Why choose this project?

Each student can choose three projects to apply for from the project list. At that time, ChatGPT had just emerged, and various large models appeared like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. I was very excited about the development of AI and wanted to participate in it. So I screened all the projects that contained the “AI” keyword and finally decided that OnlyOffice’s AI plugin project was my favorite. Because I wanted to do some application-level work on AI, I hoped to directly use the API of large models to develop some applications that could improve user work efficiency, which also coincided with the goal of the project. So I invested the most time in this project in the preliminary work, and I am grateful that my mentor was able to choose me from many candidates.

What is the biggest gain?

When it comes to gains, it is difficult for me to describe specifically. It is better to start with my “changes”.

At first I was very nervous because I was not familiar with OnlyOffice’s technology stack. I also don’t have experience developing plugins for large software. However, after I emailed my mentor about the difficulties I encountered, he was very enthusiastic in providing me with a lot of help, including answering my questions, guiding me on what documents I should look at next, not only teaching me to fish, but also teaching me how to fish. So my first takeaway is: when encountering problems, ask questions boldly. As long as the problem is meaningful, you are very likely to get answers - this is much better than scratching your head and wasting time.

Later, as I gradually understood OnlyOffice’s framework, the development work was also gradually on track. But I also encountered some difficulties, most of which could be solved with the help of ChatGPT. One debugging experience that left a deep impression on me was when I encountered a strange behavior: every time I finished executing the context menu action, my plugin would close. I was tormented by this bug for a few days, and then I decided to ask my mentor for help. I described this behavior to my mentor. I was worried that this vague description would also confuse him. However, after multiple communications between us, and after he consulted the development team, we finally solved this problem together.

This experience gave me great inspiration and made me understand the tremendous power of cooperation, communication and exchange. I am also very grateful for the help my mentor gave me during this process.

Now, the main part of the plugin has been developed. Looking back on this one and a half month experience, I feel I have gained a lot. I am very happy to have participated in OSPP’s Open Source Summer project this time, and I am also happy to be part of the OnlyOffice community.

What’s next?

Next I plan to first release the 1.0 version of the plugin to the plugin store. Afterwards, modify it based on user feedback. Finally, thank you again to my mentor Sergei Kosyrev, the OnlyOffice community, and the organizers of the OSPP project at the Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences.