[Sugar-devel] (Ab)using the Journal for stuff that the user didn't do, create, or access

[Martin Langhoff]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 6:18 AM, Tomeu Vizoso<tomeu at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
> The idea is that the journal would have an actions view that would be
> closer to what you refer to. Would contain actions that the user
> carried and events that happened around the user.

The Journal as Sugar's "documents" view is heavily influenced by the
core concepts in the social constructivist approach -- and this is one
of the best things we have in Sugar.

When it works well, it is a "living document" of things done, so you
can go back and work more on them, and also so you can go back and see
what you did and (consciously or not) reflect on your own ways of
doing (learning, exploring, fooling around...)

So I have to agree with Daniel -- things that are not the outcome of a
user action do not belong in the Journal. They belong to the home
view.

This is probably a challenge in itself too, as it starts getting
crowded. The Home/Activities view already has 2... um... modes? This
is confusing at the moment: users that find themselves with the list
mode often think they are in the journal, and hit F3 repeatedly, and
complain about something not working.

I suspect there is a way out of that confusion that still allows
various views/modes within the home view.

Funny enough, when people started looking at options of what to do
with 'ring' UI widgets, we saw lots of mockups that took advantage of
the circle -- radial zones demarcated by backgrounds or limit lines,
various zooming options, etc.

IOWs, we probably have some good options to augment the home view,
options that don't involve a list view, if we rummage through the old
concept drawings :-)

cheers,



m
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