For the past two URP sessions, I have worked on goffe, an offline file/folder editor designed to make offline filesystem changes to a networked volume. Peter Healy has joined me for the Fall 09 session. Progress was substantial during the summer when time was a little less restricted, and nearly the entire back-end was completed. Work began on the GUI during the fall, as well as furthering a utility to generate XML from the filesystem data.
After attempting a couple stop-gap solutions, often using the utility “tree”, we agreed the best way to get the flexibility we needed was to contribute a solution to the tree project directly. We did hear from the maintainers of the tree project during the semester and plan to work with them and develop a contribution immediately. As for the GUI, progress has been slow due to some poor planning by myself in the early development stages of goffe as well as an overbooked fall semester.
At present, we are deciding whether to rewrite the majority of the back end based on existing code, patch what is currently there, or contribute to a different project after completing our contribution to tree. I do not want to abandon this code as I believe the utility is very unique and most of the legwork on the back end has been completed. I believe the processes used and the pseudocode behind them are solid, however, since I have no formal training in programming with classes, Pete has found it difficult to adapt what is currently there for use in a GUI. I am hoping we can resolve these differences by simplifying some methods and combining others to make them more accessible to additional code.
In summary, our outlook for spring is very optimistic. We have a project ready to contribute to in tree, and we are looking forward to implementing our changes and finalizing a deliverable. Additionally while goffe's future is uncertain, should we decide that the necessary changes are far beyond what can be completed this semester, we look forward to joining a different project. Alternately if we continue work on goffe as I am hoping, we will be working together to determine more exactly what must be incorporated in the back end so I can implement the changes and Pete can begin progress on the GUI.
