[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] Examples objects support for activities.

[Walter Bender]

On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 8:02 PM, Gonzalo Odiard <gonzalo at laptop.org> wrote:
> Hello Tincho! Nice to read you here again :)

Yes. Nice that Tincho is back.

>
> I agree this can be a very good addition, and I see think we need
> solve two different parts:
>
> 1) Access the examples in the activities: using a widget similar to
> the object chooser,
> but showing files in a directory. I think Silbe said, the actual
> Object Chooser can't do it,
> due to limitations in the actual Journal implementation. (Sascha, can
> you confirm?)
> Probably we can create a a similar widget if is not possible use the
> original ObjectChooser,
> and should be great can show a preview if available.
>
> 2) Distribution of examples: This can be more controversial, but is
> related and should be good
> address in a related proposal. Today, there are activities as Turtle
> Confusion or Amazonas Tortugas,
> based on TurtleArt and may be can be data files added to TurtleArt.
> Also, if we provide a way to distribute
> examples, the deployments could generate them based in local needs.
> Other activities can be enhanced
> using examples, and if they have text should be difficult support i18n
> in the data files.
> May be we can create a variation of the infamous XOL files, with the
> information about what activity
> should manage them, and improve the installation to install them in a
> different place than Library
> (or the activities can look at the Library for examples)
>
> Gonzalo
>

Sounds dangerously close to the plugin mechanism I implemented for
Turtle Art. Be nice to think that through in a more general way but I
think that would be a different thread.

regards.

-walter
> On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 2:40 PM, Martin Abente
> <martin.abente.lahaye at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hello Everyone:
>>
>> In a recent conversation with Walter, he mentioned that it would be very
>> useful if activities could include examples objects. From my experience in
>> the field, I can tell this feature can be a really useful indeed. Therefore
>> I would like to bring this idea to the general discussion and see what
>> others think.
>>
>> The idea is  simple: Activities include examples objects that can be bundled
>> with and accessed from the activity.
>>
>> For the ones that also think this could be useful: I am sure you must have
>> your own vision of how this feature should work and look like, so please
>> share it here.
>>
>> In general terms and from my POV it should be something:
>>
>> (a) simple to access.
>> (b) with a familiar interface to the users.
>> (c) low-cost for activities developers to include.
>> (d) Safe.
>>
>> One of the ideas, that meets these requirements, is to include a standard
>> "Examples" folder in the activities root directory that would be accessible
>> through a regular ObjetChooser. The ObjectChooser is already capable of
>> presenting any folder's contents, thanks to recent years improvement in the
>> journal to present external-media and documents-folder contents.
>>
>> Accessing to these objects would be as easy as just opening a ObjectChooser
>> instance, many activities already do this (but limited to journal content).
>> As I just said, the ObjectChooser interface is widely used, therefore users
>> are already familiar with it. To ease the costs for activities developers I
>> think that having this standard folder approach is crucial. One open
>> question I still have is how this ObjectChooser should  be opened from the
>> activities in a standard way (suggestions?). By "safe" I mean that it should
>> guarantee that it only presents this standard folder objects in read-only
>> mode (at least from the GUI POV).
>>
>> I will stop here and I would like to hear what you guys think regarding the
>> general idea first.
>>
>> Saludos.
>> tincho.
>>
>>
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-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org