[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] Save as feature

[Tony Anderson]

Sadly, I am in a rush so haven't had a chance to follow this discussion 
in detail.

An important point is that a user gives a name to a document by changing 
the text in the activity part of the toolbar. This can be done at any 
time. If this
is done, the document should be save automatically as now. The alert 
should only be needed if the name is still 'Write activity'. The save 
occurs via the activity-supplied 'write_file' method. This can be 
executed by the activity at any time. It is automatically executed when 
the host activity receives a 'quit' signal.

If we have more than one way to skin the cat, we should clearly have a 
setting to allow a deployment to decide on its own protocol.

Tony

On 04/05/2016 06:40 AM, James Cameron wrote:
> I agree, Sam.
>
> We've been through a save-as debate before.
>
> We need community consensus on function.  There is no consensus yet.
>
> I won't be accepting this change into my OLPC branch unless there is a
> way to turn it off; because that's what I'd be doing on OLPC OS.
>
> It looks like this is a task wanted by a minority of deployers.
>
> On Tue, Apr 05, 2016 at 06:55:13AM +1000, Sam Parkinson wrote:
>> Hi Utkarsh,
>>
>> I find the save as an interesting feature.  From my knowledge, it was
>> previously built into Sugar, however it was removed due to it annoying people.
>>   I don't know the exact reasoning, but here is what I think:
>>
>> * When does somebody quit and activity?  Is it the right time to be asking them
>> to title and describe it?
>>     - When the bell rings and the student want to go to Lunch.  Not the right
>> time to ask to save stuff.
>>     - When the teacher wants to move on to an different activity.  This is
>> defiantly not the right time - the "save as" feature is acting in opposition
>> with the teacher
>>     - Those are the 2 most common times that I can think of.  Remember this is
>> for learners.
>>     -> Therefore this is a bad time to ask this
>>     -> Therefore we will annoy people
>>
>> * Will we get good quality titles and descriptions?
>>     - No, people are rushed and inconvenienced by the modal popup.  It stole
>> their computer.
>>     ->  They are not in a good mindset to write titles.
>>
>> We also see many other services migrating away from the traditional "save as"
>> dialog on exit.  Eg, Google Docs uses an approach the same as Sugar rather than
>> a "save as" dialog.  They set it to a default titles ("Untitled document"), but
>> you can then change that name eaisly.
>>
>> Maybe we need think about what the problem this feature solves?  Whatever it
>> is, "save as" probably won't work.  We need to find an actual solution to user
>> problems.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Sam
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 4, 2016 at 9:38 PM, Utkarsh Tiwari <iamutkarshtiwari at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>      Hi, Whenever we start an activity from homeview, it gets registered in the
>>      Journal (through datastore.write()). I have inspected the activity.py file
>>      but there is someplace else besides activity.py where the datastore is
>>      being modified(activity instance is being added). I need to figure this out
>>      to implement the "Save As" feature to intervene the datastore.write() call
>>      so that user could provide the activity name. Could anyone please point me
>>      in the right direction? Thanks, Utkarsh Tiwari On 3/22/16, Tony Anderson <
>>      [1]tony_anderson at usa.net> wrote:
>>
>>          Hi, I am not sure what you are asking. Read the excellent comment in
>>          activity.py. There are set_canvas, read_file, and write_file among
>>          other examples of functions in activity.py directly accessible by the
>>          sub-class. Normally, that activity is referenced by 'self'. Tony On 03/
>>          22/2016 12:02 AM, Utkarsh Tiwari wrote:
>>
>>              Hi, Is there any way to get the currently active activity
>>              (sugar3.activity.activity -> class Activity()) instance ? I need
>>              this access to call a function of "Activity class" in activity.py
>>              to activate a feature I have integrated. Thanks, Utkarsh Tiwari
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>>
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