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 * Guaranteed worksheet-server synchronization.  * Guaranteed worksheet-server synchronization:
      - at least have a timestamp on the server
      - TinyMCE never gets sent back somehow leading to corrupt worksheets.
      - maybe use the javascript ping function to push changes out.
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 * Reduce data loss possibilites. ([[http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/wstein/tmp/sageuse/dataloss.txt |dataloss.txt]])  * Reduce data loss possibilites. ([[http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/wstein/tmp/sageuse/dataloss.txt |dataloss.txt]]): easy backup of all critical data in a notebook server. Get via web interface as admin. Archives.
 

Sage Usability Improvements

This unofficial wish list is adapted from this repository. Please feel free to add or clarify ideas, link to trac tickets, make comments, reorganize items, point out useful links, etc.

Documentation

  • LaTeX doc mode.

  • Use $ instead of back ticks for math in reST - #6892.

  • Use Sphinx for sagenb.org docstrings

    • Depending on how much stress this puts on a server, we could use a less expensive hash function or hash only part of the incoming docstring. Better yet, pass the object's fully qualified name to set_introspect_html() and hash just that for introspection of read-only code.

  • reST mode(s)
    1. replace tinymce by reST editor?

      • You might be able to make TinyMCE *be* a reST editor. See this example of making TinyMCE into a BBCode editor.

      • reST's implicit closing tags may make this difficult.
    2. This is better: %rest in cells, and get reST output.
      • Should this be HTML output from Sphinx? If so, perhaps we should put the Sphinx-ify code in its own module or a utility function. Note that it would be good to autohide and have doubleclick be show. Same with %html.

  • Document pexpect interface for users.

  • Live introspection cells.
  • Introspection cross links.

  • Tear-out docstrings - #6001.

Notebook

Admin

  • Streamlined deployment - account management, fewer bugs, etc.

  • Captcha for notebook sign-up - reCAPTCHA. This is *only* needed at registration.

  • LDAP authentication. (tdumont) -- do this by refactoring auth code so that user/password is 100% separate from anything else in the notebook. Then LDAP or anything else is completely trivial.
  • Guaranteed worksheet-server synchronization:
    • - at least have a timestamp on the server - TinyMCE never gets sent back somehow leading to corrupt worksheets. - maybe use the javascript ping function to push changes out.

  • Reduce data loss possibilites. (dataloss.txt): easy backup of all critical data in a notebook server. Get via web interface as admin. Archives.

  • Recover passwords. (Byungchul Cha)
  • Email address as username.
  • Add users as admins. (fprimex)
  • User groups.

  • Security -- see http://www.gingerlime.com/20090901_securing_sage_notebook.pdf

  • Functions to delete worksheets/USER/*/BLAH where BLAH is cells, code, data, or snapshots? Does this affect the size of .sws files?

  • Balancing server_pool: 

I managed to do a little of this by exporting the directory that the
notebook is running in via NFS to the other machines and maintaining
the same permissions and file structure for everything else.  However,
this raised another issue in that not all my machines are of
comparable power.  How complicated would it be to add something that
allows you to balance how many processes go to each server?  I'm
thinking something along the lines of distcc's host list.
  • Account approval: 

> We have a small server and would like provide SAGE (in form of the
> notebook) for the students. However, it maybe a bit
> "risky" (especially, we have no experts to manage it) to open it up to
> everyone. So we would like to have some kind of "account approval"
> procedure. Can that be done, if so how?

Users

A preliminary patch for this is available at
http://www.math.leidenuniv.nl/~wpalenst/sage/account_tokens.patch . It is a
patch against 4.1.1 with tickets 4552
('trac_4552-notebook_account_email.patch'), 6843, 6856 applied.

(TODO: add doctests, implement token-generation page to the interface added by
ticket 4135, allow enabling/disabling the token feature from that page too.)
  • The 'forgot password' feature (enabled by enabling the 'email' setting of the notebook) currently allows anyone to reset the password of anyone they know the email address of, since it currently directly resets the password and mails the new password to the email address associated with the account. It would probably be better to instead generate a second password for the account, that would only become permanent once it has been used once. Or, alternatively, to email a link with a secure token to a password-change-page.

Build / Test

  • Notebook testing infrastructure - automated, cross-browser and platform, focused on functionality, consistency, concurrency, and scalability - Selenium, Testled, WebDriver. For example, execute 10 sessions of virtual calculus students in a loop.

  • Make it so Sage binaries don't use SSE3, etc. -- make them FAT!
  • Windows build farm.
  • Sagelite - separate the current notebook from Sage. Windows port.
  • Windows port.

  • VirtualBox Sage.

  • andLinux Sage.
  • Improve documentation/testing and refactor code.
  • Upgrade Sage for 66-bit processors.