Security for launching from URL

[Eben Eliason]

On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 1:29 PM, Benjamin M. Schwartz
<bmschwar at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:
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> Eben Eliason wrote:
> | No, what I've described is precisely /not/ the details view.
>
> OK.  You want something whose function is the launcher component of the
> Details view, but whose form is simplified so as not to fill the screen.

Right.

> 1. The process will still have to work the same way underneath.  Browse
> has to add the MP3 file into the datastore in order for other Activities
> to be able to launch it.  Therefore, the new launcher dialog has to be
> instantiated in reference to a specific datastore object.

This is almost accurate, but there is a slight difference from the
current approach, nonetheless. The confirmation can happen before the
datastore entry is made, allowing one to cancel and prevent a new
entry from being created at all.  Another difference might be that the
URI actually gets passed directly to the instantiated activity.  That
URI might point to an object in the DS as you mention, but it might
also be a URL passed to Browse, or an RSS feed passed to News Reader,
or an audio stream passed to Watch & Listen.  In other words, some
URIs don't reference local objects, and this could be made to deal
with that in a more elegant way.  Finally, it's important to keep in
mind that this scheme is made to work for items which already have
Journal entries.  A prime example would be the Project activity, which
would allow kids to place references to a bunch of objects into their
project, and then launch them directly from that activity's GUI. (This
is similar in many ways to the "lesson plan" idea; I'd like to see
Projects serve that use case well.)

- Eben