Icon for session bookmarks (sharing a link) in browse

[Simon]

Eben can you make an icon to share a link?

[Eben]

This ties back into the notion of sharing vs. bookmarking. Without tabs, I think these might need to be independent actions, but we'll have to consider the use cases. It seems simpler to make them the same thing up front, but they could be seen as distinctly separate actions. Sharing a link is an action belonging to the session, placing that page in the tray and allowing others to see it. Bookmarking a page is a global action, which denotes that a local cache of that page should be kept for offline viewing.

We've been using the star to mean "keep this as a favorite", and so that's quite consistent with the global bookmark. What icon should we use to mean "share this link"?

[HoboPrimate]

Replying to Eben:

This ties back into the notion of sharing vs. bookmarking. Without tabs, I think these might need to be independent actions, but we'll have to consider the use cases. It seems simpler to make them the same thing up front, but they could be seen as distinctly separate actions. Sharing a link is an action belonging to the session, placing that page in the tray and allowing others to see it. Bookmarking a page is a global action, which denotes that a local cache of that page should be kept for offline viewing.

Right, so isn't it true then that Sharing a Link is more like "Bookmarking pages within a Browse Activity", just like you Bookmark Pages within a Read Activity? And that typical Bookmarks are more like "Create a new Browse Activity in the Journal with this homepage as its starting webpage".

The first action is usefull, for a kid to have one Web Activity with related pages within it (eg: a specific research project) and for multiple kids which are colaborating within it to be able to add and remove bookmarks from it ("This link is pretty usefull for our research").

The second action is usefull for when the kid wants to snapshot/export the current webpage as a divergent Browsing path, for later retrieving and following it up on its own separate Browse activity.

The only problem is: That may mean that these web session bookmarks aren't searchable through the Journal.

But still, I fell these are pretty solid cases of the usefull metaphors sugar is being built on: I would love to have such a feature in my desktop myself, with a "E-Mail Browse Activity", and a "Comics Browse Activity" (and kind of can, just never as cleanly as this method).

We've been using the star to mean "keep this as a favorite", and so that's quite consistent with the global bookmark. What icon should we use to mean "share this link"?

If I understand it correctly, the "share this link" icon creates a snapshot of the page and visually places it at the bottom of the frame. Within a websession, it would be interesting if the current participants would see those new snapshots immediately, so the sharing would be implicit for those currently in session.

I would say that the Star icon creates a Session bookmark (snapshot), and another option creates a Global Bookmark (either with a new icon, or as a secondary rollover menu for the Keep option, with the text "Keep as New Browse Activity"). The snapshot links would not have their preview allways visible, so to provide more visible space within one Activity, but have it in their menu after some timeout. Dragging one of these snapshots to the clipboard, would copy them as a snippet (a webpage+url), as well as have a "copy to clipboard" menu option. Since these links are snippets, and not entire activities, this would go hand in hand with the model of snippets vs objects treatment in sugar.

What are your opinion on this? It somewhat mimicks desktop Web-browsers (snapshots as tabs), as well as enhance them (the ability to resume Browse activities with their relating snapshots). And since any one of these snapshot could be turned into its own activity (Global Bookmark), the kid could detach one of them and have it reachable independently through the journal.

[Eben]

Replying to HoboPrimate:

Right, so isn't it true then that Sharing a Link is more like "Bookmarking pages within a Browse Activity", just like you Bookmark Pages within a Read Activity? And that typical Bookmarks are more like "Create a new Browse Activity in the Journal with this homepage as its starting webpage".

This is a good point, and pretty much gets to the heart of the problem.

The first action is usefull, for a kid to have one Web Activity with related pages within it (eg: a specific research project) and for multiple kids which are colaborating within it to be able to add and remove bookmarks from it ("This link is pretty usefull for our research"). The second action is usefull for when the kid wants to snapshot/export the current webpage as a divergent Browsing path, for later retrieving and following it up on its own separate Browse activity.

Indeed. These are two use cases that I really want to highlight, and neither of them is really handled well (or at all) by any browsers out there. The browser session is something I've long wanted, and I think it fits with the goals of Sugar really well. The local copies of pages are also quite important, since the kids might be offline at home but want to reference bits of the web they saw earlier at school.

The only problem is: That may mean that these web session bookmarks aren't searchable through the Journal.

This is true. But at the same time, I'm not sure we want every shared bookmark to appear in the Journal. For starters, they are made by everyone in the session, so their actions could clutter up your own Journal. If theirs were left out, then you would have to re-bookmark their shared bookmark to add it yourself? That seems odd. Additionally, this doesn't necessarily rule out keeping some global record of all the shared bookmarks, which could be accessible via the Browser history panel if not through the Journal.

But still, I fell these are pretty solid cases of the usefull metaphors sugar is being built on: I would love to have such a feature in my desktop myself, with a "E-Mail Browse Activity", and a "Comics Browse Activity" (and kind of can, just never as cleanly as this method).

Yes!

If I understand it correctly, the "share this link" icon creates a snapshot of the page and visually places it at the bottom of the frame. Within a websession, it would be interesting if the current participants would see those new snapshots immediately, so the sharing would be implicit for those currently in session.

Indeed, that is the intent (just like the photo activity now works)

I would say that the Star icon creates a Session bookmark (snapshot), and another option creates a Global Bookmark (either with a new icon, or as a secondary rollover menu for the Keep option, with the text "Keep as New Browse Activity"). The snapshot links would not have their preview allways visible, so to provide more visible space within one Activity, but have it in their menu after some timeout. Dragging one of these snapshots to the clipboard, would copy them as a snippet (a webpage+url), as well as have a "copy to clipboard" menu option. Since these links are snippets, and not entire activities, this would go hand in hand with the model of snippets vs objects treatment in sugar.

Each item in the tray will load when clicked on, but will also have a palette with various other options like those you mention: "create global bookmark", "copy to clipboard", "remove", etc. It's an interesting idea to make a "global bookmark" a secondary option for the shared link. I kind of like that approach actually. Do you think using that approach it would also be a good idea to hard cache the contents of the currently loaded pages within any given session? My thought is that I might go to school, find 3 pages about sharks for my science report, and then go home where I don't have a connection. Without making these global bookmarks I want to keep forever, it would be nice if those pages were still there (though links wouldn't work) when I resume it at home.

What are your opinion on this? It somewhat mimicks desktop Web-browsers (snapshots as tabs), as well as enhance them (the ability to resume Browse activities with their relating snapshots). And since any one of these snapshot could be turned into its own activity (Global Bookmark), the kid could detach one of them and have it reachable independently through the journal.

I think this is a really good direction.

[HoboPrimate]

Replying to Eben:

Replying to HoboPrimate:

[snip]

The only problem is: That may mean that these web session bookmarks aren't searchable through the Journal.

This is true. But at the same time, I'm not sure we want every shared bookmark to appear in the Journal. For starters, they are made by everyone in the session, so their actions could clutter up your own Journal. If theirs were left out, then you would have to re-bookmark their shared bookmark to add it yourself? That seems odd. Additionally, this doesn't necessarily rule out keeping some global record of all the shared bookmarks, which could be accessible via the Browser history panel if not through the Journal.

I agree with this, and with basically everything else you said :), including the hard caching of the shared links.

I think this is a really good direction.

Me too, me too!

[marco]

Eben, can you summarize what needs to be done please? Especially for Trial-3.

[Eben]

While we do have the notion of link sharing, we don't yet have the notion of "hard caching" to the Journal yet. I suspect that we might make the latter the star icon, and the former something else, but for now we can stick with the current behavior. I'll have a version of the star icon that will support entity coloring on Monday.

[Simon]

So the new star icon has been pushed to git. I will move this ticket to FRS since there will be another icon for the sharing a link and the star icon will be used for saving to the journal (bookmarking) if i unsderstood you correctly.

[erikos]

Actually i opened a new ticket about the global bookmarking and caching for offline viewing https://dev.laptop.org/ticket/3741

That one is for the icon for session bookmarks only.

[Eben]

It has been decided that the same icon will be used for session and offline bookmarks, with the latter being a secondary option of the former. Thus, only the star icon (emblem-favorite) is needed.