[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] optional automatic updates

[Jerry Vonau]

Hi,

> On August 5, 2014 at 7:34 PM Martin Abente
> <martin.abente.lahaye at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> A few development cycles ago, dsd added a useful new feature: automatic
> activities updates.

Um, sugar 0.100 was not that long ago, kind of liked the way the old
sugar-update-control worked, all that was really missing was the
auto-updating. For the record there never was a sugar-control-panel command
line for the updater, that was the only piece missing. When I was involved
with AU we went further, extending the updater to just select activities
that were already installed, leaving the ones not installed unchecked by
default. This presented a list of optional activities that MAYBE installed,
ones that are updates would be pre-selected, one just needed start the
install[1].

> This has been of great help in deployments such as in
> Australia. However, because the current implementation will always update
> or install activities (when working in automatic mode), some deployments
> might be unable to use this feature. A real case scenario is when some of
> the activities are too big for massive activities updates.
>

Think one option that is needed is to skip installing new activities that
are not already installed. The use case is "the in the field teacher" does
not want a certain activity present for what ever reason on the XOs in
their classroom and has removed the activity. 

> Therefore, I propose to extend microformat updater with an extra field to
> mark activities as optional, so these optional activities won't be
> installed or upgraded automatically. This flexibility will allow
> deployments to use automatic updates and user will benefit from automatic
> updates.
>

Think this is not really needed, more careful planning by the deployment is
really what is needed here.
 
> I have created a feature page [1] with more details and a initial
> implementation [2] of the feature itself (because is easier for me to
> talk
> with working code).
>

Would ALSO benefit with the same treatment? Think that is where this could
be really be useful, stopping a potentially large download from starting.

> Let me know what you guys think!
>
> Regards,
> tch.
>

At one point in the past suagr-update-control did have the ability to look
for a schoolserver, adding the activities found there to the list of
activities available from both sources. That went away with the change in
sugar's post 0.100 updater. 

Jerry

1. http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/ticket/2822