[Sugar-devel] New Sugar Commander for review, creates Journal entry

[Frederick Grose]

On Sat, Aug 6, 2011 at 9:24 AM, James Simmons <nicestep at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have a new version of Sugar Commander which leaves a Journal entry
> behind.  In addition to solving the problem that Tony Forster reported, it
> also makes a log of the activity done by the child (adding files to the
> Journal, updating metadata, resizing images, deleting Journal entries) and
> puts this log in the Description.  This log is appended to whatever is
> already there, so if the child makes a Description the first time he runs
> the Activity the log will go under that, and if the Journal entry is resumed
> the new log will be appended to the existing log.
>
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8919415/SugarCommander-8.xo
>
> I'd like some feedback before I post to ASLO.  I think the Journal entry I
> create is at least somewhat useful.  For the record, I still think stateless
> Activities should be possible in future versions of Sugar.
>
> James Simmons
>

I tried Sugar Commander 8 on an XO-1.0 with build 874.

When it first opens on the Journal tab, there is a blank template.  Once
Title, Description, or Tags text is entered an un-Sugar-like 'Save' button
activates.  It is not clear at this point that this metadata will apply to
the current Sugar Commander entry as nothing is selected in the listing.

If the Save button is NOT clicked at this point, but instead the toolbar
Stop button, a preview shot of the screen with the changes is automatically
saved and shows in the resumed activity entry for Sugar Commander Activity
(the Title, Description, & Tags text fields have not been updated.

The activity would better match the Sugar keeping model,
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Human_Interface_Guidelines/The_Laptop_Experience/The_Journal#The_Notion_of_.22Keeping.22
if the metadata content changes were automatically kept whenever the focus
changed to a new entry, another running activity or system view, or the
activity exits and the 'Save' button were not present.

I would also find it valuable to restore the view of the last viewed entry
together with the last selected sorts and tab.  This better fits the
'resume' where I left off concept.

Thanks for all the work!           --Fred
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