gsoc-2024-next-zulip-mobile-app-with-flutter.md

Google Summer of Code 2024 at Zulip - Work Product

Hey 👋, Khader Mohammad Khudair here. This is a summary of all the work I did for the future Zulip mobile client, zulip-flutter, and my personal experience as a part of the Google Summer of Code 2024.

What is Zulip?

Zulip is an open-source chat application that combines the immediacy of real-time chat with an email threading model. With Zulip, you can always focus more on important conversations than finding an important message in a mountain of messages.

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ℹ️ Project information

Title: Next Zulip mobile app with Flutter
Size: Large (350+ hrs)
Organization: Zulip
Repository: zulip-flutter
Mentor: Ken Clary
Contributor: Khader Mohammad Khudair

🌌 Overview

During my summer work on Zulip, I tackled a variety of tasks, including feature additions and enhancements. I successfully merged 15 thoroughly reviewed PRs, contributing over 3,500 lines of code. Additionally, three more PRs with substantial code contributions are currently under review and will be merged soon. My key contributions include implementing new features, developing and optimizing data structures and algorithms, and enhancing the application's UI/UX for better performance and user experience.

🏗️ Contributions

🔗 Quick links

• PRs merged
• PRs closed (unmerged)
• PRs merged (before GSoC)
• PRs I reviewed
• Issues I opened

🎉 PRs merged

1. #846 - api: Rename to ChannelDestination and ChannelPostPolicy from "stream"
2. #841 - api: Rename stream to channel in events
3. #840 - api/notif: Rename FcmMessageStreamRecipient to FcmMessageChannelRecipient
4. #839 - api: Rename UnreadStreamSnapshot to UnreadChannelSnapshot
5. #838 - channel_colors: Rename Stream to Channel
6. #837 - narrow: Rename StreamNarrow to ChannelNarrow
7. #802 - docs: Create setup guide, Add guide to setup on a cloud server
8. #801 - channel: Rename StreamStore to ChannelStore
9. #779 - action_sheet: Add "Mark as unread from here" button
10. #778 - intl: Rename stream to channel in translation labels
11. #714 - subscription_list: Show a dot for unreads if channel is muted
12. #711 - subscription_list: Show muted streams as faded in streams list
13. #710 - ui: Use faster animation for mark as read
14. #707 - ui: Rename streams to channels in user-facing strings
15. #704 - internal_link: Recognize channel operator in narrow links
16. #627 - autocomplete: Introduce topic input autocomplete

❌ PRs closed (unmerged)

1. #848 - api: Rename StreamMessage to ChannelMessage
2. #847 - api: Rename ApiNarrowStream to ApiNarrowChannel

🕵️‍♂️ PRs still open

1. #884 - autocomplete: Introduce channel/topic #-mention
2. #875 - subscription_list: Show @-mention indicator when that applies
3. #832 - channel_list: All channels screen

🎊 PRs merged (before GSoC)

1. #604 - content: Handle blank text nodes after code blocks.
2. #603 - content: Handle

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   horizontal lines
3. #589 - content: Handle strikethrough, the element
4. #582 - autocomplete: Exclude deactivated users from @-mention autocomplete popup
5. #581 - subscriptions: Fix stream name sorting case insensitively

📝 PRs I reviewed

1. #916 - lightbox: Toggle wakelock while video is playing
2. #880 - api: Add stream/update event
3. #856 - Replace flutter_local_notifications with pigeon bindings
4. #844 - profile: Display user email
5. #816 - compose_box: Replace compose box with a banner in DMs with deactivated users
6. #813 - notif: Add more tests for messaging style notif and fix for fetchBitmap
7. #793 - login: Show visiblePassword type keyboard only when password is unobscured
8. #781 - internal_link: Generate narrow links with "channel", not "stream"
9. #718 - notif: Support messaging-style notifications
10. #713 - msglist: Add "Copy message link" button to action sheet
11. #703 - notif: Create summary notification

🆕 Issues I opened

1. #712 - Show a dot for unreads if channel is muted

🔜 Immediate future work

As there are still PRs open (under review), I intend to continue working on those to get them merged.

🧗 Challenges

Living in Gaza, Palestine, I had faced significant challenges during the program. The ongoing conflict in my area made it difficult to maintain consistent work and stay online for extended periods. I experienced a month-long stretch of internet outages, and throughout the program, power outages were a constant struggle. Despite these obstacles, I remained committed to my work and continued to push forward.

💡 Learning experience

During the summer of 2024, I had the opportunity to work on the Zulip Flutter application as part of Google Summer of Code, an experience that has been transformative for my programming journey. These months have been pivotal, offering valuable insights and skills that have greatly contributed to my professional development. Some key takeaways from this experience include:

• Code Reviews: This summer marked my first experience reviewing someone else’s code. While it was initially challenging, I quickly realized the immense value in code reviews. They provided me with insights into different approaches to solving specific problems and enhanced my ability to critically analyze code.

• Open-Source Best Practices: I had always wanted to contribute to open source but wasn’t sure where to start or if I had the right skills. Contributing to Zulip introduced me to the best practices in code management, version control, and maintaining consistency within a large-scale software project.

• Software Testing: Before this project, I was unsure about how software tests were written. That changed with my first PR, where I had no choice but to write tests, as it's an essential aspect of Zulip's development process. Since then, I’ve written tests for almost all of my PRs, learning not only how to write them but also how to make them clean and readable, thanks to the continuous guidance of the amazing maintainers.

🌟 Acknowledgements

I want to extend my deepest gratitude to Google and Zulip for believing in me and providing me with this golden opportunity to be part of this incredible program and work on such an exciting project. I am especially thankful to Greg Price, Chris Bobbe, Zixuan James Li, and my mentor Ken Clary for their unwavering guidance and mentorship. Their patience and support were invaluable, and it was a true blessing to learn from them, gaining not only programming skills but also profound insights into software engineering as a whole.

I also want to express my appreciation to my talented peers, Sayed Mahmood Sayedi and Rajesh Malviya, for their helpful and constructive reviews on my PRs. Their collaboration made this journey even more rewarding.

📅 Post GSoC

My summer at Zulip has been an incredibly rewarding experience, and I’m excited to remain actively involved with the project beyond the program. There’s still significant work ahead to make the Zulip Flutter client more feature-rich and ready for release, and I’m eager to contribute to that effort. Many of the issues I initially planned to address during GSoC were postponed in favor of higher-priority tasks, but I’m committed to picking up those challenges and helping to bring the app closer to launch.

Additionally, I’m looking forward to supporting new contributors as they join the project. I want to ensure they feel as welcomed and supported as I did during my early days, thanks to the incredible guidance from the project’s maintainers.