[Sugar-devel] [FEATURE] [DESIGN] for Journal Plugins feature

[Gary C Martin]

On 6 Dec 2009, at 21:19, Tomeu Vizoso wrote:

> 2009/11/27 Aleksey Lim <alsroot at member.fsf.org>:
>> On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 06:13:55AM +0000, Aleksey Lim wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>> 
>>> Want to know what people think about Journal Plugins feature[1]
>>> and particularly that design team think about UI changes[2] involved
>>> in this feature.
>>> 
>>> [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Journal_Plugins#
>>> [2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Journal_Plugins#UI_changes
>> 
>> I tweaked "Benefit to Sugar" section a bit
>> 
>> * browsing different types of sugar object looks the same in many cases (search, tagging etc.). So, keep unified code base and do not split it could be useful idea.
>> * for now, some activities have similar functionality(browsing Journal entries), so having plugins, we will use the same theme for browsing features in sugar
>> * encourage developers create new view for different purposes(books, media etc.)
>> * having plugins we don't stick to sugar releases, deployers could create/change plugins that support not only last sugar but version which is in deployment
>> * having bookmarks, users can have fast access to his books/media-files/etc in the Journal(and using proper view plugin to browse them)
>> * shared bookmarks is more powerful and useful method of network sharing(in comparing with "Send to" option)
> 
> Can anyway relate these benefits from actual requests from deployments?
> 
> I think this is something that would be good to do in Sugar at some
> point, but I'm not convinced we are yet in the best moment for that.


I can't see us finding the right solution for the whole action/object view concept/requirements in the next few months. The Journal_Plugins idea seem rather scary to me at the moment, and has a very broad effect that would need much design work (security, UI confusion, documentation issues). Now I admit I was hoping we had another shot at including the thumbnail view for 0.88 (thumbnails would seem to be a genuine improvement for finding/browsing many Journal entry types, and likely the default view for kids)... Perhaps just adding the thumbnail image (if available) to the Journal hover palette could be a low risk improvement we could agree on? The design intent seems to go way back in Sugar history, so lightly has plenty of supporters.

Regards,
--Gary