Walter, The homework service you described would be incredibly useful. I would be happy to help test, I'd needed. Gerald On Mar 3, 2013 12:15 PM, "Walter Bender" <[email protected]> wrote:
> == Sugar Digest == > > 1. It has been crazy busy. With the upcoming XO4 launch, Sugar with > touch support will be making its debut. The developer team has done a > great job but we are lagging behind a bit on the activity level: > Activities that use keyboard input need to be modified to use the > on-screen keyboard; and now that tablet mode will be used more often, > we need to better attend to the issue of screen rotation. > > In order to adapt to the on-screen keyboard, there are two adjustments > that need to be made: (1) use either a GTK Entry or TextView instead > of directly querying the keyboard; and (2) make sure that the Entry is > visible when the keyboard is visible. To address both issues, I have > been mostly using GTK Fixed in order to re-position the Entry > appropriately. But also, I have been using a strategy of moving the > Entry to the top of the activity. > > There are two issues with dealing with landscape vs portrait mode. One > is to make sure that the work area of an activity accommodates the > change in size and aspect ration. Perhaps the easiest way to do this > is simply to define a square work are inside of a scrolling window. > There are times when this strategy won't work, such as with Paint, but > for the most part, it is a simple solution. > > The toolbars are another matter. It is often the case that not all of > the elements fit when in portrait mode. The default behavior of Sugar, > to make a list on a palette that displays on the edge of the screen is > somewhat lacking, both in that many toolbar items are either not shown > or inoperable in that form. And aesthetically, it is not very > Sugar-like. I've been experimenting with some different approaches to > generating palettes, and also moving some toolbar elements around > (e.g., moving some buttons to secondary toolbars). Alas, none of these > solutions are idea or completely generalizable. But I think there are > harbingers of a solution. > > Another issue with touch is that Gtk2 ComboBoxes don't work. The > problem has been fixed in the Gtk3 version of the Sugar tool-kit, but, > not being a fan of Combo Boxes to begin with, I see it as an > opportunity to minimize their use. For example, using bigger/smaller > buttons is arguably an easier way to adjust font size using touch. > > Ultimately, we'll want to add more gesture support as well. Many > activities could readily support panning and zooming. And a "long" > press can replace the un-Sugar-like reliance of right-click that some > activities are using. > > I've packaged many of these ideas into some experimental (and > production) versions of some activities (Please see [1-7]). Feedback > most welcome. > > 2. It occurred to me that the Web Services framework that Raul and I > developed a few weeks ago might make a nice home for a simple > classroom service: handing in homework assignments and receiving back > comments from the teacher and fellow students. Such a service could be > dropped right into the same framework we built for Facebook, so in the > Journal, there would be a Share with (or Copy to) Teacher and comments > would appear in the Journal detail view (and be directly integrated in > the Portfolio). Simple, but potentially quite useful. > > === Tech Talk === > > 3. Adam Holt reported on the School Server Hack Sprint held in Toronto > (See [8]). > > 4. Daniel Narvaez has been making great progress on "Agora", his > attempt to achieve the goals of the Sugar Learning Platform using the > web technologies (See [9]). > > === Sugar Labs === > > Visit our planet [10] for more updates about Sugar and Sugar deployments. > > -walter > > --- > > [1] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Abacus-47.1.xo > [2] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Chart-9.1.xo > [3] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Chat-78.1.xo > [4] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Labyrinth-14.4.xo > [5] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Portfolio-41.2.xo > [6] http://people.sugarlabs.org/~walter/Speak-44.6.xo > [7] > http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addons/versions/4027#version-173 > (TurtleBlocks-173.xo) > [8] > http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/server-devel/2013-February/006258.html > [9] > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2013-February/041847.html > [10] http://planet.sugarlabs.org > > > -- > Walter Bender > Sugar Labs > http://www.sugarlabs.org > _______________________________________________ > IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) > [email protected] > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep >
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