[Gnumed-devel] How to lower the barrier - plugins and videos

[Sebastian Hilbert]

Hi all,

Recently we were contacted off list by someone who was attempting to implement 
a plugin for GNUmed. Like many before him he had missed almost all information 
available at in Wiki. After some pointers like the little series on plugins in 
our Wiki it looked like he was on track. However despite initial success he 
hit a road block when attempting to create a plugin. He was offered to send us 
the problematic files but never did. We don't know if it was too much a 
hassle. Initially you would think that documenting stuff in the Wiki, offering 
direct help and more should be sufficient. 

It is not I believe. Many people are used to solving problems on their own 
instead of using the ressources readily available. That stems from the closed 
source world where you would reinvent everything over and over.

Not all is lost however. We are missing two ressources I believe to give the 
beginner programmer a chance. First is a set of templates. Second is a set of 
videos explaining some concepts behind GNUmed. I have tried to solve the first 
problem and have come up with a template plugin everyone can start off with.

I have them in my git tree and am currently learning how to share this work 
through gitorious. I guess this will be another blog post. I hope Karsten can 
chip in some information.

So far I have set up an account on gitorious. What now. Clone gnumed 
repository ? Let's establish how merge requests and stuff works. If it works 
out there will be a branch called template.

I suggest we ship those files in master as well so people pulling the 
developer source tarball will have it as well.

Then the content in the Wiki needs to be updated to reflect how to make use of 
the templates. The template files should be heavily documented in the code 
itself and maybe will see a plugin or two appear.

Another thing I would like to see is a set of movies showing what one can do 
with GNUmed. Those can either be rough demos or if you want to make the most 
of it write a little script so everyone can follow the script and submit 
videos. 

Sebastian