Active activities as Widgets

[Eben Eliason]

> >> This, I do believe is probably a fantastic thing to work on.  What we
> >> really need in cases like this is, as you say, a chat widget that is
> >> based on the chat activity, having the same look, feel, options, etc.
> >> Just as we have an Abiword widget for text which can be used anywhere
> >> we should adopt a standard chat widget that can be designed and
> >> maintained by OLPC, so that the experience is always consistent and
> >> any fixes or improvements are automatically seen within any activity
> >> that makes use of it.
> >>
> >> Do those working on Chat see this as a viable possibility?
> >>
> >
> > I don't see any reason why not.
> >
> > Do you envision this as something that might be enabled in every activity
> > automatically, or something that each activity would integrate manually? The
> > former might mean that the chatting UI would be more consistent, but perhaps
> > allows for less flexibility in integrating with different styles of activity
> > UI.
> >
> > (Shared activities are built on top of chat rooms, so there's already a way
> > for all the participants to send messages to each other.)
> >
> >
> I am all for the manually adopted widget. I think Eben has pointed out
> problems with the every activity model. But in any case, the widget is a
> natural first step to any further functionality.

To clarify my point, I'm arguing that we should absolutely have a
generic "every-activity" model that exists "on top of" the activity in
some manner.  I'm also arguing that, in the cases where chat is
desired as an integrated part of the main activity interface, we offer
a consistent widget for activity authors to embed at any size and
position they choose.  My presumption is that most activities won't
actually need to embed the chat element, but it seems nice to offer a
simple way to do so when the desire is there.

- Eben