Handling TamTam Resources...

Tue Apr 15 20:04:20 EDT 2008

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Olivier Bélanger wrote:
| Is there a way to let all TamTam activities have access to a common
| directory?

No.  Activities are untrusted code.  The security design assumes that
every Activity is a trojan horse, unless the user specifically requests
otherwise.

| How do think this stuff should be implemented?

The easiest solution, and the one I recommend, is to make the TamTam
activities into a single activity.  There is no need to have 4 distinct
activities.  Switching between screens within one activity seems much more
reasonable than running multiple distinct TamTam activities.  I cannot
keep track of which one is which.

If the activities must be separate, I recommend using the P_DOCUMENT_RO
model.  Whenever SynthLab creates a new sound, it should be added to the
datastore as a new entry.  TamTamEdit can then run with P_DOCUMENT_RO
permission, scan the datastore for all sounds created so far, and load
them all.

I am not sure about the current state of datastore security; I believe it
is minimal.  However, if you follow this pattern, you will be
appropriately future-proofed.  In the Bitfrost design, P_DOCUMENT_RO is
mutually exclusive with P_NETWORK by default.  If you require both
P_DOCUMENT_RO and P_NETWORK for a single activity, you may request this
additional permission at install time.  When TamTam activities are added
before students receive laptops, they will be installed by customization
keys, which will also set the desired permissions.

- --Ben
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