GSoC - Weeks 1, 2 & 3

Hey :)
As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm working on revamping Amarok's scripting interface for GSoC 2013. Here's an update on what I've been working on these past 3 weeks.

1. Script Termination

Amarok now checks running scripts, and offers to terminate long running/ unresponsive ones after a 5 second duration, so you can now kill unresponsive scripts instead of having Amarok freeze on you.Here's a screenshot of the popup:

Yes, the popup's ugly. It's going to be a simple modal dialog instead, as Mark [my mentor, Amarok founder] suggested.

2. Collection Management

Now, script writers have access to Amarok's underlying collection management. Scripts can now access collections, query them using simple collection browser like queries, and copy/ move files among them.

3.Script Console

I've now been working on a new script console- here's a screenshot:

 

Hovering over the running script , you now get controls for stopping the script, and clearing it. Scripts are automatically saved to the disk (with random names and other plugin specs for now), and you can optionally have them cleared from the disk too.

Double clicking on the script, opens up the editor, and like the main editor on the left. It is a standard katepart, so you get cool features like syntax highlighting, word completion and auto-indentation.

This is quite crude a prototype right now, though. If approved, I'll hopefully be able to work on a code completion model, so you can have auto-completion for Amarok Script. This does, however, pose some difficulties, but they can hopefully be sorted out with the help of my mentor and the kparts team.

There's also two bug fixes- a fix for the crashes on disabling Free Music Charts, and a fix for crashes that may occur when the dependencies for a script weren't listed in its specs.

PS - My apologies for not having been regular with my blog updates- there isn't really much I can say in my defense, except for the assurance that I'll be more regular from now on.

PPS-
Again, I repeat:
Amarok Script Authors please provide feedback on what you'd like to see in the scripting interface here [comments on the blog are okay, too] so I can work on implementing it.