Features/Transfer to many options


Basic Usage

  • This feature helps share Journal/Documents/Mounted-Drives' entries across XOs, via the following two mechanisms ::


    • Peer-to-Peer mode
      • Sharing in this mode is possible, only when the server and client XO(s) are on the same networks. Thus, peer-to-peer sharing would work on
        • XOs connected to the same Access Point.
        • Adhoc-Network connections.


    • Via-School-Server mode
      • In this mode, an XO uploads an entry to the central School Server; from where the client XO(s) may download the entry.
      • This mode of sharing works as long as the School-Server is HTTP-pingable between the server and client XOs. Thus, this mode of sharing would work when
        • XOs are connected to the same Access Point (as long as school-server is pingable throughout).
        • XOs are connected to the different Access Points (as long as school-server is pingable throughout).
        • XOs are conencted to Adhoc-Network (as long as school-server is pingable throughout).




Credits

  • Plan Ceibal
    • For supporting this feature development.


  • Sascha Silbe silbe@activitycentral.com
    • Initial Proposal for the solution based on WebDAV.


  • Anish Mangal anish@activitycentral.com
    • Showed why simply accessing the webdav shares via "Browse" activity won't work.
    • The reason is that accessing Sugar-WebDAV shares via "Browse" (or in any browser), would show only the availability of files. But a Sugar-entry is more than just the (data) file; it is a combination of
      • Metadata-file
      • Data-file
      • Preview-file (optional)
    • Also, the current workflow conforms to the sugar look-and-feel too. (Thanks again Anish).


  • Ruben Rodriquez ruben@activitycentral.com
    • Feedback on the "peer-to-peer" mechanism; now when the user clicks "Access Share", the user is directly taken to the newly mounted remote-share view.


  • Nitika Mangal nitika@activitycentral.com
    • Testing




Example Workflow for Peer-To-Peer Mode

NOTES

    • An entry present in "Local Shares", is available to other peers, when the peer(s) mount this XO's shares.
    • Note that the entries present in "Local Shares", have nothing to do with the entries present in "School Server Shares".
    • In the following screenshots' example, "PEER 2" mounts the shares of "PEER 1"; and uses that to copy entries onto its own XO. Thus, the entry is copied from XO-of-PEER-1 to XO-of-PEER-2.



SCREENSHOTS

[PEER 1] "Journal" - View.

 






[PEER 1] Detail view of the journal-entry. Note the preview presence.

 






[PEER 1] Initial "Local Shares" View

 






[PEER 1] Copy the journal entry to "Local Shares", to make it available for sharing to other peers.

 






[PEER 1] "Local Shares" view, after copying the entry.

 







[PEER 1] The detail view in "Local Shares". NOTE that the preview MUST be present, and it must be same as that of "Journal".

 








[PEER 2] Initial "Journal" - View.

 






[PEER 2] Neighborhood View.

 






[PEER 2] Click on "Access Share" of the peer, whose shares need to be accessed.

 






[PEER 2] The peer's shares are mounted.

 






[PEER 2] Copy the entry to the journal.

 







[PEER 2] Final "Journal" View.

 






[PEER 2] Detail-view of the entry. Note that the preview is the same as was on the remote peer.

 







Example Workflow for Via-School-Server Mode

NOTES

    • An entry present in "School Server Shares", is available to all the XOs. There isn't any mounting or anything required as such.
    • Note that the entries present in "School Server Shares", have nothing to do with the entries present in "Local Shares".
    • In the following screenshots' example, an XO uploads an entry to the school-server, and then downloads the same. HOWEVER, NOTE THAT ANY XO WOULD BE ABLE TO DOWNLOAD THE ENTRY PRESENT ON THE SCHOOL-SERVER, AND NOT ONLY NECESSARILY THE UPLOADER.



SCREENSHOTS

[UPLOAD] Initially, no entries are present on the school-server.

 






[UPLOAD] Choose an entry to upload to the school-server.

 






[UPLOAD] Enter the pasphrase when prompted.

 






[UPLOAD] After uploading, ensure that the entry has in fact been uploaded to the school-server.

 






[DOWNLOAD] Initial "Documents" view.

 






[DOWNLOAD] Choose to copy the entry from school-server, to "Documents".

 







[DOWNLOAD] Enter (incorrect) password.

 







[DOWNLOAD] 'Passphrase not match' error occurs.

 








[DOWNLOAD] Try copying again.

 








[DOWNLOAD] Enter (correct) password.

 







[DOWNLOAD] Confirm that the entry has been successfully downloaded.

 







[DOWNLOAD] Ensure that in the detail view, the uploader-details are present.

 







HOW TO SETUP



  • VIA-SCHOOL-SERVER
    • Setting up School-Server (on Fedora-17/Fedora-14)
    • Setting up the XOs
      • Install the image <add image link> on the XO-1.75s (if not already).
      • On each XO, configure the IP-Address/DNS-Name of the School-Server. For example, if the IP-address of the school-server is 192.168.1.26, run the following command (in Terminal Activity) of each XO ::
        • gconftool-2 --set /desktop/sugar/network/school_server_ip_address_or_dns_name --type string 192.168.1.26
      • Reboot (each XO).
    • All done (For example workflow screenshots, please refer http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Transfer_to_many_options#Example_Workflow_for_Via-School-Server_Mode)

TEST-CASES THAT NEED TO PASS

  • Inter-copying an entry between Journal/Documents/Mounted-Drives/Local-Shares/School-Server-Shares should behave in the same way. For eg, in the peer-to-peer mode, it was shown that the source-entry (on PEER-1) had a preview; the same was true when the entry finally arrived on PEER-2. In particular, the preview should "go along" as and when the entry goes, intra-XO or inter-XO.
  • Things should work fine, irrespective of the fact that whether the sharing is done via single-mode, or batch-mode.