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

[Anish Mangal]

On Mon, Jan 9, 2012 at 09:25, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>
>> 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.
>

Thanks for the link.

> -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