What’s My Project?
Interesting as the title says it all, Well I got my first bug for Bespin assigned to me, which should also introduce me into Bespin coding and have a further understanding of how it all connects. It’s one of those overwhelming feelings, like your excited but you do not know where to start. So let me introduce what it is I’ll be working on. As I mentioned in my previous post indicating that Bespin is a web-based framework for code editing and the latest stable version is 0.4.4. Bespin has a lot of bugs that are needed to be fixed… So one of the issues reported was that when a user clicks on a text or a keyword in the editor, it should only highlight that selected word, not any special characters embracing it such as parenthesis, quotes,periods, or spaces etc.  Now you may wonder why it is important, well a person may just want to copy the text alone and paste it elsewhere, thus not having unnecessary characters attached to it allows the task to be completed faster and a less  of a hassle of having to remove the unnecessary characters first and then pasting.

The bug is filed on bugzilla with ID number 509492 and you can visit the bug page directly using this link https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=509492. The page contains a descriptive detail and history about the bug and who it is currently assigned to (of course me).

Why Did I Select This Project?
The reason I choose this bug as my project was because I am interested in Bespin which I mentioned in my previous post rocks. Since I have a lot of interest in User Interface and I believe that the way a user interacts with the application can make a huge impact on productivity and easiness. Therefore this bug can be annoying to the user as most text editor’s work as the solution is expected and users will expect the same from this editor. Another reason this bug caught my eye was its scope. Not saying that I choose this because it was simple but rather something that was suitable for a new person who has just started to get involved in fixing bugs.

So Where Do I Start?
First task is to understand how Bespin works and then do research as this involves JavaScript, Python and regular expressions. So I will review these and get familiar with them again since it has been a long time that I worked with them.  As I continue my research I will get Bespin source code on my local machine and start my work from there that includes looking at existing code that currently performs this highlighting functionality. Apart from that as for tonight I will open the editor and try to reproduce the problem by try different scenarios of having text around different special characters ,placed in different areas of the line and see what gets highlighted and not. This should make it more clear as to how the current functionality works. I have contacted David Humphrey about this project and I will follow up on IRC #bespin channel if I have any questions or If I’m stuck.

How Will I Manage My Work and When I Can Finish It?
As I progress with the bug fix, I will post updates on my blog. The project wiki page will contain details about the project and the latest updates regarding it. If you would like to follow my status on this bug fix then the best way to do so is to follow my blog. I will continue to work on it every day putting a minimum of 1-2 hours, which includes researching and finish it as soon as possible! Below are the guidelines I have set for this project.

Release 0.1 
For release 0.1 I will release the patch that will fix the bug and users will be able to highlight only the selected text.

Release 0.2…3
I will continue to follow up reviews from my release 0.1 and fix if there are any problems reported. I will also fix new Bespin bugs.

My Final Say….
I am excited since this will be my very first open source project but it might make me nervous and anxious if I can complete this or not, However I know if I am dedicated and I can manage my time effectively and stay organized , I will complete this regardless. This will mean more bugs to come by and fix, of course I don’t mean that I want bugs to happen hehe.  I know all of us are working on their own bug/feature but if anyone needs any help I will be glad to assist them in any way I can. Like testing,coding or graphic related stuff, just feel free to ask!