Utter newbie seeking OSS project advice
 

Normally, I'd give a long and boring introduction, so I'll jump right in. I recently fell in love with FireFox’s mouse gestures, and I am interested in developing an addon to linux proper that would bring the same functionality to the OS. Unfortunately, I don’t know a damn thing about programming GUI interaction in linux. Just for the sake of discussion, let’s settle on Fedora, KDE 3.2. Or any other suggestions you all might have.

Ideally, my mouse gestures program would function more along the lines of Black & White (the video game) then FireFox, as I feel FF’s implementation is too restrictive – there are only a limited number of commands you can set up before the gestures take too long to complete. B&W, on the other hand, uses what I strongly suspect to be a neural network to recognize the mouse patterns, allowing for options such as “star” and “clockwise spiral.” I’d also like to enable the user to design patterns to match specific commands, like buttons on the toolbar.

I’m no stranger to programming in general, and I’ve had enough experience with ANNs to feel confident about the core of the algorithm, but I am not quite sure where I ought to turn now. Should I start a sourceforge project and wait until someone with the applicable linux knowledge is drawn to me, like a moth to a burning flame? Should I lurk through forums until I pick up someone who can make a pretty GUI? Should I bit the bullet and learn the shit myself?

Any help would be appreciated.

I'd think that you should ask on some KDE core
developers mailing list as to how feasible your
approach is, how easily a tool like yours can be
hooked into the way the DE interacts with other
windows (just an example - if you do mouse
gestures and capture those in KDE, what will
happend to firefoxes mouse gestures?) ... I'm
aware that your thingamajic could replace FF's,
but what about people who don't use KDE?

Cheers,
Tink

Or gnome, or whatever. My post was more along the lines of "what do I need to get started with this?" rather than "This has to be in KDE."

Well .. where I was heading is that there's not likely
a WM independent way of dealing with the mouse
gestures .... if you want to go a level higher you'll
have to patch X and build an interface for WM's to
make use of your mouse gestures.

"That's all", he said.


Cheers,
Tink