Week 12 recap GSoC 2025 - Wrapping Up GSoC 2025 with Krita
Intro
In my final week of GSoC with KDE's Krita this summer, I am excited to share this week's progress and reflect on my journey so far. From the initial setup to building the Selection Action Bar, this project has been a meaningful learning experience and a stepping stone toward connecting with Krita's community and open source development.
Progress
This week I finalized the Selection Action Bar with my mentor Emmet and made adjustments based on my merge request feedback.
Some key areas of feedback and fixes included:
- Localization of user-facing strings
- Removing unused parameters
- Refactoring naming conventions and standardized styling
These improvements taught me that writing good code is not just about features, but also about clarity, consistency, and collaboration.
Alongside updating my feature merge request, I also worked on documentation to explain how the Selection Action Bar works and how users can use it.
Reflection
Looking back over the past 12 weeks, I realize how much this project has shaped both my technical and personal growth as a developer.
Technical Growth When I started, navigating Krita's large C++/Qt codebase felt overwhelming. Through persistence, code reviews, and mentorship, I've grown confident in reading unfamiliar code, handling ambiguity, and contributing in a way that fits the standards of a large open source project. Following Krita's style guidelines showed me how important naming conventions and standardized code styling are for long-term maintainability.
Personal Growth One of the most important lessons I learned is that open source development isn't about rushing to get the next feature in. It's about patience, clarity, and iteration. Code reviews taught me to embrace feedback, ask better questions, and view them as opportunities for growth rather than blockers.
Community Lessons The most valuable part of this experience was connecting with the Krita and KDE community. I experienced first-hand how collaborative and thoughtful the process of open source development is. Every suggestion, from small style tweaks to broader design decisions, carried the goal of improving the project for everyone. That sense of shared ownership and responsibility is something I want to carry with me in all my future contributions.
Conclusion
These final weeks have been very rewarding. I have grown from starting out by simply reading Krita's large codebase to implementing a feature that enhances users' workflow.
While this marks the end of GSoC for me, it is not the end of my open source journey. My plan moving forward is to:
- Continue refining the Selection Action Bar based on user feedback
- Add customization options to the Selection Action Bar
- Stay involved through ownership of feature creation, bug fixes, community participation, and feature proposals with the Krita and KDE community
Finally, I would like to thank my mentor Emmet, the Krita Developers Dmitry, Halla, Tiar, Wolthera, everyone I interacted with in Krita Chat, and the Krita community for their guidance, patience, and encouragement throughout this project.
I also want to thank Google Summer of Code for making this journey possible and giving me the chance to grow as a developer while contributing to open source.
Contact
To anyone reading this, please feel free to reach out to me. I'm always open to suggestions and thoughts on how to improve as a developer and as a person.
Email: ross.erosales@gmail.com
Matrix: @rossr:matrix.org