[Sugar-devel] FR: Feature for a.sl.o: global filter by Sugar version

[Bastien]

Hi Gary,

thanks for your answer.

Gary Martin <garycmartin at googlemail.com> writes:

> Yes, http://activities.sugarlabs.org (ASLO) picks up the browser
> client string from Browse that varies from Sugar release to Sugar
> release, and shows the latest Activity versions for that release of
> Sugar.  It does assume some steps are correctly taken when a
> developer uploads a new version, they have to set which Sugar
> versions their activity is compatible with, or an editor/reviewer
> needs to be on the ball with re-testing the activity later. ASLO is
> also not just for longterm Sugar developers to distribute activities,
> but also to allow other third party developers to share their work as
> well, so the quality/robustness of activity code/design can vary.

Yes.

> The area we most often get caught out in Sugar is that we don't have
> good architecture variation support – XO hardware was x86 based (XO-1
> XO 1.5) and more recent models are now ARM based (XO-1.75, XO-4), if
> an activity developer decides to include binary code/libraries within
> an activity, it is down to them to make sure they include support for
> different architectures. This is why we try and encourage developers
> to develop Python activities, built for the agreed Sugar platform
> dependancies, as this avoids hardware architecture issues.

Yes.  This is a bit of a problem.  For example, I encouraged the Kiwix
developer to make Kiwix available for Sugar, which they did, and I now
have to ask them to port it to the ARM architecture (as they had too few
feedback on Kiwix, I doubt porting Kiwix on ARM is a high priority task.)

> If you have found one, please do let me know the activity name,
> version, the version of Sugar you tested, and what hardware type you
> were trying to get it to run on and I'll take a look and update the
> compatibility flags.

Using VirtualBox and Sugar on a Stick (Fedora-17-i686-Live-SoaS.iso),
the Sugar File Manager does not launch.

> If you are downloading from a browser/device other than the Browse
> running on the XO you finally want to install the activity on, you
> can use the 'Advanced' search button on the main ASLO:
>
> [cid]                                                 

Very useful, thanks!

-- 
 Bastien