[Sugar-devel] Screenshot feature [GSoC Project]

[Tony Anderson]

Hi, James

Actually, most changes to Sugar take place without discussion or 
consensus, so this dialog is very welcome.

The password dialog is a real problem in the wild. In the deployments I 
am involved with the password is not set
unless the school server has connection to the internet and the school 
is in an urban area. In rural areas, the risk of
drive-by use of the hotspot is negligible.

The problem with the dialog is that teachers and students have no idea 
what it means. If there is a password, it is set
during preparation of the laptops prior to the start of school and Sugar 
normally connects to the school server without
intervention.

If the password is set, significant time would be needed in the teacher 
workshop to explain what is needed when that dialog appears. There
has been discussion over the years of protecting the XOs by a mac 
address filter or limiting access to registered XOs to eliminate the 
password dialog.

At the beginning of this discussion, it was just between Utkarsh and me 
in the context of GSOC. I sent Utkarsh this email  on 3/21 referring 
directly to the
case of 'save as' when an activity quits. The last paragraph suggested 
that the concept be extended to screenshots.


"The key place to modify in Sugar is the activity.py file in 
/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/sugar/activity. There is already a 
pre-build alert available but it
may not provide the right capabiliities. In any case it provides code 
which can be re-used. I think that if the user changes the name of the 
file in the
activity toolbar, the file should be saved without any alert. The alert 
should occur when the activity does not have a 'user-supplied' name.

The datastore class gives you a hands-off way to deal with the Journal.

Screen shot may be a bit different (not an activity). Currently a 
screenshot is alt+1. The trick will be to intervene to give the user a 
chance to name
the screenshot. Since I use screenshots a lot to provide tutorials - 
this feature will save oodles of time."

Note: pre-build should be pre-built.

Tony

On 04/13/2016 08:11 AM, James Cameron wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 13, 2016 at 07:52:21AM +0800, Tony Anderson wrote:
>> Hi James,
>>
>> Surprised that you are so involved on the Sugar side, but welcome.
> I'll take that as sarcasm.  Check the number of patches I've authored
> or pull requests reviewed in the past few releases.
>
>> The check and x are used consistently in My Settings.
>>
>> The wireless password is irrelevant to this case.
> I disagree.  The wireless password dialog is critical, because it
> exposes a different style of dialog to the others.
>
>> The primary goal is a consistent dialog on quitting an activity so
>> that the user provides a name for an 'untitled' document or chooses
>> not to save it.
> You've become confused as to what we are talking about?  This thread
> is about a prompt for name of screenshot, instead of the default
> action which is to name the screenshot automatically.
>
> So I'm ignoring the rest of your reply, it seems to be off-topic, and
> you haven't actually answered the question put; should this new
> dialog; this new interruption to learner workflow; in response to
> learner action, be styled to match anything in particular.
>
>> In this case, enter could be used to signify that the document
>> should be saved with the modified name and Esc to quit without
>> saving. The screenshot is related as a means of providing a
>> user-supplied name for a document in the Journal (the Record
>> activivity will also require some extra attention since it stores
>> documents in the Journal without the user having the chance to
>> provide a name.
>>
>> However, most systems provide a 'save as' dialog which uses cancel,
>> save. There are two differences for Sugar. First, there is no need
>> for the user to
>> specify the location since it is always the Journal. Second, in
>> standard systems the 'save as' dialog does not quit the program. We
>> used to have an option in Sugar to allow a user to save the document
>> without quitting but it was removed. So in this dialog there is
>> ambiguity with 'cancel' - does this mean don't save or does it mean
>> don't quit.
>>
>> This problem is further complicated by the desire in Sugar to record
>> a 'log' record of each activity (i.e. to store the metadata).
>>
>> So the check and x may be a way to make the 'quit' dialog
>> unambiguous without requiring the localization needed by save,
>> cancel. The quit action could always store the metadata.
>>
>> While we're at it, it might be nice to implement Esc for full
>> screen. The F11 key does not work in Sugar (dedicated to sound
>> volume).
>>
>> Tony
>>
>> On 04/09/2016 06:47 PM, James Cameron wrote:
>>> I'm sorry, but I won't be accepting the patch as it stands now.  I'm
>>> puzzled by your design.  Please work toward consensus before making
>>> such changes.
>>>
>>> Escape key handler must be put back.  Escape key must be enabled in
>>> all modal dialogs; as a keyboard shortcut.  It is enabled for Help, My
>>> Settings, View Source, and wireless password.
>>>
>>> Enter key should be put back.  I don't see why this dialog shouldn't
>>> accept enter key, in the same way that wireless password prompt does
>>> now.  Have you even tested that?
>>>
>>> The tick (check) and X icons; I don't like seeing them used in small
>>> dialogs; the nearest equivalent is the wireless password prompt, which
>>> doesn't have these icons.  But if others think the icons should be
>>> used, to be consistent with Help, My Settings, and View Source, then
>>> we should also extend it to the wireless password.
>>>
>>> @Tony, please do some more research and testing of the Escape key
>>> before giving such bad guidance; unless your purpose is to make these
>>> changes to Sugar 0.98, you must be familiar with Sugar 0.108.
>>>
>>> On Sat, Apr 09, 2016 at 04:19:00AM +0530, Utkarsh Tiwari wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>       I have all these following listed inconsistencies as suggested ->
>>>> 1- Esc key handler removed.
>>>> 2- Enter key hander removed.
>>>> 3- Now the screenshot can be saved only via save(check) toolbutton.
>>>> 4- The screenshot alert can be 'not save' or 'cancelled' via cancel(X)
>>>> toolbutton.
>>>>
>>>> PR- https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar/pull/675
>>>>
>>>> Please update me if further modifications are required.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you,
>>>> Utkarsh Tiwari
>>>>
>>>> On 4/8/16, Tony Anderson <tony_anderson at usa.net> wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> Consistency is very important to our users. Using Esc for this is unusual.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I have trouble following the screencast. It looks like you offer a check
>>>>> and an x for the user. It also looks like an enter after providing the
>>>>> title acts as
>>>>> the check. The x appears to save the screenshot without changing the
>>>>> title. The user doesn't appear to have an option not to save the
>>>>> screenshot. Arguably the workflow would be to complete the task and then
>>>>> go to the Journal to erase the unneeded screenshots. I have taken
>>>>> screenshots and realized, for example, that the cursor was not on the
>>>>> right toolbar item. For these, I would like to be able to have a 'no
>>>>> save' option.
>>>>>
>>>>> Using Esc is not consistent with the way the rest of Sugar works and
>>>>> doesn't seem needed since you offer an equivalent one-click option in
>>>>> the alert/pop-up.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tony
>>>>>
>>>>> On 04/08/2016 02:07 PM, Utkarsh Tiwari wrote:
>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>       Here is the PR to the screenshot feature ->
>>>>>> https://github.com/sugarlabs/sugar/pull/675
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thank you,
>>>>>> Utkarsh Tiwari
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 4/4/16, Utkarsh Tiwari <iamutkarshtiwari at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi Dave,
>>>>>>>                Thanks for your appreciation. I think this feature isn't
>>>>>>> intrusive also because if the user wants to ignore or cancel the save,
>>>>>>> he can simply do so by pressing Esc key.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Golden Rule- Giving the user a choice to do something but not force it.
>>>>>>> ;)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>> Utkarsh Tiwari
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 4/4/16, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> I think this is a good change/feature
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>> .
>>>>>>
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