[Sugar-devel] Accessing external media from within an activity (was: Re: Problem listing journal objects)

[Eben Eliason]

On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Gary C Martin<gary at garycmartin.com> wrote:
> Hi Eben,
>
> On 26 Aug 2009, at 14:53, Eben Eliason wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 5:43 AM, Sascha
>> Silbe<sascha-ml-ui-sugar-devel at silbe.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 08:41:28AM +0200, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:
>>>
>>>> The public API is the POSIX one, though I don't know how this will be
>>>> affected by future versions of Rainbow.
>>>
>>> I can't find anything regarding mount points in POSIX 2001. How do you
>>> expect Jims activity to discover them?
>>> Two ways come to my mind:
>>> a) parse /proc/mounts periodically
>>> Linux-only, time-wasting but future-proof
>>>
>>> b) use what the Journal is using internally, i.e. the Gnome way of the
>>> day
>>> cross-platform (as much as Gnome/Sugar are), event-driven, but likely to
>>> break on next release
>>>
>>> Just as a reminder: The intended workflow for Jims activity seems to be:
>>> 1. Start activity
>>> 2. Plug in USB stick with photos
>>> 3. Select and/or manage(?) photo from within the activity
>>>
>>> Answering "use POSIX" is like "use a computer", it doesn't help getting
>>> the
>>> job done. If the answer is "we want the user to copy the photos to the
>>> data
>>> store first", that doesn't get the job done either, but it's a policy and
>>> can be catered for (i.e. documented).
>>
>> The way I saw this working would be to extend the object chooser to
>> allow multiple sources, including external media. Where there is
>> currently a Journal icon in the chooser, we would also show any USB
>> sticks and SD cards present, and these would be selectable (with the
>> Journal the default, of course). Any activity could then invoke the
>> object chooser to select objects from the Journal or from external
>> media, without the overhead of building their own UI. Once the objects
>> are loaded into the activity, they can be bundled up and saved as
>> desired.
>>
>> We even have some preliminary design sketches for this feature:
>> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Design_Team/Designs/Object_Chooser#04
>
> You really do need to upgrade ;-p

I know! I've been waiting to figure out how to get the latest releases
flashed onto my XOs. The last time I looked I didn't see clear
instructions for doing so. Any pointers?

> It's implemented and displays the content of external media (see attached
> image). You can even eject and insert new sticks all from within the
> ObjectChooser while you hunt about for that stick with those embarrassing

Nice!

> holiday photos on. But before you get too excited, I'm not having much luck
> actually opening any files displayed from an external USB stick, (though I
> am running sugar-jhbuild that seems to be a 'between releases' hybrid just
> at this point in time). I've filed ticket
> http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ticket/1241
>
> Eben: While I've got you here, can you confirm or deny that the icon being
> used to represent the Journal data-store is wrong. Note that for a release
> or so (~0.84 I think) the icon being shown here (ObjectChooser) and in the
> toolbar at the bottom of the Journal is an XO icon – it used to be the
> Journal icon (aka, note pad/book). I'm not convinced this change was
> intentional.

No, I don't believe it was intentional. We should reinforce the
identity of the Journal as strongly as we can. Thanks for pointing it
out.

Eben


> Regards,
> --Gary
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