[Sugar-devel] [Dextrose] Some quick comments on the Journal in 11.2.0 build 16 and Dextrose 508

[martin at martindengler.com]

On Tue, May 03, 2011 at 11:04:56AM -0500, James Simmons wrote:
> Martin,
> 
> My own attempt at an alternate Journal Activity, Sugar Commander, can
> delete or modify any Journal entry, as well as add new ones.  The only
> things it cannot do that the real Journal can do are: copy files to
> removable media and SD cards, and launch other Activities.  If you are
> concerned that children might destroy or corrupt Journal entries, they
> can do that today, with a perfectly ordinary Activity.

I guess I am conflating the design goal[1] with
Sugar-as-implemented-now.  I was talking about the design goal: that
the Sugar HIG (through bitfrost) says Activities modifying other
Activities' data is a priviledged operation not available to
Activities by default[2].  Are we understanding this differently?

> Keeping the Journal from appearing in the Neighborhood view is a
> simple matter of hiding some controls in the toolbar.  Keeping the
> Journal from creating its own Journal entry is simple enough as
> well.

I would be surprised to learn that the journal only interacts with the
shell in those two examples that I mentioned.

> As for the Zoom metaphor issue, the Journal inherits from Activity
> like any other Activity.

Can you point me to the journal code you're talking about?  It looks
to me like it doesn't:

http://git.sugarlabs.org/sugar/mainline/blobs/master/src/jarabe/journal/journalactivity.py#line110

> Replacing the Journal Activity with an alternate Activity should be
> doable.

I don't think I'm arguing with "doable".  I'm saying it's pretty far
from the user experience the HIG talks about, for the reasons I
mentioned (security, collaboration, shell integration).

> James Simmons

Martin

1. http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Human_Interface_Guidelines/Security

2. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Bitfrost#P_DOCUMENT:_file_store_service

"Programs on the XO may not use the open() call to arbitrarily open
user documents in the system, nor can they introspect the list of
available documents, e.g. through listing directory contents. "

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