[Tux4kids-tuxtype-dev] Some issues that I see with 1.8.0

[Matthew Trey]

I see your concern, decentralizing the files would make it difficult to post a new global word list.

Windows generally uses the "Program Files" directory for applications and data, and the registry for much of the configuration, The user profile is then used for any user data.  There is an "All Users" profile which could contain shared settings, but this is not necessarily world writeable.  In fact it is very unlikely in a domain controlled environment that you can assume it is writeable by a user.

If, without much headache, we could get tuxtype to load 2 directories worth of wordlists all at once, I think that would solve the problem.  It could first load the global lists, then load any additional scripts in the user directory, be it a windows profile, or a POSIX home directory.

I think a little while ago on the tuxmath list, there was an issue with a teacher at a youth prison who needed to remove some "questionable" names from the high scores.  This will eventually happen to the tuxtype word lists if the global scripts are user writeable.  But with the correct permissions, global scripts could be read only, and the appended custom scripts read/write, avoiding the inevitable moments of immaturity.  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Bruce [mailto:davidstuartbruce at gmail.com]
> Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 9:03 AM
> To: Matthew Trey
> Cc: Matthew McSpadden; tux4kids-tuxtype-dev at lists.alioth.debian.org
> Subject: Re: [Tux4kids-tuxtype-dev] Some issues that I see with 1.8.0
> 
> Hi Matt, Matt, and everyone ;),
> 
> One thing we are going to have to figure out with the custom word
> lists is whether we want custom word lists to be visible to other
> users - I can see situations where we would want them shared, and
> other situations where they should be user-specific.  The main idea I
> had was that a teacher might want to create word lists for everyone,
> so I put them in a location that is modifiable by ordinary users but
> readable by everyone.  I think tuxtype's setup for unix is correct for
> this scenario, with the possible additional modification that maybe
> only the teacher should be able to change the lists.
> 
> In Windows, my knowledge is a lot more sketchy - I just made the paths
> the same for the bundled and custom word lists the same.  This has the
> side-effect of making the bundled word lists editable, if the editor
> is usable at all with existing permissions.  Clearly we need to do
> some work here.
> 
> So, now we are moving to using the user's home directory for the word
> lists, which makes the editor usable, but takes us back to my original
> problem of how to create new lists that all users can see?  Does
> Windows have something analogous to /var, that is data that is
> modifiable without root privileges and visible to everyone?  That
> would be closer to my original idea.
> 
> It seems this could just get way too complicated for ordinary folks to
> want to mess with.  So, I'm wondering what we should try to provide:
> user-specific custom word lists only, shared custom word lists only,
> or both, with a way for the user to choose the type?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> David