[GCompris-devel] GCompris Architecture Reconfig Discussion

Tue Mar 22 14:27:13 UTC 2016

Hi
Thanks for the prompt response!

On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 6:27 PM, Johnny Jazeix <jazeix at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> 2016-03-22 13:10 GMT+01:00 Devendra Vyas <devendra.y12 at lnmiit.ac.in>:
>
>> Hi
>>
>> This mail comprises of what I've understood after the discussions on
>> mailing lists and IRC regarding modifying the core of Gcompris.
>>
>> Purpose: To provide users an option to download activities as per their
>> wish/need. Keeping the full download option intact.
>>
>> Phases of development:
>> P-1 -> Separate ActivityInfo.qml and icons from some activities and make
>> new ActivityInfo.rcc. See whether we are successfully able to load them.
>> The activities selected here will not have have any inter-dependencies on
>> some other activity.
>>
>> P-2 -> Now for the activities that are inter-dependent, I think we'll
>> have to code a new download manger in a way that it downloads all
>> dependencies required for running that activity and nothing extra. As
>> mentioned earlier by Johnny, erase_2clic needs erase. So download manager's
>> code will manage accordingly.
>>
>>
> I'm not sure we need to update the DownloadManager in this case, we can
> just first download the dependencies and then the wanted package. I think
> there is a system with a job list that should work here?
>

If it's available already then, we could incorporate it.

>
>
>> P-3 -> Now providing option of selective activity download to end-user in
>> a way that it is easy to understand. I suggest that we have two buttons at
>> the very beginning of the app, that prompts user with two options/buttons:
>> a) Full Download b) Selective download
>>
>>
> There are two things to consider: the first run where your solution works
> (should it depend on the platform? I mean for Desktop packages, do we
> propose all the activities directly? We also need to take care of not
> propose it if the user is not connected to internet, it should work
> offline).
>

First phase could be do it for android users only, as desktop users don't
usually face space problems. However, once tested for android, we could
discuss about it's implementation for desktop users as well. Does the
approach feel right?
We could provide the option of download, but if the user is offline, it
would check and notify the user through a Dialog/Alert Box that the device
is not connected to the internet. 

> Then, there should be the possibility to install/update/uninstall any
> activity when you want using the configuration panel.
>
 Sure, I've mentioned that in P-5 as an optional component, but now I think
it could be added to the main To-Do list :)

> For the selective download, do you have an idea of what it should look
> like, which information should be displayed? The icon, name, difficulty,
> tags, version? Can we reuse the existing menu to display these activities
> (and instead of flagging favorite, we can flag "already downloaded/can be
> upgraded") or maybe use a list?
>

One way that I could think of is, the icons of the activities that are
downloaded will be in color and those not on device will be in grayscale.
By doing this, we could use the existing menu. Also, if we do this, the
already downloaded flag won't be needed. Now there could be multiple ways
to display "can be upgraded" flag or info, one of them could be to have a
separate configuration screen where every downloaded activity is listed and
there the user could be notified of upgrades via some some button. The
button would be active only when there is an upgrade possible.

>
>
>> P-4 -> Versioning of APIs. I'm a little unsure here. We have two issues
>> to handle here: a) Avoid download of duplicate activity on the user end b)
>> check and update correct version of activity to core. I think one of the
>> ways could be, while we are creating a separate activityInfo.rcc for every
>> activity, the download manger could check the corresponding
>> ActivityInfo.qml file in activityInfo.rcc for version and then perform the
>> necessary action.
>>
>
> To avoid duplicate, you should already know if you have the activity or
> not, and its version. I think we can only have one
> downloadable_activities.rcc on server containing:
> |- activity1/{icon/ActivityInfo.qml}
> |- activity2/{icon/ActivityInfo.qml}
> |- activity3/{icon/ActivityInfo.qml} ...
>
> This file would be downloaded, if automatic download is activated, when
> the user starts the application if the version is more recent else with a
> button in the config, like for the voices. Then, we can see for each
> activity if we have a more recent one or not.
>
> For knowing the minimum/maximum core version, we can probably add it in
> the ActivityInfo.qml. We have a createdInVersion field, maybe we can
> improve it.
>
I'm a little unsure here. May be we could discuss this further as Sagar
suggested.

>
>
> P-5 -> If all of the above is done, I think we could also think of
>> implementing an option that allows user to delete a particular activity.
>> Suppose someone has completed all the levels of the activity and doesn't
>> use the activity anymore then this option would help there.
>> Implementation of P-5 -> We can add a ActivityHandler.cpp in the core
>> that will keep track of this.
>> In my humble opinion, this would take around 12 weeks including the
>> testing.
>>
>> If mentors think this is small enough for GSoC, I'm ready to discuss and
>> implement an additional option suggested by Emmanuel for allowing the user
>> to download part of activity as per the age of the kid (If not for all then
>> for some of the activities).
>>
>>
> Time wise, I think it should fit in a gsoc.  The idea is almost clear,
> there will still be time when we'll need to discuss so it's 12 weeks less
> the discussions ;).
>

Thank you so much for reviewing this. We have a 13 week window this time,
so discussions will be well accommodated if we decide to stick to these
features. We could always implement more if time permits :)

More suggestions and comments welcomed!

> Johnny
>
>
>> I would request the review of the mentors on this that whether this could
>> be a probable proposal for GSoC'16.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Devendra
>> It is not your qualifications but your exposure in life that makes you
>> who you are.
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> GCompris-devel mailing list
>> GCompris-devel at kde.org
>> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/gcompris-devel
>>
>>
>

-- 
Thanks
Devendra
It is not your qualifications but your exposure in life that makes you who
you are.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/gcompris-devel/attachments/20160322/7a3b849a/attachment.html>