[Server-devel] Journal and XS

[Tony Anderson]

Martin,

The current journal is missing some critical capabilities. The DS backup 
and restore is working well in Nepal (our schoolserver is based on XS-0.4).

I would like to propose the following for discussion. It may be that 
much of what I am describing is already available in code or the feature 
may already be available using a different mechanism.

First, the journal should show all entries whether stored on the XO or 
only stored on the XS. I believe the 'keep' star should be used to 
indicate the status. Filled in for entries on the XO. Blank for entries 
stored only on the XS.

At startup, the journal should determine if it is connected to the 
schoolserver. If so, it would verify that all the 'keep' entries are on 
the XO (copying from the schoolserver as necessary). It should delete 
entries from the XO not marked as 'keep'.

The journal should show (possibly next to the journal, usb drive icons) 
the percentage usage of XO nand and XS quota for that user. This will 
help the user manage his nand and XS space.

When the XS quotas are reached, journal entries to be deleted should be 
highlighted (e.g. shown in red). The user should be able to 'touch' 
entries to be kept. The journal should then highlight additional entries 
as needed to be candidates for deletion.

If possible, there should be a journal 'commons' capability on the 
schoolserver. Specifically, it should be possible to create folders 
(optionally read-only) on the schoolserver which could be mounted in the 
journal as virtual usb keys. The user could drag and drop entries from 
it to the journal (copying the file to the XO). Folders which are not 
read-only could be used to upload student's work to the schoolserver to 
be shared by others (drag and drop from the journal).

Journal entries stored only on the schoolserver should have a local 
'placeholder' (like a symbolic link) so that files copied from a virtual 
key would not be backed up to the XS. This would also allow the journal 
to show offline entries when not connected to the schoolserver.

The objectchooser should have filtering capabilities. Specifically, the 
objectchooser default should be to show only entries with mime-types 
matching those processed by the activity. In addition, the objectchooser 
should be able to filter by tag. While the objectchooser should retain 
the capability to show entries which do not contain files (but are 
solely for restoring a specific activity), this should be only by 
special request in the api.

I am trying to figure out how this sort of facility could be 
implemented. I would appreciate comments about desirability of any of 
this as well as suggestions about how and of it could be most usefully 
and efficiently implemented.

Tony

Tony