Re: [Sugar-devel] acti-plications: write once, run anywhere?
Am I correct that sugar and gnome can co-exist in two different ways right now? 1. On a dual boot machine, probably an xo, where activities are installed into /home/user/Activities/ where useris probably *always *olpc 2. Sugar as an application in gnome (within a Xephyr window) where activities can be installed a few places, including /home/user/Activities/ Next question.. am I correct that the *preferred *way for users to install activities and applications is: A. Sugar activities are installed via .xo bundles. B. Gnome activities are installed via .rpm files. Now, how should activity developers (who are not writing system libraries like xulrunner or squeak) put their content so that their activity/application can be viewed from both sugar and gnome? I am asking so children can avoid having redundant copies of files on every machine running both gnome and sugar. This is a real problem for content rich activities with lots of media assets. By default, an rpm file will install into /usr/lib/python/. This is obviously not where sugar looks for its activities. If we could get an 'educational content' rpm to install its contents anywhere... where should we put its assets so that they are automatically where they should be for sugar too? Any experts out there on rpm spec files? Or is this a bad idea? ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] acti-plications: write once, run anywhere?
On 19.1.2011 3:57, Martin Langhoff wrote: - Typical users in an OLPC deployment will often depend on the OS image having the libs installed -- as it happens now with the examples I've given earlier. Hmm, I always wondered how those many separate gcompris activities work in this regard. I suppose gcompris is not preinstalled, does every activitity come with the shared stuff? Frantisek ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] acti-plications: write once, run anywhere?
Let's assume delivery of the activity-application is via a usb stick. Let's also assume the video game has 200mb of assets. The goal is to make it as easy as possible to install the activity-application once, from either side, and to put the assets in one place. For sugar, this would be a ~200mb xo bundle on the usb stick. For gnome, this might be a ~200mb rpm on the usb stick. Do all activity and application developers have write access to any part of the system where they can add the libraries that they need to the system from either gnome or sugar side and then access if from either side? Where and how should assets be installed? The best practice I am concocting is that a developer put all assets into ~/Actitivities/MyCoolActivity/ The xo bundle will obviously install and point there. Gnome .rpm installations should point there too. Hopefully it is straightforward to make the gnome rpm installation point and run from this location. Is there anything I should look out for before going down this path? ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] acti-plications: write once, run anywhere?
On 18.01.2011, at 18:41, Erik Blankinship wrote: On a dual-boot XO, does it make sense to use the same binary code for sugar activities also in gnome applications? If so, are there guidelines or example acti-plications? I think it makes a lot of sense. That's one of the reasons the Etoys activity bundle is but a tiny wrapper. Etoys works as stand-alone application in Gnome and as activity in Sugar. If the same binary code is not re-used by both platforms, but just the same code base, are there guidelines or examples of how to re-use the same code base effectively? Off the top of my head, how data is serialized is handled differently between the two platforms. Yes. Etoys switches the tool bar, e.g., the insert object/keep a copy buttons are replaced by file load/save buttons, the sharing button goes away, a full-screen button is added. The file format is the same, but different code paths are used. This question is of particular concern to acti-plications with many media assets, like some video games. It would be nice to avoid file redundancy. Given the small size of the XO netbooks, I hope this question is on mark for this community. Right on. - Bert - ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] acti-plications: write once, run anywhere?
On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Erik Blankinship er...@mediamods.com wrote: On a dual-boot XO, does it make sense to use the same binary code for sugar activities also in gnome applications? If so, are there guidelines or example acti-plications? The gnome side will most likely be installed via RPMs (or .deb files on Ubuntu/Fedora setups). So your Sugar app could just use the libraries, binaries and resources/assets from the RPM. Examples - Write.xo uses the Abiword libraries. Browse.xo uses xulrunner (the Firefox libraries backend). Bert pointed out EToys. In all those cases, you get code reuse and a small Activity, but the activity completely depends finding the things it needs. hth, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] acti-plications: write once, run anywhere?
The gnome side will most likely be installed via RPMs (or .deb files on Ubuntu/Fedora setups). So your Sugar app could just use the libraries, binaries and resources/assets from the RPM. Examples - Write.xo uses the Abiword libraries. Browse.xo uses xulrunner (the Firefox libraries backend). Bert pointed out EToys. In all those cases, you get code reuse and a small Activity, but the activity completely depends finding the things it needs. If my acti-plication has dependencies that are not part of the underlying build, do I need to install them on the gnome side first? Or can cross-platform libraries be initially installed on the Sugar side too? A related follow-up: does it make sense to put cross-platform dependencies that a gnome activity would need into ~/Activities/MyCoolActivity.activity/ ? ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] acti-plications: write once, run anywhere?
On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 2:25 PM, Erik Blankinship er...@mediamods.com wrote: If my acti-plication has dependencies that are not part of the underlying build, do I need to install them on the gnome side first? It's not technically at the gnome side... you have to install them in the system :-) - Power users, developers with an XO, will use yum (or a GUI frontend to yum) to install the required libs, and the gnome app. - Typical users in an OLPC deployment will often depend on the OS image having the libs installed -- as it happens now with the examples I've given earlier. cheers, m -- martin.langh...@gmail.com mar...@laptop.org -- School Server Architect - ask interesting questions - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first - http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Martinlanghoff ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
Re: [Sugar-devel] acti-plications: write once, run anywhere?
On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 9:57 PM, Martin Langhoff martin.langh...@gmail.comwrote: On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 2:25 PM, Erik Blankinship er...@mediamods.com wrote: If my acti-plication has dependencies that are not part of the underlying build, do I need to install them on the gnome side first? It's not technically at the gnome side... you have to install them in the system :-) Let's assume delivery of the activity-application is via a usb stick. Let's also assume the video game has 200mb of assets. The goal is to make it as easy as possible to install the activity-application once, from either side, and to put the assets in one place. For sugar, this would be a ~200mb xo bundle on the usb stick. For gnome, this might be a ~200mb rpm on the usb stick. Do all activity and application developers have write access to any part of the system where they can add the libraries that they need to the system from either gnome or sugar side and then access if from either side? Where and how should assets be installed? ___ Devel mailing list Devel@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
