On Plasmate's recent project list

[Shantanu Tushar Jha]

On Sat, Jan 23, 2010 at 11:57 AM, Yuen Hoe Lim <yuenhoe86 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

Yes, that is good. But, there should be an option by which the user
can 'save' all his/her projects to a file (an archive, maybe) so that
it can be used after a system reinstall, or say for backup purposes. I
suggest-

1. User clicks on "Backup", chooses a location to save the archive.
2. Plasmate tars/zips the config dir (the plasmate dir in .kde) to the location.
3. Later, the user wants to "Restore", chooses an archive for the task.
4. Plasmate untars/unzips the archive, and if successful overwrites
(after a warning/confirmation) the config with those from the archive.

All this because not everyone is going to publish on an online repo.
Or, is there some other way to accomplish this?

>
> 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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>



-- 
Shantanu Tushar    (UTC +0530)
http://www.shantanutushar.com