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

[Simon Schampijer]

On 01/23/2012 11:12 PM, Simon Schampijer wrote:
[...]
> While thinking further about how to best solve this issue I came across
> the search key (magnifier icon on the olpc keyboard or F5 on non-olpc
> hardware) which we have to get to the Journal quickly. I wondered if it
> would be a good idea to let that key reveal the detail view of the
> Journal entry when pressed while the activity is open. This might be a
> nice and quick way to write notes. You could toggle the views quickly
> with the 'search' and 'activity' keys. The downside here is that you do
> not see what you write about while writing and it might not be as
> discoverable and with non-keyboard Sugar you don't have that option. But
> it might be a nice thing to have on top of Walter's approach. (I have
> hacked up a quick patch and technically it is doable).

Attached is the patch to bring up the Journal detail view when you press 
the "search key/F5" while having an activity focused (start Sugar, open 
Browse, hit "search key/F5").

For a quick toggle of the views you would expect the "activity key/F4" 
bring you back to the activity now. This is currently not possible 
because the Journal itself is considered an activity and is part of the 
list of activities, hence after pressing "search key/F5" the Journal is 
the current active activity.

In general I think the Journal should not be considered an activity and 
should be a view (hence neighborhood/goups/home/activity/journal) 
instead. That would not only make this use case easier it would as well 
tabbing through activities feel more right (at the moment the 
'tabbing-list' includes the Journal which I always found to be confusing).

What do others think about this general change in behavior? Something 
that is a good path forward? Or do you feel the search key is too 
overloaded that way?

Walter was mentioning that he would like to see the detail view being 
part of the main view [1]. If that change is computationally possible, 
we can apply the same logic, when you hit "search key/F5" while over an 
activity you will be brought to the Journal and the entry is expanded, 
if you hit "search key/F5" in any other view (or an activity has no 
Journal object associated) you will get to the Journal view with no 
entry expanded.

Regards,
    Simon

[1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Design_Team/Designs/Journal#02
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