[sugar] 9.1 Proposal: Files

[Bill Bogstad]

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 1:21 AM, Benjamin M. Schwartz
<bmschwar at fas.harvard.edu> wrote:

>> 2) Data access and user-perceived reliability:
>
> Problem: Users can't find things because they're not providing enough
> metadata for search to work, and there's too much stuff for them to find
> it without search.
>
>...
>  - Reduce the number of unwanted objects that accumulate
>   - by providing a "draft mode" option that does not produce any object
>     - but still produces a listing in a separate Actions view (see
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Journal)
>   - by resuming previous instances by default, so as to encourage
> continued work on existing objects

Alternative proposal to encourage Journal use:

When the system boots, start in the Activity view with the Journal;
not in the Home view. Pre-populate Journal with entries for the
recently written help manual and selected (3 or 4) entries for the
most commonly used/popular activities.  This would emphasize the
importance of the Journal in tying the whole system together.  By
putting the help manual at the top, I believe the discoverability of
many features/activities would be greatly increased.

Note: the pre-populated Journal entries would be no different then any
other entry.  If the user doesn't want them anymore, they can delete
them without any other consequence.  This is much like the initial
mail messages that some mail clients use to demonstrate features to
new users.

Bill Bogstad