code

This helps the project move faster towards the next release and beyond.

In the event, work on "Find Notes" was dropped in favour of more bug-fixing and scripting work, as per the mid-term evaluation noted below.




 * Mentored by: Michael Chinen
 * Idea: Adapted from idea on list.
 * Mid Term Spin Off: (at least) Windows dll that allows a perl script to control import and export of wav files and apply effects. Problems with dialogs crashing non-GUI thread solved.  Several linux-specific bugs solved.
 * Project Background Page: Background
 * Project Progress Page: Progress
 * Module Description: Scripting Module

Other Information about the Projects

 * Overall Audacity Project Admin Vaughan Johnson

13th July 2009: Both projects passed the mid term having achieved the mid term goals. This year with a smaller group of students we've not been doing semi-monthly alphas. The need to coordinate changes is less. We are now more focused on a stable release. As a result the project goals for Dan's project have changed with much more being added into the scripting part - to make it useful in testing and in automated screenshot capture - and the planned substantial changes to track painting code being dropped, partly because of concerns about stability risks as we approach a stable release. Andre's project goals have changed less. The aim is to keep the AV code simple rather than risk a more complex interface that might not be completed in the remaining time.

01 September 2009: Both projects passed final evaluation based on the coding done, excellent communication and a general willingness to contribute to our work during the Summer. Overall, GSoC 2009 moved Audacity significantly further towards its goal of a new Stable 2.0 Release towards the end of the year.