#6360 HIGH Never A: kids start multiple copies of activities (losing old ones)

Zarro Boogs per Child bugtracker at laptop.org
Thu Feb 7 03:21:54 EST 2008


#6360: kids start multiple copies of activities (losing old ones)
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 Reporter:  AlbertCahalan     |       Owner:  Eben          
     Type:  defect            |      Status:  new           
 Priority:  high              |   Milestone:  Never Assigned
Component:  interface-design  |     Version:                
 Keywords:                    |    Verified:  0             
 Blocking:                    |   Blockedby:                
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 Here is what the kids do, starting from a fresh boot:

 1. start the desired activity (with multiple clicks BTW)

 2. begin using the desired activity

 3. accidentally invoke the frame

 4. accidentally start a random activity or switch to another view (so now
 the activity appears to have quit or crashed)

 5. purposely(?) invoke the frame

 6. start a second copy of the desired activity (and a third, fourth, etc.
 as the process repeats)

 7. suffer as the XO runs out of memory, gets slow, goes OOM or gets power
 cycled to recover, and thus loses work

 In other words, both the frame and donut are not working. They sort of
 conspire to cause this problem. The donut is never used. (BTW, the
 confusing and spam-filled journal is also never used) If the desired
 activity is not on the screen, then it will be restarted as soon as the
 kid can get the frame under control for long enough to click on the
 activity icon.

 An easy fix would be to make clicking on the activity icon in the frame
 simply switch to the running activity. Starting a second (third, fourth,
 etc.) copy is generally undesirable; the ability could be provided via a
 "start another" option on the context menu that appears over the
 activity's donut icon. Also, hot corners for the frame really need to go.
 Starting an activity without shutting down an existing activity should not
 be easy to do by accident. I have yet to see a case where a kid
 wanted/needed multiple activities running.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/6360>
One Laptop Per Child <http://dev.laptop.org>
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