[wp-hackers] Fwd: [GSoC - 2014] Introducing Myself

[Ian Dunn]

On 2/9/14, 10:46 PM, Deven Bansod wrote:
> I want to take up the  "Forms Plug-in" project idea from the ideas page
> [1]. Has there been any work on this?

Hi Deven, thanks for your interest :)

The forms project is something that WordCamp Central (the team that 
organizes the global WordCamp infrastructure and WordCamp.org) has 
talked about and wanted for a long time, but we haven't written any code 
for it yet, so the student who works on it will be able to build it from 
the ground up.


 > I guess that the idea would involve a Plugin/Widget with a Settings
 > Page to add new Surveys and Forms while also providing the controls
 > to edit the Saved surveys.

It would be a plugin and would most likely be created around Custom Post 
Types.


> Themes for the
> Surveys/Forms and Other Complementary things can always be  added later.

It should be compatible with any theme, but that will mostly happen by 
default. It will require some basic CSS rules to define the generic 
layout of the forms on the front-end, but will inherit most of the 
visual elements from whatever the current theme is.


> As
> per my understanding, the project would require a good amount of PHP and
> WP-based interaction with the MySQL Databases along with JavaScript and
> AJAX for Data Validation.

Definitely good amounts of PHP and the WordPress API, and also some 
JavaScript. AJAX could be involved, but it wouldn't necessarily have to 
be. You can check out the WordCamp Organizer Application to see the kind 
of branching that happens based on how the questions are answered:

http://plan.wordcamp.org/become-an-organizer/organizer-application/

There probably won't be much MySQL (if any); at least not directly. The 
WordPress API handles 99% of that for you. I'd recommend playing around 
with custom post types to get a feel for it:

http://codex.wordpress.org/custom_post_type


> Please correct me on this if I am wrong and advise me on how to get started
> and get more acquainted with the community / development process.

Development for WordCamp.org happens on the Meta trac, and most of the 
source code lives in the Meta repository. Other than that, the 
processes, guidelines, etc are similar to the development of WordPress 
itself.

Here's some links if you want to dig deeper:

WordCamps:

* 
https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=accepted&status=assigned&status=new&status=reopened&status=reviewing&component=wordcamp.org&col=id&col=summary&col=status&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&order=priority 
- WordCamp.org tickets on the Meta trac
* 
https://meta.svn.wordpress.org/sites/trunk/wordcamp.org/public_html/wp-content/ 
- The SVN repo for WordCamp.org code
* http://central.wordcamp.org/ - The home page for WordCamp.org
* http://plan.wordcamp.org/ - Documentation about WordCamps. Mostly 
geared towards WordCamp organizers, but there's lots of helpful 
background info in there.

WordPress development in general:

* http://wordpress.org/about/philosophy/
* http://make.wordpress.org/docs/plugin-developer-handbook/
* http://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/


Thanks for your interest and good luck with your application. Let me 
know if you have any other questions.