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diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5ca8286 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,103 @@ +### Premise + +XXX Improve the Sugar OS developer experience +XXX Cross platform sugar activities -> future +XXX What is Sugar. + +# Modules + +The framework is composed of various libraries, initially + +* activity +* graphics +* datastore +* collaboration + +## Interface description + +Each module provides one or more interface descriptions which are language +independent. A subset of object-oriented languages should be chosen, so that +it's possible to implement these from all the languages we are interested +to support. The description uses the Java syntax because unlike, for example, +python and JavaScript it's explicit about types. + +For example, the datastore interface could look like + +class Datastore { + DatastoreObject load() + void save(DatastoreObject object); +} + +XXX The interface is totally made up! + +## Implementation + +The implementation should be written as much as possible using web languages. +But of course we will have the necessity to interact with native system +components. The multi language nature of the interfaces will be useful here +because it will allow to provide system specific implementation of certain +interfaces and generically bridge to them from JavaScript. All the modules +should provide a web fallback, which will allow to run the activity everywhere +even if with degraded functionality. + +## Code style + +View source is a core part of the sugar experience, so any kind of code +obfuscation should be avoided. This includes languages that compiles to +JavaScript, like CoffeeScript. + +## Namespacing and package management + +We are using [volo](http://volojs.org) for namespacing and package management, +both in the libraries and in the documentation. + +# Activities + +Activities are [open web apps](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Apps), +their only specificity is that can make use of our libraries framework. On some +platforms (Sugar OS for example) it might be necessary to generate boilerplate +code, configuration or to package the app in a certain way to have it integrate +with the system flawlessly. We will provide scripts to fully automate those +tasks. + +# Random Sugar OS implementation notes + +* We should probably use firefox, as provided by upstream, to run activities. +Chrome would probably be an equally good alternative. At some point we could +just support both. +* We should be able to customize it to look like a native activity without +patching the code. We need to avoid showing any chrome UI (toolbar, menubar, +etc) and to provide the X properties Sugar expects from an activity. +* We can generate activity.info from the webapp manifest when building a .xo. +* The svg icon might be provided in a native/sugar-os directory of the web +activity or something. +* Communication between JavaScript and native code will be handled by a firefox +extension and it will most likely go through DBus. pythonext might be an +alternative but I'm not convinced we should get into pyxpcom again. We can use +dom events to communicate between content and extension. +* Icons should be shipped as part of the graphics library, we can write a +script to sync them with the sugar-artwork repository. +* The datastore interface should probably make use of HTML files support. I +hope using local paths will work in a web activity. +* To get full permission I suspect a web app needs to be installed. We will +have to figure out if/how we can avoid that. + +# TODO + +Version 0.1 + +* Write an helloworld open web activity. Or maybe just steal a cool one? Might +make for a more shiny demo without any effort :) +* Write a firefox activity using firefox as packaged in the distro. Will +probably require an extension to disable the chrome UI cleanly. +* Write the web activity -> sugar activity script, probably as a volo command. +volo build sugar-os, or something. +* Play with volo to see if there are any road blockers. +* Write the activity library, with a close method. It should be enough to call +window.close() on Sugar OS at least. +* Document how to use volo to pull in the library. +* Write the datastore library. This will involve writing an extension which +will use DBus to communicate with the datastore and making sure we can +communicate between content and extension. +* Write the graphics library with initial toolbar implementation. It will +require writing the script to sync the svg icons from sugar-artwork. |