[Sugar-devel] [IAEP] turtle art: 2 instances, no?

[Eben Eliason]

On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 8:15 AM, Gary C Martin<gary at garycmartin.com> wrote:
> Hi Bill,
>
> On 7 Sep 2009, at 12:09, Bill Kerr wrote:
>
>> I can't see any way to load 2 instances on the SoaS version
>>
>> If I have a project loaded, saved and named
>> Then go into the journal and try to load an older saved version then
>> it doesn't load but puts me back to the current open version
>> I have to first close the current version and then open the older
>> version to get it
>
> This is not a bug with TurtleArt. It's (in my view) the major design
> backfire that is the "Keep" button... Keep is not like a copy,
> duplicate or 'save as' file operation in other OS environments. Sugars
> "Keep" is actually a (bad) attempt at "Keep version snap shot",
> unfortunately no where in the Journal UI is this visually indicated/
> referenced. Think of "Keep" a little like non-linear undo states
> stored to Journal.

This is true. Perhaps we could make it more explicit by naming it
"Save a version" instead. What we really need is a "Keep a copy"
secondary action that can be used in the manner many desire, to create
a clone of the instance with a separate activity ID. Equally
important, we should have a "Make a copy" or "Duplicate" button in the
Journal to enable this as a top level function there.

Here's some more background reading:
http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2009-July/016494.html

> The problem with all this is that Sugar currently treats all versions
> you "Keep" from an activity as the same activity. You can only have
> one of the versions active at once, this is what you're seeing when

This is actually another bug. On several of the threads discussing
versions this came up, and it's clear that there is value to having
multiple versions of the same activity instance open at once,
specifically for the purpose of copying elements from an older version
into a newer one. Revising Sugar to make this possible, regardless of
when we land version support, would be beneficial.

> you try to resume (what you think is another old activity is actually
> a version) and Sugar switches to the current version of it you already
> have open.

We also discussed that this might be a choice (to join the existing,
or work on the older version).

Eben

> To create fresh new activities, you need to:
>
> 1) start new activity
> 2) create masterpiece
> 3) stop activity
> 4) goto step 1
>
> If you ever find yourself clicking "Keep" give your self a small jab
> in the hand with a sharp protractor ;-)
>
> In every release of Sugar to date, "Keep" == horrible design failure,
> even for the upcoming 0.86. The problem is "the real deal" (true
> versioning) is always just over the horizon, like the pot of gold at
> the end of the rainbow, and the blasted button some how makes it
> through (and causes way more grief then it ever solves as the common
> use case is "I want a duplicate copy of this").
>
> Regards,
> --Gary
>
>> Also if I am working on a project and remember an idea from a sample
>> project then I can't just load the sample view the idea and then
>> quickly return to my current project to implement there
>> I have to close current project, then open sample and view idea,
>> then close sample, then reopen current project, etc.
>>
>> Please correct if I am wrong about this
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>
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