[Sugar-devel] Book bundles and Read

[Aleksey Lim]

On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 04:24:33PM +0100, Gary C Martin wrote:
> Hi Aleksey,
> 
> On 25 Jul 2009, at 05:02, Aleksey Lim wrote:
> 
> >On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 04:53:33AM +0100, Gary C Martin wrote:
> >>
> >>The term "content bundles" is still pretty wooly for me. Are we
> >>talking zip files, perhaps with some formal structure?
> >
> >Object Bundles[1] will deprecate .xol in 0.86 and in case of previews,
> >it will be regular field in METADATA file:
> >"preview_file = <file-inside-bundle-with-preview>"
> >
> >[1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Object_Bundles
> >[2] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Object_Bundles#METADATA_file
> 
> Thanks for the references. Having read that page I'm still confused
> about aspects of this proposal. Not sure I'm clear enough to ask
> sane questions. Let me try:
> 
> 1) By "composite object" do you mean a container of many
> files/folders (a little like current .xol), or a container of many
> Journal compatible entries (i.e. 40 Read Activity pdf ebooks with
> thumbnail images, tags, and description)?

Container of of many files/folders that represented by one Journal entry
so, in case of library it would be: one entry in Journal which has text/html
and directory with content of library(somewhere). After activating it,
Browse will open one of "many files/folders" e.g. index.html

> 2) Is .xol extension proposed to go away, or will .xol be repurposed
> as a the "composite object"?

In case of [1] .xol is just a subset of object bundles
and sugar will still support former .xol(but they will be deprecated)

> 3) Why should a "composite object" open in Browse, is this just an
> example of a zipped up web site?

Because Journal entry which represent composite object will have
text/html mime_type, in face there is only one difference between
regular Journal objects and composite - regular object has only one
file but composite has directory.

> 4) Will .xo will be used to store Activity bundles (i.e as we have
> now), and Activity entries (i.e. all meta-data and files as found
> for a Journal entry)?

Activity just another example of composite object(in common sense)
and I'm thinking about adding them to 0.86 as well.

According to [2] there could be two forms of object bundles:
* one or several packed Activity entries
  (they can have activity field)
* the while bundle as composite object which will be represented by one
  Journal activity-less object (e.g. library or activity)

> 5) Meta-data kept in an INI rather than json a file?

In INI format since its easier for hand-editing

> What about non-
> text meta-data, the preview image comes to mind, but an activity
> might be storing other non text blobs of meta-data.

Any field in METADATA file can have _file suffix, in that case content
of this field(substring w/o _file suffix) will be fetched from file
inside of the bundle e.g. preview_file=<filename-from-bundle> to fill
preview field. 

-- 
Aleksey