[Sugar-devel] Backwards compatibility for new activity versions

[Walter Bender]

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 9:54 PM, Sridhar Dhanapalan
<sridhar at laptop.org.au>wrote:

> Sugar 0.86 introduced a change in the toolbar API. While beneficial
> overall, this change means that activities coded for the new API do
> not run on older versions of Sugar. Since most XOs out there use Sugar
> 0.84 or earlier, this poses a considerable problem.
>
> Is there a recommended path for developers to make their code work
> with both the old and the new toolbar API?
>
> I've had some developers approach me about coding for our XOs and I
> have to give them two options[0]:
>
>  1. code for newer versions of Sugar if they're happy with the code
> not running on our XOs for the next year (it'll take a while for our
> Dextrose-based release to actually be implemented in the field by
> teachers)
>  2. code for Sugar 0.84 , then consider updating the code later
>
> It would be nice if I could give them one clear answer that works
> regardless of the version of Sugar.
>

3. Code for both. It is little extra work. Right now we have about a 50-50
split in the community re old- vs new-style toolbars. It would be a shame to
exclude 1 million kids,

A simple activity that codes for both is Portfolio. (
git.sugarlabs.org/portfolio).

-walter

>
> Thanks,
> Sridhar
>
>
> [0] http://dev.laptop.org.au/projects/xo-au/wiki/Development
>
>
> Sridhar Dhanapalan
> Technical Manager
> One Laptop per Child Australia
> M: +61 425 239 701
> E: sridhar at laptop.org.au
> A: G.P.O. Box 731
>      Sydney, NSW 2001
> W: www.laptop.org.au
> _______________________________________________
> Sugar-devel mailing list
> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>



-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org
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