[Sugar-devel] [DESIGN] Re: PR comments on 'Save as

Tony Anderson tony_anderson at usa.net
Tue Jul 12 06:01:35 EDT 2016


Gonzalo,

As I remember, the dialog only requested a description. It did not 
request a 'title-supplied-by-user'. You may be right that the
'keep' button was removed with this dialog although I remember that as 
two independent decisions.

The only 'save as' in the Journal I am aware of is that the user could 
duplicate the object and then give them different names. This would have 
to be done before either was resumed as the one that is resumed is 
altered without the users control.

The solution you propose is (except for the save as) available now. The 
user can open the activity palette and change the name (except for 
sugar-web-activities). However, in working with users, this is not used. 
Unfortunately with Sugar as currently implemented, the duplicate you 
create is too late, the object has already been altered by the activity 
outside of the user's control.

We do have lots of evidence from real users. We now have a way to show 
Journal statistics. Activities in the Journal are named 
'Write.activity', 'Paint.activity', and so on. I have rarely seen a 
title-supplied-by-user. Perhaps someone has collected these statistics 
can report a different experience.

Tony

On 07/12/2016 02:11 AM, Gonzalo Odiard wrote:
> A few years ago, Sugar used to open a dialog to set the name, 
> description, etc when the activity was closed.
> (The dialog was similar to the detail view in the journal)
> A lot of users complained about this dialog.
> The purpose of the dialog was stimulate the reflection, but the result 
> that the dialog
> interrupted the user when wanted to do something else.
>
> Then we added the feature Write_to_journal_anytime[1] [2]
> and removed the dialog when the activity was closed.
>
> Now the users can start a new instance or a previous instance of the 
> activity
> from the journal or from the Home, but is true that duplicate (or Save as)
> is difficult to find, because is only in the Journal.
>
> In my humble opinion, ask the user the options as is proposed is not a 
> good solution.
> If I would implement a "Save as"  feature, I would just add a 
> "Duplicate" button
> to the activity toolbar. Yes, the two will have the same name, but 
> then you can change
> the name in the usual way.
>
> Maybe you can set a empty name by default, and ask a name to the user 
> if is empty.
>
> Anyway these changes would be tested in real users. Is too easy make 
> assumptions
> but no so easy find a good solution for a big group of users.
>
> Gonzalo
>
> [1] https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Write_to_journal_anytime
> [2] https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:Write_to_Journal_Text_View.png
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 7:59 PM, Sam Parkinson 
> <sam.parkinson3 at gmail.com <mailto:sam.parkinson3 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 8:37 AM, Martin Dengler
>     <martin at martindengler.com <mailto:martin at martindengler.com>> wrote:
>>     On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 05:18:00PM +0200, Tony Anderson wrote:
>>
>>         Hi Martin, It seems to be nostalgia week. The goal is to have
>>         the user supply a name. Whether the text says untitled,
>>         Write.activity, execrable, or is left blank. The user will
>>         not be able to save until a title is supplied. There would be
>>         literally no 'untitled' or 'Write.activity' documents in the
>>         Journal. 
>>
>>     This design decision of not forcing the user to name an activity
>>     has literally been consciously made since the first deployment of
>>     Sugar:
>>     http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2008-October/009151.html
>>     http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/3225
>>     http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2008-October/009157.html
>>     ("Sugar default naming scheme")
>>     http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2008-October/009152.html
>>     The has many nuances, so I don't want to be the penut gallery too
>>     much, but it seems to me that forcing kids to name activity
>>     instances upon closing[1] would seriously change (for the worse,
>>     IMO) the Sugar user experience. The children I have observed
>>     using Sugar would for sure spend longer closing and switching
>>     between activities without any benefit from this modal alert. Is
>>     it only going to be some activities, like Write, that require (or
>>     default to) this? Are you sure you want to undo/change these very
>>     old design decisions?
>
>     I agree with you.  I believe that there is a lot of value in
>     reminding the user to set a name - showing the alert as the
>     current patch does.  But I don't think that we should force the
>     user to set a name - they will only set a bad name, and they will
>     feel like Sugar is working against them.
>
>     I think that the current implementation of the "Choose a name"
>     alert is fine.  It serves as a gentle reminder.
>
>     Here are some of my questions about the design:
>
>     I would also propose that the "cancel" button in the "choose a
>     name" alert change to being a "delete" button.  (This was my
>     original understadngin of the project). Having a delete button
>     there helps reduce journal clutter by making it easy to delete the
>     object if it is un-needed.  For example, if I made a write
>     activity to take a note, and then decide that I don't want to keep
>     it, I can just click "delete" instead of setting a title.
>
>     What is the purpose of the "overwrite" alert?  I thought that the
>     overwhelmingly most common use case would just be saving (or
>     "overwriting").  Does overwrite seem a little scary?  It did to me.
>
>     Also, does the jobject get overwrite by the autosave functions in
>     Sugar, regardless of the user's choice in the overwrite alert?
>
>     Thanks,
>     Sam
>
>>     Martin 1. My interpretation of the hypothetical proposals in
>>     "Sugar Journal save option" on
>>     https://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Summer_of_Code/2016 and the video
>>     on the "Save As" patch at
>>     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcvBH7zzFBo .
>>
>>         Tony On 07/11/2016 04:56 PM, Martin Dengler wrote:
>>
>>             On 11 Jul 2016, at 15:44, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com
>>             <mailto:dave at lab6.com> <mailto:dave at lab6.com>> wrote:
>>
>>                 On 11 July 2016 at 10:40, Tony Anderson
>>                 <tony_anderson at usa.net <mailto:tony_anderson at usa.net>
>>                 <mailto:tony_anderson at usa.net>> wrote: I prefer
>>                 'Untitled' as it supports the intent of the alert -
>>                 to request the user to supply a title. I also prefer
>>                 Untitled, although I'm curious to hear why "xxx
>>                 Activity" would be better. 
>>
>>             Actually, 500 "Untitled"s are so much worse than 5 sets
>>             of 100 "Foo.activity", because (in my limited experience)
>>             kids who can read know that "Speak activity" is different
>>             than "Write activity". There are literally over a hundred
>>             emails about this design decision years back - it was not
>>             done lightly. I didn't even participate and I was
>>             exhausted by the debate. Martin
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> *Gonzalo Odiard*
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