Extension:PronunciationRecording/GSoC 2013/Project Updates

June
In the beginning of the month I was going through the documentation of Mediawiki codebase and the i18n framework. The beginning of the coding period was marked by installing the TimedMediaHandler locally and understanding its working. This was followed by a minor patch submission for "Including audio transcodes in TimedMediaHandler" : and studying how to write a handler for the WAV file format. Understanding about ID3 tags, RIFF container, WAV file format took some time as it was something new for me. During the course of writing the WAV Handler, we found out that the existing ID3 files were outdated and so I submitted a patch for updating the existing ID3 files. Our plan was to only allow PCM WAV to be uploaded, so for that I wrote a verifyUpload in the WAV Handler. Matthew's ingenious idea of using "wfDebugDieBacktrace" proved to be very helpful in testing the commit and finally it was merged. In the last week of June I started to work in the direction of "Implementing the Audio Recorder".

Mentor's Comments

 * In early June (during the Community Bonding Period), Rahul did a good job getting up to speed on MediaWiki and TimedMediaHandler, and continued planning for and designing the pronunciation recording flow. During the coding period, he successfully updated TimedMediaHandler to add WAV support.  There were some additional changes required, including updating the ID3 files, and only allowing PCM.  All of this was successfully completed by the end of June.  I believe he gained a better understanding of MediaWiki extension development in the process. Superm401 - Talk 18:09, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

July
The beginning of the month was marked by a team meeting with Quim Gil on the 2nd. The first few days of the month was devoted in testing the verifyUpload in the WAV Handler allowing only PCM WAV to be uploaded. After that we managed to get a repository for our extension and also got some positive feedback on the issue i.e "Allowing WAV uploads to Commons" raised at the Commons Village Pump http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2013/07#Adding_.wav_support_to_Commons. I worked on my javascript skills and also learnt jQuery in order to understand the RecorderJS library written by Matt Diamond. Chris Wilson, Developer Advocate at Google helped me understand the code a lot and during this time I developed an understanding regarding Web Workers too. During mid July I started working on developing my "Proof of Concept" by submitting patches https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/73017/ then based on the feedback from my mentors I improved it. I started to develop an extension on top of my POC( Proof of Concept ) so that it could be functional within the MediaWiki Environment, during this time I read the documentation about developing extensions thoroughly and also learnt how to use the "Debug Mode".I wrote the basic and necessary files for an extension like the README, PronunciationRecording.php, PronunciationRecording.i18n.php, etc. By the end of the month I made a Special Page "Special:PronunciationRecording" which provides a basic toolbar that has 5 buttons "Record","Stop","Preview","Clear" and "Upload"(Not functional yet) https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/74413.

17th June - 23rd June(Week 1)

 * Submitted a patch to "Include audio transcodes in TimedMediahandler". https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/69023/
 * Updating User Page.
 * Installing MediaWiki Vagrant.
 * Frequent Screen Shares with Matthew Flaschen.
 * Understanding ID3 tags, RIFF containers, WAV file format.
 * Submitted a patch to update existing ID3 files. https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/69952/
 * Started to work on the WAV Handler. https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/69401/ (Completed 60%)
 * Learned to rebase and bit of git basics too.

24th June - 30th June(Week 2)

 * Completed the work on WAV Handler. https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/69401/ and https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/71129/
 * Attended the GSoC/OPW IRC AllHands on 26th June.
 * Michael posted the request to enable WAV uploads on Wikimedia Commons Village Pump http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2013/07#Adding_.wav_support_to_Commons.
 * Started to work on "Implementing the Audio Recorder".

1st July - 7th July(Week 3)

 * Had our first team meeting with Quim Gil on 2nd July.
 * With the help of Matthew and QChris we got a repository for our extension.
 * Tested the code exhaustively so that it only allows PCM WAV to be uploaded.
 * Got some positive feedback on the issue raised at the Commons Village Pump http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2013/07#Adding_.wav_support_to_Commons
 * Worked on my rusty Javascript skills to comprehend the RecorderJS library written by Matt Diamond. Chris Wilson, Developer Advocate at Google helped me understand the code a lot.

8th July - 14th July(Week 4)

 * Spent the week developing a POC( Proof of concept ).
 * Learnt the jQuery way of selecting, hiding elements instead of the conventional method( Made life easy ).
 * Spent the week mostly learning jQuery and Javascript.
 * Learnt about Web Workers.
 * Got a little stuck up on how to playback the recorded voice, but eventually got through it.
 * Submitted the first few patchsets in https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/73017/ by the end of the week.

15th July - 21st July(Week 5)

 * Got feedback from my mentors regarding my "Proof of Concept".
 * Spent the week improving the "Proof of Concept" based on the feedback.
 * Read the documentation on how to develop extensions.
 * Started to shape my POC into an extension by adding the README and LICENSE file.

22nd July - 28th July(Week 6)

 * Started developing a Special Page "Special:PronunciationRecording" which provides a basic toolbar that has 5 buttons "Record","Stop","Preview","Clear" and "Upload".
 * Made files for the extension i.e PronunciationRecording.php, SpecialPronunciationRecording.php, PronunciationReccording.i18n.php.
 * Made different modules and loaded them via the "Resource Loader".
 * Submitted patches in gerrit. https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/74413