[h.udo]

It's official! We've been accepted as a participating open source organization in Google Summer of Code 2019!

Prospective students, these are the dates that matter:
 

• March 25 (18:00 UTC) - Student application begins
  
• April 9 (18:00 UTC) - Deadline to file your student application
  
• May 6 (18:00 UTC) - Accepted student proposals are announced
  
• May 27 - Coding begins.
  

Please pay special attention to the application deadline. Take time to craft a thoughtful project proposal and discuss it with the community and prospective mentors.

You are strongly encouraged to engage on the forums and join #kodi-gsoc on Freenode to discuss your project and to clarify any doubts you may have.

[HarendraSingh22]

Congratulations guys !
I've been a user of Kodi since long and am looking forward to contribute to it !

[sabrex]

For the students planning to take part in GSOC 2019, may I suggest taking on a Google Photos add-on that uses the official Google API at https://developers.google.com/photos/ with the following functionality:

• Ability to set up a new user within the app and associate Google Photos account via oauth2 authentication (similar to YouTube add-ons user management and google account association mechanism).
  
• Ability to set up multiple users, each associated to a separate Google Photos account.
  
• Ability to browse and view photos and videos together with a similar user experience to photos.google.com or the Google Photos iOS/Android apps.
  
• Ability to view shared albums created by either the user or by other Google Photos users (if the user has been invited to those albums).
  
• Ability to handle sharing of photos/videos from the Google Photos mobile apps (i.e. using the Play on Kodi sharing option), not by attempting to download content from the phone (where it may not reside), but rather using the media token information received as part of the share to have Kodi pull the data directly from Google using the Google Photos API (similar to how the YouTube/Vimeo kodi add-ons handle playback when media is shared using Kore/Yatse/etc).
  

[RockerC]

For the students planning to take part in GSOC 2019, may I suggest taking on a Google Photos add-on that uses the official Google API at https://developers.google.com/photos/ with the following functionality:

• Ability to set up a new user within the app and associate Google Photos account via oauth2 authentication (similar to YouTube add-ons user management and google account association mechanism).
  
• Ability to set up multiple users, each associated to a separate Google Photos account.
  
• Ability to browse and view photos and videos together with a similar user experience to photos.google.com or the Google Photos iOS/Android apps.
  
• Ability to view shared albums created by either the user or by other Google Photos users (if the user has been invited to those albums).
  
• Ability to handle sharing of photos/videos from the Google Photos mobile apps (i.e. using the Play on Kodi sharing option), not by attempting to download content from the phone (where it may not reside), but rather using the media token information received as part of the share to have Kodi pull the data directly from Google using the Google Photos API (similar to how the YouTube/Vimeo kodi add-ons handle playback when media is shared using Kore/Yatse/etc).
  

 

Sorry, but that just sounds like you are simply suggesting the creation of a Google Photos Add-on for Kodi, keyword there being "add-on", or do I misunderstand you? If so then you need to understand that the creation a relatively simple single add-on for Kodi does in itself not improve Kodi's core functionality or infrastructure dependencies so can probably not be justified to spare a GSoC student slot for Kodi because the number of GSoC student slots are very limited.

As you can create addons for everything you can maybe see that if everyone started suggesting that each new addon for each online service should get a GSoC student slot is just unrealistic because there are really millions of online services that could be made into an addon for Kodi, and any of that online service and addons for them can be shut down or abandoned without it affecting any of Kodi's core functionalities. I'm not trying to speak for the Kodi Team but an educated guess is that they will want to reserve the few spots that they get for ideas that improve Kodi's core or infrastructure dependencies.

Addons for Kodi are like apps are for smart phones, and Kodi's core is almost like core features such as the operating-system, GUI-interfaces, internal players, plus app-store infrastructure on and for a smart phone. Ask yourself, would you rather have the few students that get accepted to GSoC to work on Kodi focusing on making addons (ie. apps) for whatever online service they prefer or would it be better if they focused on core features inside and for Kodi itself?

[sabrex]

 Sorry, but that just sounds like you are simply suggesting the creation of a Google Photos Add-on for Kodi, keyword there being "add-on", or do I misunderstand you? If so then you need to understand that the creation a relatively simple single add-on for Kodi does in itself not improve Kodi's core functionality or infrastructure dependencies so can probably not be justified to spare a GSoC student slot for Kodi because the number of GSoC student slots are very limited.

 In a sense, yes, the browsing of Google Photos media (both personal photos/videos and also content from shared albums), is largely an app function.  However, I'm not sure if the ability to handle sharing of photos and videos from within the Google Photos mobile apps via Kore/Yatse/Etc. would be simply an app function.  This would likely require Kodi core services to handle the share request by requesting the content using the token/identifier from Google using the Google Photos API. This would make the Google Photos support in Kodi truly impressive, as it would allow casting of personal photos/videos rely on cloud storage of that content, instead of attempting to download/stream the content directly from the mobile device on the local network.

Streaming/downloading content from mobile devices, even on fast wifi, is no longer practical as most people don't even store that media on their devices, but only on Google Photos, so it cannot be streamed from the device at all.  Even if the content was on the device, the bitrate at which its encoded often leads to massive buffering and interrupted playback on Kodi even on fast wifi networks.  Having a mechanism to download/stream the content directly from Google when content is shared to Kodi from Google Photos via Kore/Yatse is the way to go, and for that part, I'm not sure if the add-on itself would suffice, and core services within Kodi may need to be developed to support such functionality.

On top of this, I believe the full integration of Google Photos support within the Kodi core services is something that Google would be very interested in, and it would give the student undertaking such an effort a leg up in the selection process by Google.

[Martijn]

 Sorry, but that just sounds like you are simply suggesting the creation of a Google Photos Add-on for Kodi, keyword there being "add-on", or do I misunderstand you? If so then you need to understand that the creation a relatively simple single add-on for Kodi does in itself not improve Kodi's core functionality or infrastructure dependencies so can probably not be justified to spare a GSoC student slot for Kodi because the number of GSoC student slots are very limited.

 In a sense, yes, the browsing of Google Photos media (both personal photos/videos and also content from shared albums), is largely an app function.  However, I'm not sure if the ability to handle sharing of photos and videos from within the Google Photos mobile apps via Kore/Yatse/Etc. would be simply an app function.  This would likely require Kodi core services to handle the share request by requesting the content using the token/identifier from Google using the Google Photos API. This would make the Google Photos support in Kodi truly impressive, as it would allow casting of personal photos/videos rely on cloud storage of that content, instead of attempting to download/stream the content directly from the mobile device on the local network.

Streaming/downloading content from mobile devices, even on fast wifi, is no longer practical as most people don't even store that media on their devices, but only on Google Photos, so it cannot be streamed from the device at all.  Even if the content was on the device, the bitrate at which its encoded often leads to massive buffering and interrupted playback on Kodi even on fast wifi networks.  Having a mechanism to download/stream the content directly from Google when content is shared to Kodi from Google Photos via Kore/Yatse is the way to go, and for that part, I'm not sure if the add-on itself would suffice, and core services within Kodi may need to be developed to support such functionality.

On top of this, I believe the full integration of Google Photos support within the Kodi core services is something that Google would be very interested in, and it would give the student undertaking such an effort a leg up in the selection process by Google. 

To be honest i think we rather see students working on components that help the core functionality to be improved extended like profile support and add-on integration into one single library.

[sabrex]

 To be honest i think we rather see students working on components that help the core functionality to be improved extended like profile support and add-on integration into one single library. 

 Fair enough.  Personally, I always thought that the two missing core functions of Kodi were to act as a Chromecast receiver, and to accept shares of photos/videos directly from the Google Photos mobile app.  Now that Google has released the Google Photos API, it just seemed like GSOC would be a good opportunity to add that kind of support to Kodi. It's clear now that there are more fundamental priorities on the core side of things, however.

[RockerC]

@sabrex a more Kodi-core orient feature request of which the end-result could help achieve the same thing would be if Kodi's core first gets a Photo Library and Photos Database (same as it already has Video and Music Libraries/Databases), and then you also implement the concept which adds "media importing and library integration" that @Montellese was working on here => https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=224794

If Kodi already had a Photo Library and Photos Database then that "media importing and library integration" concept would, in theory, allow you to import your photos from add-ons for Kodi such as a Google Photos add-on into Kodi's own Photo Library/Database, and then if the JSON-RPC API was extended to support this it should, in turn, allow you to view those from remote apps for Kodi such as Kore and Yatse, etc..

Not exactly a weekend project or even a one summer only project...

[sabrex]

@RockerC That would be interesting, but I wasn't thinking that somebody would want to view google photos content inside kore/yatse.  Right now, if you open Google Photos on Android, you can open a photo or video, click on the share button and depending on whether you have Kore or Yatse installed, you'd see a "Play on Kodi" or "Play on Media Center" option available in the sharing menu.  Currently, neither of these actually do anything, since the media is usually on the cloud (not on the phone) and Kodi itself has no way to access that media.

With a proper Google Photos API integration into the Kodi Core, whatever URL or data is sent by kore/yatse with the play request would be handled using the Google Photos API for an authenticated user.  It would essentially allow casing of photos/videos using the Google Photos app to Kodi, with the Google Photos API as the mechanism by which the content is retrieved from Google's Cloud server with proper authentication.

[indikaNK]

It's official! We've been accepted as a participating open source organization in Google Summer of Code 2019!

Prospective students, these are the dates that matter:
 

• March 25 (18:00 UTC) - Student application begins
  
• April 9 (18:00 UTC) - Deadline to file your student application
  
• May 6 (18:00 UTC) - Accepted student proposals are announced
  
• May 27 - Coding begins.
  

Please pay special attention to the application deadline. Take time to craft a thoughtful project proposal and discuss it with the community and prospective mentors.

You are strongly encouraged to engage on the forums and join #kodi-gsoc on Freenode to discuss your project and to clarify any doubts you may have. 

Hi guys....Been around for a while with kodi-XBMC. first of all congratulations...I too partcipate in Gsoc this year !!! Happy to join the community

[indikaNK]

Do i need to come up with my own idea or can i make use of ideas in the kodi wiki forum?

[Razze]

Do i need to come up with my own idea or can i make use of ideas in the kodi wiki forum?

You can use the ideas from the wiki, but a real good new idea will probably trump anything else.

[indikaNK]

Do i need to come up with my own idea or can i make use of ideas in the kodi wiki forum?

You can use the ideas from the wiki, but a real good new idea will probably trump anything else.

Thank you..i will keep that in mind..guys not only for gsoc i will be with you from now on becouse kodi is the greatest i will provide my support in any way i can...😃

[indikaNK]

HI ....Do i need to start a new thread in order to post my proposal?

[indikaNK]

HI ....Do i need to start a new thread in order to post my proposal?
Becouse it seems i cannot start a new post...could someone help me?