[Sugar-devel] Sugar Journal activity

[Eben Eliason]

Gabriel -

Thanks! These are great suggestions.

On Sat, Dec 6, 2008 at 7:07 PM, Gabriel Hurley <gabriel.hurley at gmail.com> wrote:
> After having used the Journal for quite some time, I have some
> recommendations that I think would improve its usefulness.
>
> Category view. I know that the idea of the Journal is to avoid the
> file-folder metaphor, but the ability to organise activities into groups
> would be very useful. For example, a child might be drawing pictures and
> writing a report for a Science class. Instead of searching for these things
> individually, he/she can click on a drop-down menu and select "Science
> Class" and all the activities that were added for this category are
> immediately visible. Already, activities can be filtered by Text, Image,
> Audio, etc. The ability to define and organise activities into categories
> would make the Journal more useful.

In a sense, this is another way to describe (a better implementation
of) tagging.  By tagging the relevant objects with "science class",
it's possible now to then search for that tag and locate matching
objects.  The two primary improvements we need to make this work well,
and which you allude to, are:

1. Make it easier to tag objects.  Right now, this functionality is
rather hidden and underutilized.
2. Create the ability to browse popular or frequently used tags
(instead of only searching) for them.

Both of these are definitely on the radar, and Scott has been doing
some interesting prototyping in this area.  It hasn't been run through
design yet, but the ideas are here:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Journal_reloaded.

> Selective automatic saving. Some activities, like the Moon Activity, do not
> involve the user creating anything worth keeping. Yet every time they are
> launched, another instance of "Moon Activity" is added to the Journal. This
> could lead to increased clutter and (over time) less disk space. To fix
> this, the Journal should have a control to select which activities and
> objects are automatically saved and which are not.
>
> Finally, I think every open activity should have a "Throw-Out" icon next to
> the Stop Sign icon. Clicking this would close the activity and remove it
> from the Journal.

Something I hope will be added in the short term is a naming prompt.
Right now, saving is automatic, and few take the time to tag or even
name activities.  The thought now is to prompt upon stopping an
activity that hasn't previously been stopped (or kept), to ask for a
name and tags.  Then, the child could name/tag, ignore it and accept
the default name, or opt to "not keep" the activity at all.  This
wouldn't be a separate "throw out" button, but an option that could be
chosen when stopping an activity that hasn't yet been committed to the
Journal, which I think would solve the concerns you raise.

> Thank you for considering my suggestions. If you have any questions about
> them or see any issues, please contact me and I will try to clarify.

Thank you for offering them!  We welcome all the feedback we can get.

- Eben

> Yours Sincerely,
> Gabriel Hurley
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