User:Alsroot/trash/Object Bundles


Summary

Package Journal objects to bundles to preserve sugar related metadata.

Owner

Current status

  • Targeted release: 0.86
  • Last updated: Tue Jul 21 02:18:17 UTC 2009
  • Percentage of completion: 0%

Detailed Description

This feature is a first approach to unified format for all types of bundles(in 0.86 it will support only Journal entries and new library bundles).

Bundle files hierarchy

  • MANIFEST EOL-terminalted list of files inside bundle
  • METADATA file in INI format which describes bundle

METADATA file

Any field in METADATA file can have _file suffix, in that case content of this field(substring w/o _file suffix) will be fetched from file inside of the bundle.

[Metadata] section

This section is mandatory. It describes Datastore metadata fields of final entry in Journal.

Field Flags Notes
journal_file optional if exists, this file will be unpacked while uploading bundle to Journal and current section defines its metadata
otherwise defines metadata for bundle itself and bundle will be stored as is in Journal
activity optional bundle_id of activity to start Journal object(according to journal_file) by default, if its absent then mime_type based action
mime_type mandatory define metadata for a file which which will be stored in Journal(according to journal_file)
* optional any Datastore field, predefined or user defined

METADATA file could have several [Manifest] sections, in that case they would be parted by different suffixes e.g. [Manifest2], [Manifest.additional] etc. Multi-object bundles could be utilized in >0.86 for collections of objects or actions.

[Bundle] section

If [Metadata]/journal_file is omited(bundle will be stored as is in Journal), this section describes additional to [Metadata] properties.

Field Flags Notes

MANIFEST file

File which contains a new-line-terminated list of file names inside bundle.

Benefit to Sugar

This feature is a first approach to unified format for all types of bundles.

Current implementation is similar to .xoj bundles except that:

  • it uses INI format instead of json(to make it more user-editing friendly)
  • any field's value could fetched from file inside of the bundle
  • supports multi-object bundles

Scope

  • deprecate .xol bundles
  • deprecate .xoj bundles
  • provide unified format for metadata file in .xo bundles which should support
    • activities, former .xo bundles (0.88)
    • libraries, former .xol bundles (0.86)
    • journal entries, former .xoj bundles (0.86)
  • make Browse upload object bundles when the server says so
  • make Browse open bundles with libraries
  • InfoSlicer generates object bundles in 0.86 environment

How To Test

  1. Create a new TurtleArt activity
  2. Upload the new entry to the SL wiki using Browse
  3. Use Browse to download the entry back to Journal
  4. Resume it from Journal

User Experience

Except that .xoj has:

  • users can create object bundles outside of sugar(they do not have to follow JSON rules)

Dependencies

Fructose dependencies.

Contingency Plan

None necessary, revert to previous release behaviour.

Documentation

Release Notes

The Sugar Release Notes inform end-users about what is new in the release. An Example is 0.84/Notes. The release notes also help users know how to deal with platform changes such as ABIs/APIs, configuration or data file formats, or upgrade concerns. If there are any such changes involved in this feature, indicate them here. You can also link to upstream documentation if it satisfies this need. This information forms the basis of the release notes edited by the release team and shipped with the release.

Comments and Discussion