[sugar] 9.1 Proposal: Files

[david at lang.hm]

On Wed, 29 Oct 2008, Bill Bogstad wrote:

> 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.

the fact that they will quickly disappear off the screen, and may be 
auto-deleted by the system greatly limits their value.

David Lang

> 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
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