I would like to contribute to the linux community. Besides answering posts at LQ I would like to contribute via applicatoin development. With that in mind I've been racking my brain for the past month or some trying to come up with some sort of unique idea for an application that someone wants/needs that doesn't exist for linux yet. I'm posting this now to get some ideas or opinions of the faithful LQ Thanks!

My vote: an application which sits in the notification area and intercepts a specific keystroke, or key combination, then takes a screenshot and saves it as a PNG in a folder of my choice. This program would need to be much smarter and preferably faster than import --window root and so forth. Ideally, it would still work even if I'm playing some sort of fullscreen game.

My issue with screenshot taking applications in Linux is they popup in your face, or are horribly slow due to having been written in some sort of scripting language. A nice, fast, powerful screenshot taking app written C that sits unobtrusively in the notification area and takes screenshots once I press a key combo would be marvelous.

The program Purrint for Windows is very close to what I'm shooting for.

Also, another good choice would be a graphical firewall. There needs to be an application for Linux that will log all network activity invoked by every process, and notify and ask me permission if an unusual process wants to use the internet. Something like "Little Snitch" in the Mac world.

Some day I may write these myself if no one else does. Sadly, my knowledge of C is limited.

I'm not trying to be a kill-joy (I promise), but it may seem like it.

First, how much programming experience do you have? The reason I ask is that many people interested in programming vastly underestimate the amount of time required to write an application from scratch. Commandline programs can be hard enough (because you focus on implementing the actual useful features of the program). Add on a GUI, and there's a whole other can of worms (window layout, activation/deactivation of buttons, responsiveness, "pretty-ness", etc.) It's a lot of work to get a program written that other people find useful and polished enough to distribute.

Don't get me wrong, it's possible, and people work on these kinds of things everyday, but it's a significant investment in time.

My suggestion would be to start small... maybe even not writing software at all. How about documentation? Is there a program out there that you really like, but feel the documentation is lacking/overly-technical? When programmers write documentation (if you can get them to write it), they tend to write from a technical perspective. The technical perspective, while informative, can be overwhelming to the regular user. You could consider writing a "plain English" version of the documentation for "regular" users. You don't even need to ask permission. Just start writing. When done, talk to the project folks, tell them you have a document you'd like them to look over. You'll go through a process of refinement if they're interested. If not, you can always "publish" your documentation online somewhere as an "unofficial guide." Though, you might still want to contact someone beforehand to make sure you're not duplicaing effort; they may be in the process of a documentation re-write.

If you're interested in the idea, you might go to freshmeat.net or www.tldp.org to find a project that might be able to use a(nother) writer. It may even get you immortalized as a project member in the credits (without even writing a single line of code)

a long the same lines as dark helmet you could always submit bug reports. Use a program you like and possibly in a language you know and start using it and seeing if you can make it crash or come up with errors and report your findings. i say pick one with a programming language you know cuz you could look at the code while your bug testing and it may improve your programming skills if you do end up attempting software development later on. Also you don't need to write a full blown program for it to be useful. Maybe there is a program you use that you can write plugins for. In any case have it be something that you yourself enjoy and that you want. Then if other people want the same thing you can share it, but if not you still have a tool you use. good luck with whatever you choose.

Dark_Helmet --
First, I just wanted to say that I appreciate your post. As far as programmning experience I have a few years under my belt. But how is one to get any better without actually doing something? With that said I don't mind the investment in time as long as it goes into something useful in the end. I would much rather be programming something useful then playing computer games.

Dark_Helmet & dr_zayus69 --
You both had good ideas (either documentation or plugins) about doing something with software that I like. The only problem with that for me is that 1.) I truly don't use that much software in linux. Seriously, all I use is XMMS, GAIM, Firefox, OpenOffice (when I need to do some undergraduate work), Torsmo, and Adesklets. There really isn't much I can do with that. The original XMMS to my knowledge is no longer being developed. Also I think the development for Adesklets is slowing down to a crawl. So with the daily software that I use there really isn't anything I can contribute on the coding level. As far as documentation all this software is relatively easy to use so it doesn't make much sense there.

That is why I came to LQ.org because I was seeking some answers from other linux users as to software that they would like to have. For some reason I can't think of anything else I need/want on linux. I guess I'm not a "power" user then. Even the little tools that people write in BASH. I can't even think of any of those that I would want. That is why I'm seeking counsel Thanks!

i think you have to ask yourself what program would interest you and excite you. And then when you have an answer to that ask if other people would find that program useful. But some things on my wish list are:

1. an RSS reader that will allow you to sync it up to other copies of itself on other machines.

2. a none comerical win game emulator, i don't play pc games enough to subscribe to cedega

3. an instant messanger that can use webcams on linux.

dr_zayus69 --
I've been thinking for a long time about a program that would interest and excite me. To this date I've been unable to think of something that I would like to have for linux that doesn't already exist. I appreciate your thoughts.

1. That is an interesting idea. Care to elaborate a little more?

2. I think Wine takes the cake on this one.

3. I believe the next version of GAIM will include support for this.

I appreciate that you appreciated my post

There was no offense intended when I asked about your experience. I've seen many, many posts in the past of people eager to help open source projects and then saying, "what should be my first language?" They really don't know what they're getting into. So I try to approach it as diplomatically as possible.

Indeed you're right: you need to program, to stretch your abilities by programming to improve your skills. The best judge of what your skill levels are is your own judgment--what you're comfortable with. So take on whatever you think would be a reasonable challenge.

Here are two things I've always thought of doing, but they're not completely new programs:

1. Write a patch to modify bash's source code regarding the PATH environment variable. Instead of looking in only the specified directories in PATH, have bash search through subdirectories for executables in the directories listed. In other words, I hate having all the applications of every piece of software mingle together in ???/bin. To me, it makes more organizational sense to install programs in their own directory. Then contain each application-specific directory in a top-level directory--then put that top-level directory in PATH.

2. Modify make to read in XML-based Makefiles. Not really a glamorous project, but I think Makefiles need a better organization to them other than "oh, if a tab starts the line, then it's a command--otherwise it's a target or variable or ..."

elaboration on 1.: ok well i don't know if you've used liferea at all. But if it is a new feed that you haven't read it shows up as bold. if you click on it and read it the text isn't bold. I have liferea on my desktop and on my laptop. my desktop is on all the time and i don't use my laptop often. So what i meant is i'd like it if i used liferea on my desktop and checked out all the stories on digg or what have you and then if i go on my laptop later on i'd like it to be smart enough that it knows i clicked on all those feeds on the desktop copy so that it doesn't show me the links in bold. hope that wasn't too confusing.