Get Involved

The project needs developers, testers, designers and anyone who can help.

Available tasks

  1. Links (version 3.0). The idea is that a Matrex desktop can delegate the calculation of a specific functions in a project to one or more Matrex servers.
    This means that the calculation of a project gets distributed among the Matrex desktop that owns it and one or more Matrex servers.
    This is radically different from the client/server approach, because:
    • the project is located in the Matrex desktop, not in a server.
    • the purpose is not to share the project, but to get the project's calculation done faster.
    The purpose is not to break a single function calculation in parts (that can be done by the template code itself), but to assign function calculations to different PCs.
    The development can start as soon as the links specification is ready and approved.

  2. Functions. I need a spreadsheet expert to look at the function templates in Matrex. 
    I wrote all the templates that I think are needed to work with the most common tasks, but I can be wrong. 
    The verification can start at any time, function templates can be added at any time.

  3. Compatibility. Matrex works on all the systems in which SWT is supported. The three main platforms are Windows, MacOSX and Linux. It would help if people that use these systems can check if there are things that can be done to improve the usability of Matrex on them, for example:
    • find and remove problems/bugs that happen only on indifidual operating systems
    • improve the look&feel on individual operating systems.
    • improve the installation on individual operating systems.
  4. Excel add-in. There must be the possibility to:
    • let Matrex send and receive matrices to/from Excel through a COM connection
    • let Excel use the Matrex API
    These tasks can be done separately and can be published in different versions of Matrex. Differently from other add-ins, the Excel add-in will be available directly in the Matrex setup file for Windows.
    The development can start now.

  5. OpenOffice.org Calc add-in. Same kind of adapter of Excel. Since Calc is able to read Excel .xls files there is no need by now for Matrex to read and write ODF files; instead it could be interesting to have the following things done:
    • Matrex sending and receving matrices to/from Calc
    • Calc using the Matrex API
    As for the Excel add-in, the Calc add-in will be available directly in the Matrex setup file for all systems.

  6. Other Add-ins. Anyone who writes an adapter or library for Matrex can send it to me if he wants so I publish it (clearly if he prefers he can publish it himself). To write an adapter or library look at the examples in the CVS pages and at the Matrex function coding document.

  7. Matrex Site. If someone has good ideas to improve the appearance of the Matrex site, please come with them.
  8. I'm always ready to discuss any other idea to improve Matrex.

How to start

Matrex is a project written in Java 1.5 using Eclipse (other IDEs are working probably well too). Generally I use the last release version of Eclipse available.
The code can be retrieved via Subversion. I use the Subversive plugin in Ecplise.
The subversion path that contains the code of Matrex is https://matrex.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/matrex.
The trunk directory under that path contains not only Matrex but all the subprojects of Matrex (e.g. matrexr, matrexjama, matrexgroovy...).
Check the Matrex Subversion catalog to know the directory structure.

Consider also that Matrex depends by several libraries. You can find the list of them in the FAQ and obviously all of them are in the Matrex setup.
Among them Matrex uses a part of FreeHep to show 3D charts. This is the only library that does not come already in Jar format, but must be compiled from the source.

The code of Matrex is organized mainly in the following parts:
To have more information, please read the documentation or ask me.

How to contact me

If want to contribute, please send me an .