Change Saving Location

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baggiepr
Posts: 1
Joined: Jul 5th, '17, 10:55

Change Saving Location

Post by baggiepr » Jul 5th, '17, 11:00

We want to use this in our school. It works well with the program on the server and a shortcut.
However the user has no option to change the save location and it defaults to the network folder.
Does anyone know a work round for this?
This would stop it being used in nearly every school.

JohnM
Posts: 379
Joined: Sep 11th, '15, 14:42

Re: Change Saving Location

Post by JohnM » Jul 5th, '17, 11:45

Good point.

What sort of computers does your school have?

It sounds like you have some sort of laptop or desktop computers with a shared server. If so, I think the next version of GP may offer a solution. It features a save dialog with a shortcut for the user's "GP" folder, a folder created in the user's "Documents" folder. Thus, each user's GP projects can be stored in their own GP folder.

There will also be a shortcut to a shared "Examples" folder that contains the demo and starter projects that come with GP. That set of projects can be edited or augmented by your IT person (or whoever installs GP on the server). So, for example, a math teacher might create a folder of projects for their class related to the material they were covering.

-- John

JohnM
Posts: 379
Joined: Sep 11th, '15, 14:42

Re: Change Saving Location

Post by JohnM » Jul 9th, '17, 01:04

As of version 71, GP should be shareable on a server. All user-edited projects are now kept in the user's own GP folder, not the shared folder. The Examples folder is read-only; users can remix example project, but the modified project gets saved in their own GP folder. The Examples folder can also be used by educators who want to share demonstration or starter projects with their classes.

bkgray
Posts: 12
Joined: Jul 31st, '17, 00:24

Re: Change Saving Location

Post by bkgray » Jul 31st, '17, 01:02

At my school (independent, grades 6 - 12) we have many public-space computers running Windows 7. In an effort to protect the computers against bored students, we lock down the computers and limit the places the user can save files. (A reboot returns the computer to a known-good state.)

In both the Open and Save dialogs, the Desktop shortcut button lists folders that are on the desktop, but does not include shortcuts to folders. Part of our security structure includes links on the desktop to a couple of places that the user can save files - a local temporary folder that is not erased during a reboot (mapped to S:), and a mapped file server drive (mapped to X:). Students can also use a USB drive.

With the current behavior of the Open and Save dialogs, our students won't be able to save files in the folders that they should use. (They could put files on the desktop, but we don't want to get them into that habit. A brief power flicker or a loose power cord would result in the student losing those files.) Further, the computers use a generic shared "User" account, but the folders are hidden from the user to prevent them from saving anything there. (The "User" folder is reset when the computer is rebooted.)

For us, the ideal solution would be to include shortcuts to folders in the list of options in the dialogs, and to include an option to go to the top level of the drive structure to show all physical and mapped drives available on the computer.

JohnM
Posts: 379
Joined: Sep 11th, '15, 14:42

Re: Change Saving Location

Post by JohnM » Aug 3rd, '17, 21:59

How would it be if GP provided a way to configure the location of the user's "GP" folder? The "GP" shortcut currently points to the "Documents\GP" folder in the user's home folder, but we could provide a mechanism to provide an alternate path, possible inserting the user's name into that path. For example, a user named "Johnm" might have a documents folder path like "S:\Users\Johnm\Documents", so your IT person might specify the pattern "S:\Users\*\Documents\GP", and GP would replace the * with the user's name. Specifying that path would be part of the GP configuration process done by your IT person, not something that students could change. Scratch 1.x had a mechanism like this, and it would be easy to add such a mechanism to GP.

The links to the desktop and downloads folders are helpful for people importing media files that they have downloaded or created in some other application. Are those locations useful for your students or would you like a way to disable those shortcuts in the file dialog?

I'd be happy to work with you or your IT person on this. I'm sure other schools will have the same issue. You can email me using the "contact us" link at the bottom of the page.

SimpleSi
Posts: 330
Joined: Jul 2nd, '17, 13:47

Re: Change Saving Location

Post by SimpleSi » Aug 4th, '17, 15:24

Can I also add request for a ../parent folder option to mvoe back up the folder tree please

JohnM
Posts: 379
Joined: Sep 11th, '15, 14:42

Re: Change Saving Location

Post by JohnM » Aug 4th, '17, 18:11

Once you've descended into a folder, a left-arrow button appears to the left of the current folder name that lets you go back up to its parent. However, you can't go above the folder that you started from. That's intentional -- in both Scratch and GP, less experienced users would sometimes go up the folder hierarchy a few steps too far and get into a place that they didn't know how to get back from, like the C: drive.

On the other hand, we need to be able to get to external drives -- in fact, I just learned that that's essential in some school settings. I'm working on adding a "Computer" shortcut (only on Windows initially) that will let you start at the top folder of any drive. This would allow a knowledgeable user to navigate to any (non-hidden) folder on their computer.

Hopefully this design will be both easy to use by less experienced users yet flexible enough for experts to navigate to any folder they need to get to.

-- John

SimpleSi
Posts: 330
Joined: Jul 2nd, '17, 13:47

Re: Change Saving Location

Post by SimpleSi » Aug 4th, '17, 22:07

Aah - I see the arrow now

Its not grabbing me as the symbol for the job but at least we've got one :)

JohnM
Posts: 379
Joined: Sep 11th, '15, 14:42

Re: Change Saving Location

Post by JohnM » Aug 9th, '17, 14:21

As of v74, an administrator can customize the folder shortcuts shown in open/save file dialogs.

To do so, add the following line (edited according to your preference) to the "startup" function in the file "startup.gp" in the "runtime" folder:'

Code: Select all

setGlobal 'hideFolderShortcuts' (array 'Computer' 'Desktop' 'Downloads' 'GP')
One would usually keep at least one of the folder shortcuts.

The process is slightly different for the Mac version:

1. You need to edit the "startup.gp" file inside the "runtime" folder within the Mac application bundle.
2. The Mac startup.gp doesn't have a startup function, so you can just put the line at the start of the file.

bkgray
Posts: 12
Joined: Jul 31st, '17, 00:24

Re: Change Saving Location

Post by bkgray » Aug 9th, '17, 14:50

I can't make 'hideFolderShortcuts' work.

I downloaded the new version 74. I tried several variation of where to add the command in startup.gp:
- at the top of the file
- at the bottom of the file
- inside the to startup { } block

There are no error messages in the startup window, but in every case, I still see all of the shortcuts. Can you be a bit more explicit about where in the file this command should go? What else should I look for?

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