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→File System
Yes, it's better. But I still want to see the files I have created/saved in a list, by storage device. File name. Type. Size. Date last used.
Yes, it's better. But I still want to see the files I have created/saved in a list, by storage device. File name. Type. Size. Date last used.
==== usability ====
7/18/2008
I've been writing an activity on an XO using only XO resources. After all, the target community members are people for whom the XO is the only computer to which they have access. If you realistically want to serve that community, you have to walk a mile in their shoes.
I have had some success, but there are many frustrations, the Journal interface being the most egregious. Some notable troubles:
* I spend an inordinate amount of time deleting Journal clutter. It should be possible to turn automatic logging off, since not all activity will necessarily be worth tracking. Better yet, include a GUI for setting filter options for what will be logged, and what will not be logged
* The flat file display of directories on USB or SD devices also clutters the Journal. Especially annoying is when a complete web page is saved on another computer and viewed on an XO (for example tutorial information about the XO). The detail data in the subdirectory makes it hard to find the root HTML file to view the page. Moreover, as nearly as I can tell, it is not possible to save a complete web page using only the XO. Something is saved, but it displays incorrectly when viewed later. This is of fundamental importance for areas with little or unreliable internet service. A child finds something at school, he saves it so he can read it later at home where there is no internet, and what he gets is some partially readable glop.
* The OLPC developers guide extols the Journal as a replacement for file hierarchies, and suggests that such hierarchies are unnatural. This is not true: containers are very intuitive, especially for children. Even in the most primitive hut, there is an area for cooking, which contains a larder which contains food items. The cooking area also contains a storage area for utensils and an area for food preparation. The hut itself contains a sleeping area, a cooking area, a latrine area and a social area, even if it is only one room. Moreover, the hut is contained in a community, itself contained in a nation. To assert that hierarchical organization is unnatural borders on blind hubris. Hierarchical organization of information is no exception: bearing witness are the containers library, collection, shelf, volume, and page within the volume. Indeed, the entire internet, the new global library, is intrinsically and irretrievably hierarchical. Depriving children of these fundamental organizational tools is tantamount to crippling them.
* With reference to the previous point, it would be nice to have something like the triangle by directories on Macs, or in the example listings in pippy: click on the triangle, and the contained information is toggled between hidden and expanded states. A child could create a container in the Journal, and drag different Journal entries into it to organize the log of his activities according to his own choosing, and then click on the triangle to hide those that are distracting to the activity at hand. This is conceptually no different than putting toys away in a toy box, and it ''is'' perfectly natural to all human beings, children or otherwise. Moreover, this functionality is already present, but only for 'hard' containers like USB and SD devices. Is it such a stretch to allow 'soft' user created containers as journal entries?
* I have discovered that a journal entry is really a saving of the state of an activity comprising data, activity, view state (not always restored properly), etc. This notion of a saved state that may be identically resumed is very good, and very convenient, when it has been fully implemented by an activity. It should extend to power cycles. When I turn the machine back on, all my running activities should be resumed and the clipboard should have all my clips, and the machine view should be restored to the most recent active activity before power cycling.
* With reference to the previous point, this distinction between what a journal entry really is and a file or directory (which are very useful containers, not at all obsolete) should be made clearer. Downloads are implicitly files (documents or data if you prefer), not activities. Often, there is no natural activity for working with a download, or the default activity may be cumbersome or unworkable. The only workable means for accessing a download that I have discovered is to copy it to a USB or SD device, and then use the command line to manipulate it. The rudimentary task of managing development files has required me to repeatedly resort to the command line, which I detest, being a primitive legacy of the days in the 1970's when 64kbyte mini-computers ruled. It should be possible to copy, delete, rename, and execute files from the browser activity. This is the 21st century after all.
* The simple task of saving a module created with pippy into a suitable library directory turns into an ordeal because of these limitations on necessary functionality which ultimately serves not to educate, but to handicap children.
As a final remark, I am very aware that this is not a laptop project, nor is it a developer project, but an education project. Consider: children get older. They become more sophisticated. They begin to desire to express themselves and collaborate in more complicated ways, and engage in more complicated activities, which can not be linearized temporally. Activity development is just one instance of those possible future activities. Temporal state saving at the GUI level is a new and useful idea, but it is not sufficient. Usability will ultimately make or break this project.
=== Sugarize Firefox ===
=== Sugarize Firefox ===