On Plasmate's recent project list

[Yuen Hoe Lim]

Hi guys,

Would like some of your opinion on this :) There is a comment like this in
Plasmate's code regarding the 'recent projects list' on the start page:

        // Q: TODO Limit to 5?
        // A: Before limiting, we need to provide an "Export" feature so
        // the developer can save his projects and import it later for
review.

I think there are problems with this:

   - What happens if a user forgets to export? It doesn't make sense that
   you never need to worry about saving files in plasmate but yet need to worry
   about exporting your project every now and then or risk losing it forever
   and ever (unless you dug into the folds of Plasmate's hidden folders, which
   is ugly).
   - Even if you remember to export, Plasmate still maintains a (version
   controlled!) copy of the project in it's own hidden folders. Then what
   happens if you reimport the exported project? How does Plasmate know that
   the project being imported is the same project as the one it maintains in
   the hidden folder - especially since the exported project may have been
   modified before being imported again? Name checking doesn't sound like a
   sensible thing since you could very well be importing an external plasmoid
   (via GHNS for eg when that starts working) that happens to have the same
   name as a local project but is entirely different. If you always imported as
   a new project, then you'll be creating tonnes of obsolete 'garbage projects'
   in the hidden folder that never gets referenced again.

What I suggest is we make it so that the export feature is only for creating
an installable that the user can distribute - he should not need to
re-import what was exported. Instead, Plasmate will be responsible for
managing all 'in-development' projects. What we could have is for there to
be ~5 recent projects that the user can quick-select from the start page,
and then we could have an 'other projects' button at the bottom that brings
up a project selection dialog, which should list all projects that have ever
been created in Plasmate (probably with quick-filter/search
functionalities). The user will be able to load any of his projects from
this dialog, and will also be able to delete off old projects he doesn't
need anymore.

This way we never need to worry about projects bouncing in and out of
Plasmate - all projects are always "in" Plasmate. At the same time the user
never needs to worry about exporting unless he wants an installable, never
needs to manage his Plasmate project files (since there are none), and
doesn't even need to care about how a project looks like or how Plasmate is
storing his projects - just that it does. It'll also allow the user to
explicitly decide if any project is no longer needed and allow us to delete
off stuff in the hidden folder to save space.

What do you guys think, does this sound like a sensible solution?

----
Jason "moofang" Lim Yuen Hoe
http://yuenhoe.co.cc/
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