Re: [IAEP] Redesigning: Library, Read, Get-Books, and Content bundles
Daniel, I like the ideas you posted there. I left some specific comments: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Talk:Features/Content_support Reuben: -Allow one to synchronously or asynchronously share a book to their Neighborhood so anyone can download and read it. I don't know how synchronous would work - but that sounds like a feature for bookreaders. Asynchronously, there are regular requests for both a share [file] with [target] feature http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/8171 and a way to share public Journal items constantly while online; as comes up in both global shared datastore and share files over the mesh discussions. http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/3431 SJ On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 4:29 PM, Daniel Drake d...@laptop.org wrote: On 20 July 2010 12:33, Reuben K. Caron reu...@laptop.org wrote: So what if we created a Library Activity The activity would: -Open a book from within the activity -Highlight and annotate books -List all of the books you have downloaded -Allow you to search and download additional books from Feed Books, Internet Archive, the XS, etc.. -List the resources in /home/olpc/Library (so this can be removed from Browse) -Allow one to synchronously or asynchronously share a book to their Neighborhood so anyone can download and read it. I'd argue that some of this is duplication of functionality that belongs (or already is) in the Journal and the Read activity, having such a design might kill some UI complications but add others. Parts of your concerns could be addressed with some ideas I wrote here: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Content_support#Accessing_content_from_home_screen I agree that this definitely merits further design/discussion. Daniel ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep -- Samuel Klein identi.ca:sj w:user:sj ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Redesigning: Library, Read, Get-Books, and Content bundles
On 20 July 2010 23:54, C. Scott Ananian csc...@cscott.net wrote: On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 2:33 PM, Reuben K. Caron reu...@laptop.org wrote: deployments that would like to install content bundles. They package these files into .xol packages and these packages get installed into the Library, which is contained on the left hand side of the Browse activity. Yes, you read that correctly...the BROWSE activity, an activity intended for online exploration is used to view offline content. Every deployment that I have shown this to has found it very unintuitive. Consider another example: You want to use Get-Books to The original goal was to blur the boundary between offline and online as much as possible. You would have a large-ish cache of online material available offline -- including not only your textbooks, but also many other web sites or educational resources. Updating a textbook would be as easy as updating the online source of that textbook, and the offline copy would get updated from that. Surfing while offline to a page which was not available in the offline cache would create a request for that content, which would be fetched when you are next online, or added to a queue for your teacher to fetch next time they travelled to a place with internet access. This is a pretty straightforward extension of the wwwoffle program, but the necessary tuits to integrate all the pieces never appeared. Anyway, that's just to say that there was justification once for putting library content in Browse. Don't know if that justification still applies. I understand the advantages to using a browser, but people will still be confused. In order to keep the advantages of a browser (blurred online-offline boundary), an SSB like the Wikipedia activity could be made to handle this. Users would download things to their Journal, regardless of whether those things were offline or online to begin with. --scott -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
[IAEP] Redesigning: Library, Read, Get-Books, and Content bundles
There has been a lot of great progress with the Read and Get-Books (IA) activities. However, we have neglected to think about how we can better fit all of these pieces together. For instance, consider deployments that would like to install content bundles. They package these files into .xol packages and these packages get installed into the Library, which is contained on the left hand side of the Browse activity. Yes, you read that correctly...the BROWSE activity, an activity intended for online exploration is used to view offline content. Every deployment that I have shown this to has found it very unintuitive. Consider another example: You want to use Get-Books to get a new book. So you open Get-Books search for a book and download the book. But where did it go? I guess one could assume (correctly) that it went to the journal. So you close Get-Books. Go to the Journal. Find the book you downloaded. Open the book (in Read.) IMHO, a series of needless steps. So what if we created a Library Activity The activity would: -Open a book from within the activity -Highlight and annotate books -List all of the books you have downloaded -Allow you to search and download additional books from Feed Books, Internet Archive, the XS, etc.. -List the resources in /home/olpc/Library (so this can be removed from Browse) -Allow one to synchronously or asynchronously share a book to their Neighborhood so anyone can download and read it. I have filed a bug here if anyone would like to follow it: http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/ticket/2110 I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Regards, Reuben ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Redesigning: Library, Read, Get-Books, and Content bundles
On 20 July 2010 12:33, Reuben K. Caron reu...@laptop.org wrote: So what if we created a Library Activity The activity would: -Open a book from within the activity -Highlight and annotate books -List all of the books you have downloaded -Allow you to search and download additional books from Feed Books, Internet Archive, the XS, etc.. -List the resources in /home/olpc/Library (so this can be removed from Browse) -Allow one to synchronously or asynchronously share a book to their Neighborhood so anyone can download and read it. I'd argue that some of this is duplication of functionality that belongs (or already is) in the Journal and the Read activity, having such a design might kill some UI complications but add others. Parts of your concerns could be addressed with some ideas I wrote here: http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Content_support#Accessing_content_from_home_screen I agree that this definitely merits further design/discussion. Daniel ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Redesigning: Library, Read, Get-Books, and Content bundles
On 20 Jul 2010, at 19:33, Reuben K. Caron reu...@laptop.org wrote: There has been a lot of great progress with the Read and Get-Books (IA) activities. However, we have neglected to think about how we can better fit all of these pieces together. For instance, consider deployments that would like to install content bundles. They package these files into .xol packages and these packages get installed into the Library, which is contained on the left hand side of the Browse activity. Yes, you read that correctly...the BROWSE activity, an activity intended for online exploration is used to view offline content. Every deployment that I have shown this to has found it very unintuitive. Consider another example: You want to use Get-Books to get a new book. So you open Get-Books search for a book and download the book. But where did it go? I guess one could assume (correctly) that it went to the journal. So you close Get-Books. Go to the Journal. Find the book you downloaded. Open the book (in Read.) IMHO, a series of needless steps. So what if we created a Library Activity The activity would: -Open a book from within the activity -Highlight and annotate books -List all of the books you have downloaded -Allow you to search and download additional books from Feed Books, Internet Archive, the XS, etc.. -List the resources in /home/olpc/Library (so this can be removed from Browse) -Allow one to synchronously or asynchronously share a book to their Neighborhood so anyone can download and read it. I have filed a bug here if anyone would like to follow it: http://bugs.sugarlabs.org/ticket/2110 I look forward to hearing your thoughts. I'm all for keeping activities simple, and then trying to smooth the workflow path when you need to use several in conjunction; however Apple did much as you suggest for their iBooks, a single app that has an epub book shelf, a PDF book shelf, and a store mode for downloading commercial and free ebooks. Read could be extended with a book shelf grid view of all (supported format) books in the Journal, and perhaps integrate download code from one of the get book activities. Would need support from the community as this would make Read harder/larger to maintain... I'd lean towards improving the Journal with a grid view and background sharing, as it could provide much the same thing for _all_ activities not just books (Alekseys Library was along this vector, as are I think his plans for future Journal). Journal is really in need of love, and a plan, for so long now :) Regards, --Gary Regards, Reuben ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
Re: [IAEP] Redesigning: Library, Read, Get-Books, and Content bundles
On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 2:33 PM, Reuben K. Caron reu...@laptop.org wrote: deployments that would like to install content bundles. They package these files into .xol packages and these packages get installed into the Library, which is contained on the left hand side of the Browse activity. Yes, you read that correctly...the BROWSE activity, an activity intended for online exploration is used to view offline content. Every deployment that I have shown this to has found it very unintuitive. Consider another example: You want to use Get-Books to The original goal was to blur the boundary between offline and online as much as possible. You would have a large-ish cache of online material available offline -- including not only your textbooks, but also many other web sites or educational resources. Updating a textbook would be as easy as updating the online source of that textbook, and the offline copy would get updated from that. Surfing while offline to a page which was not available in the offline cache would create a request for that content, which would be fetched when you are next online, or added to a queue for your teacher to fetch next time they travelled to a place with internet access. This is a pretty straightforward extension of the wwwoffle program, but the necessary tuits to integrate all the pieces never appeared. Anyway, that's just to say that there was justification once for putting library content in Browse. Don't know if that justification still applies. --scott -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
