[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] Browse PDF handling

[Daniel Drake]

2012/2/2 Manuel Quiñones <manuq at laptop.org>:
> I'm proposing, for the new and fresh Browse wearing WebKit, the
> following behaviour when clicking on a link to a PDF:
>
> - the PDF is shown in a new tab, next to the current
> - basic document navigation is provided to the user
> - as well, a button to save to Journal is provided
>
> Using the save to Journal button, the kid can now read the PDF
> starting the full-featured Read activity.
>
> This behaviour is similar to what Safari does, and I think it fits
> Sugar user interface better than other approaches we where thinking
> before, like start Read directly, which provokes an interruptive
> activity switch.  Also this way, an entry in the Journal is made only
> if the user ask for it, and allows a quick read of the PDF then you
> can decide on storing.

I don't think this is the right direction, personally. I agree that
right now it is a horrible user experience to open a PDF file from
Browse, but this is something that we should fix at the Sugar/Journal
level. From a technical or design standpoint I don't see what's
stopping us in making a click on a PDF download link in Browse
immediately open Read, solving the interruption described above.

The storage aspect is a little more interesting, but doesn't really
follow the rest of Sugar where the Journal records what the user has
done without considering otherwise.

Your proposal seems to be basically bundling Read into Browse, and
this will result in the usual side effects of code duplication: having
to fix bugs and add new features in 2 places, confusing the user by
having 2 ways to do the same thing, providing a strange user
experience of switching from one to the other, using more system
resources than otherwise, etc. And as soon as another file format gets
popular on the web we'd be pushed to roll another activity into Browse
as well.

Either way, I definitely applaud the effort to make the textbook
experience better in sugar, many thanks for spending time on this.

cheers
Daniel