[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] Write to Journal Anytime

[Walter Bender]

On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 9:38 PM, Anish Mangal <anish at activitycentral.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 19:56, Simon Schampijer <simon at schampijer.de> wrote:
>> On 03/01/12 20:04, Walter Bender wrote:
>>>
>>> Gary, Christian, et al.,
>>>
>>> We are hopefully going to land some variant of the "Write to Journal
>>> Anytime" patch in Sugar 0.96 [1]. I'd like to discuss the details before
>>> jumping back into the code. The current plan of record is essentially to
>>> make a modal display of the Journal expanded entry (detail view) available
>>> on demand from a button on the activity toolbar (grabbing space freed up
>>> by
>>> the elimination of the Keep button). This is essentially what I mocked up
>>> about two years ago.
>>>
>>> While we may have had Design Team consensus on this plan in January 2011,
>>> I
>>> remain skeptical. The problems I see with this approach are: (1) the user
>>> cannot see their current work while the model window is displayed -- since
>>> presumably the goal is to write about what you are working on, this seems
>>> problematic; (2) most of the fields in the detail view are irrelevant to
>>> the task of taking notes; (3) some of the fields, e.g., title, already
>>> have
>>> mechanisms for change; (4) many of the fields are not human-editable,
>>> e.g.,
>>> preview image, collabarators....
>>>
>>> For these reasons and my general dislike of modal interfaces, I suggest a
>>> simple alternative: a text entry in the toolbar that lets you add notes to
>>> the description field directly from the toolbar. Simon (?) mocked this up
>>> a
>>> few years back and I think it meets the needs of the run-time access to
>>> note taking.
>>
>>
>> I had the following proposal: in the activity toolbar you can evoke the
>> description field [1]. The toolbar could expand on key press to make it
>> available more quick.
>>
>> General Note: I think in any case if we go down that road it should be part
>> of the base activity toolbar and available in every activity.
>>
>> Regards,
>>   Simon
>>
>> [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:Description.png
>>
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>
> Are we also thinking of providing the capability to add tags to
> journal entries using this mechanism?
>
> Also, [1] looks like a bit of a hack (Having a text entry field in the
> palette of a popped-up toolbar icon). I cannot think of another place
> in sugar where this approach is extensively used (which I presume is
> going to be the case here)?
>
> [1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:Description.png
>
> --
> Anish

Haven't had a chance to write up the notes from today's meeting, but
the log is available here [1]. The idea has morphed somewhat. But no
plans for a tag mechanism for 0.96.

-walter


[1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Talk:Features/Write_to_journal_anytime#Log_from_Design_Team_Meeting_08_January_2012
-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org