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Welcome to my corner of the Web!

My name is Mihai and all I do is Web development, be it server-side (Perl, PHP, mySQL) or client-side. I am mainly interested of Web standards and related technologies. I've got good experience with Flash as well, but I no longer like it much.

I contribute on various web standards-related mailing lists. Check the links in the side bar (on the right). I also contribute with reviews and comments on various Web specifications (see my CV). Additionally, I am constantly working on several projects of my own.

I am an Opera user, but I also like Firefox, Konqueror and Webkit. I despise Internet Explorer for wasting many hours of my life when coding Web sites. I am an Ubuntu Linux user. 

PaintWeb - contributors wanted

PaintWeb is an open-source web-based paint application usable as a component within any other web application. From a technical perspective, the application uses very well known technologies like JavaScript, HTML 5 Canvas and CSS.

Project contributors wanted!

PaintWeb logo

If you are a student with spare time maybe you want to work on a serious project, where you can learn new things, where you can prove your skills. Maybe you thought many times about "cool" projects you could do, but you do not have the resources to just do it, then you might be interested of PaintWeb: you have the chance to break out of routine, to quit working on boring projects which level your skills down - you can work on a project where you advance your skills. You will learn what it takes to start your own project.

If you are a teacher or a professor and you have students passionate about computer science who do not have any practical project, then recommend joining PaintWeb to your students. As a teacher, you can help your students apply their skills while working in an international team, over the Internet without any physical boundaries. Besides these benefits, your students are given the chance to work with some of the newest web technologies, and they will also use source code version control tools like Subversion. The skills your students will develop are essential in IT jobs all over the world.

Why PaintWeb? Because PaintWeb will be integrated into Moodle 2 - the most popular open source virtual learning environment. Hundreds of thousands of students and teachers use Moodle all over the world. There is also a PaintWeb plugin for integration into TinyMCE - one of the most popular open source HTML editor, used by thousands of web sites and applications. Thus, your work counts and makes a difference to many people. If you want to be part of those who make image editing and manipulation possible inside Moodle, inside TinyMCE and many other open source projects, then join this project!

Who can contribute to PaintWeb? You, anyone! Are you a programmer? Then you can work on the JavaScript code, you can implement new features, or you can fix existing bugs. You are not a programmer? Then you can work on the project documentation, tutorials or translations. You think you are not experienced enough? Nothing to worry about, nobody was born expert - you just have to want to learn and you will be guided through the process of learning new things. Does it seem boring to work on a certain aspect of the project? No problem, you pick what and when you work!

What can you do for PaintWeb? You can write documentation or translations into other languages, and you can implement new functionality into PaintWeb as a web developer. You will learn to work in a cross-platform and cross-browser environment, you will become very well acquainted to technologies such as the DOM, HTML 5, Canvas and CSS among others. If you want, you can take a look at the TODO list from the project wiki, and also check the Issues tracker to see what you could do for the project and what features are already planned.

If you want to join this project then get started by sending an email to the mailing list at paintweb@googlegroups.com, or just contact the project author.  

Acest articol este scris în limba engleză. O traducere în limba română este disponibilă.

PaintWeb - se caută contribuitori

This post uses the Romanian language. A translation in the English language is also available.

PaintWeb logo

PaintWeb este o aplicaţie web de desenat ce poate fi folosită ca o componentă în orice altă aplicaţie web. Proiectul este open-source, sub licenţa GPLv3. Din punct de vedere tehnic aplicaţia foloseşte tehnologii foarte cunoscute precum JavaScript, HTML 5 Canvas şi CSS.

Se caută contribuitori!

Dacă eşti student sau elev şi ai timp liber poate doreşti să lucrezi la un proiect mai serios, mai mare, unde să înveţi multe lucruri noi, unde să demonstrezi ce ştii deja. Poate te-ai gândit de multe ori la proiecte "tari" dar nu ai cu cine să le faci, nu poţi să le faci de unul singur, atunci cel mai probabil te-ar interesa PaintWeb: ai şansa de a ieşi din rutină, de a renunţa la proiecte mici ce te plafonează - îţi poţi dezvolta aptitudinile tale pe plan profesional. De asemenea, vei căpăta experienţă în ceea ce priveşte pornirea propriului tău proiect pe viitor.  

Dacă eşti profesor şi ai elevi/studenţi pasionaţi de informatică dar care nu lucrează la vreun proiect, atunci recomandă-le PaintWeb. Ca profesor îţi poţi ajuta studenţii să înveţe să lucreze în echipă, prin Internet, fără limite fizice. Pe lângă lucrul în echipă, vor învăţa să lucreze şi cu cele mai noi tehnologii web, de asemenea studenţii vor lucra folosind unelte specializate precum Subversion pentru gestionarea versiunilor de cod. Aptitudinile deprinse de studenţi sunt esenţiale în slujbele din domeniul IT din întreaga lume.

De ce PaintWeb? Pentru că PaintWeb va fi integrat în Moodle 2 - cea mai populară aplicaţie web open-source de învăţământ la distanţă. Sute de mii de studenţi şi profesori folosesc deja Moodle pretutindeni. Există şi un plugin PaintWeb de integrare în TinyMCE - unul dintre cele mai populare editoare HTML, folosit în mii de siteuri şi aplicaţii web. Astfel munca ta contează şi va fi văzută de mulţi oameni. Dacă doreşti să faci parte dintre cei ce fac posibilă editarea de imagini în Moodle, în TinyMCE şi în multe alte proiecte open-source, atunci participă la proiect!  

Cine poate să contribuie la PaintWeb? Tu, oricine! Eşti programator? Atunci poţi lucra pe partea JavaScript, poţi implementa funcţionalităţi noi, sau poţi repara erori existente. Nu eşti programator? Atunci poţi lucra pe documentaţie, tutoriale sau traduceri. Crezi că nu eşti destul de experimentat? Nici o problemă, nimeni nu s-a născut expert - doar trebuie să doreşti să înveţi şi vei fi ajutat cu îndrumări. Ţi se pare plictisitor să lucrezi la o anumită parte din proiect? Nici o problemă, tu alegi ce şi când lucrezi!

Ce poţi face pentru PaintWeb? Poţi să scrie documentaţie sau traduceri, şi poţi implementa funcţionalităţi noi în calitate de programator JavaScript. Vei învăţa să faci aplicaţiile să ruleze pe mai multe browsere, vei învăţa diferenţele între ele, vei cunoaşte foarte bine DOM-ul, HTML 5, Canvas şi CSS printre altele. De asemenea, te poţi uita la lista TODO de pe wiki şi la pagina cu Issues pentru a vedea ce se poate face la proiect şi ce este plănuit pe viitor.

Dacă doreşti să contribui trimite un email pe mailing list la paintweb@googlegroups.com sau contactează autorul proiectului. După ce intraţi în contact puteţi discuta despre cum poţi începe să contribui la proiect.

PaintWeb updates

Hello world!

I want to update all of you on the latest happenings around the PaintWeb project.

Now that the summer has ended, I am starting to become busier with studies, but ... I still got the chance to work on some PaintWeb-related stuff. I moved out most of the things I had noted down in the TODO wiki page. These items are now showing in the issues tracker of the project, each being properly categorized, tagged and with more details.

I have also made some clean-up for the project front page, updated existing documentation and I have included some new documentation about web browser bugs affecting PaintWeb, and about Moodle integration.

Martin Langhoff has reviewed the code and published a proposal for merging PaintWeb into the Moodle CVS HEAD (for the Moodle 2 release). In response to further feedback I have made it easier to configure the PaintWeb packaging process, and I published more documentation about this.

Last, but not least, I am beginning to make PaintWeb snapshot builds available for download.

That's about all. Have fun!

Moodle 2.0 and PaintWeb test site

Hello everyone!

Two days ago I have uploaded a snapshot of the PaintWeb code and the integration scripts for Moodle 2.0 and Moodle 1.9, as required for the Google Summer of Code program. This snapshot contains only the code I contributed up until 14th of August 2009, and you can download it from the Google Summer of Code 2009 Moodle project site. Obviously, this code is provided only for recording the milestone I reached for the GSOC project deadline. Any paint tool user is supposed to get the latest code from my Git repository or from the PaintWeb project site.

Thanks to Anthony Borrow and Jordan Tomkinson, today a Moodle 2.0 with PaintWeb test site has been published. So, now you can try PaintWeb directly in Moodle. Make sure you login with the teacher account: user. Password is: demo.  

To try the paint tool, I have created a test course, and I added a glossary activity. Inside the glossary activity there's a concept I added. Go ahead and play with the glossary: add, edit or delete concepts. In the TinyMCE editor you can create new images and edit them seamlessly.

It should be noted that Moodle 2.0 and the paint tool integration are both under development. This means that Moodle devs have not yet completed upgrading all the code which deals with the HTML editors - so, other pages where TinyMCE is used might not have PaintWeb enabled because the configuration is still in "legacy mode" (no file attachments are allowed).

Anyone is welcome to provide me with feedback on the user experience, and any other thoughts.

Thanks!

PaintWeb presentation at LVLE 2009

Hello everyone!

Beside bug fixing and polishing PaintWeb in the past weeks, I have also prepared a presentation about all the work I did this summer, as part of my Google Summer of Code project. As such, I talked about my GSOC project at the Linux and Virtual Learning Environments 2009 seminary on Friday, the 28th of August.

You can download the presentation slides in Romanian and in English (PDF). You may also watch the slides online at Scribd.com, both in Romanian and in English. Any feedback is welcome!