[IAEP] How to Make Activity Designers Happy , Parts I and II

[Chris Ball]

Hi,

   > I think Bryan's idea is wonderfully practical. What's more,
   > it sounds easy to achieve. You just need a 'swf-activity'
   > launcher, and a script to sugarize .SWF files into .xo bundles
   > which launch as fullscreen activities.

Oh, that sounds good.  I should clarify -- I don't have a problem
with anyone working on that launcher or making Flash applications for
learning that use it.  The 'swf-activity' launcher could be little more
than the gtk-gnash binary, which we already install.

We're talking about "reworking the default activity framework", though,
and that setup is incompatible with the requirements I'd propose for
our framework, because it requires proprietary software and doesn't (as
far as I can see) allow activities to save work or offer collaboration
and sharing.  If we recommended it in place of our current framework,
we would be gaining some convenience in the form of developer time at
the expense of much of the expressivity, power, and software freedom
that makes our platform meaningful in the first place.

So, I'd suggest that this goal (play Flash applications fullscreen)
happens independently of improvements on how we help people to write
Sugar activities.  Does that make sense?

- Chris.
-- 
Chris Ball   <cjb at laptop.org>