Re: [sugar] GVFS, OLPC, and GIT ?
On Wed, Mar 26, 2008 at 12:16 PM, Alexander Larsson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 16:27 -0400, Benjamin M. Schwartz wrote: On Tue, 2008-03-25 at 15:46 -0400, Martin Langhoff wrote: On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:29 AM, Benjamin M. Schwartz [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | sufficiently generic to encompass multiple versions. I do not fully | grasp the layering between GIO and GVFS. Be aware that GIO/GVFS are very high level. In other words, they work for the Gnome guys because they don't realise that not all the world links to libgnome ;-) To be clear, my disappointment is in fact that GVFS is not high-level enough. It seems to me that a path-based filesystem API is not appropriate for a versioning datastore, because the versioned objects themselves contain path trees, leading to ambiguity about the meaning of a path. This goes double when both versioning and complex metadata are present. I would prefer something much more like a typed OO interface. Indeed, that is what we have now: an object-oriented DBus API. That still seems like the best solution to me. I agree that a path based filesystem is not the ideal for a versioned datastore. However, it may be useful as a *view* of such a datastore for applications that are not programmed against the (likely very different) API of the data store. However, as the olpc project has much more control of the software running on the laptops you might be able to only ship software that uses the native datastore APIs. A native API for a versioned datastore should probably make away completely with filenames, instead use some autogenerated unique identifier like uuids, have document type specified in the file creation operation and allow specifying which version fork to open in the open content stream call. This is interesting in its own, but not the goal of gvfs, the gvfs goal is more like allowing access to the path-based file stores that already exists and where users have files stored. You have just described the current API: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activity_DBus_API#Datastore The argument being made is that exposing versioning and metadata through the old path-based operations in POSIX would be a better API because of compatibility with current code and an API already known by developers. I'm still not decided one way or the other, I would like to see first how existing and new activities would interface with the new DS through the new path-based API. Thanks, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] creative commons and licensing in sugar
Hi, would like to apply soon the work that CC has been doing about licensing in the journal. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Creative_Commons Eben, are you aware of how this affects the UI and agree with that? Thanks, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Sugar Emulation
I recently set up a sugar emulation on my PC and i was wondering about the diffrent successes, ideas and trouble other people have had with it. Also has anyone been able to create something really ool to work with the emulator or through the emulator? I have a few questions: 1. I have found that a emulator and a XO cant see each other in the neighborhood view. Has anyone figured out how to work this? 2. Has anyone figured out how to work a USB camera with a emulator? 3. Any tips and tricks would be greatly apreciated! Thanks, Chris ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] New Activity Proposal -- Your voice on XO
Hi Josh, Thanks again for corresponding with me regarding this proposal. I actually have not had a chance yet to get my hands dirty with espeakeditor, or any of the voice-building components in the interface, for that. I do understand that it is something that can be done with a standard PC running a *nix OS, though the memory demands might be an issue. On the other hand, I would hope that hardware limitations at OLPC only become less restrictive with time. And of course, more considerable processing power might be had via solutions like those offered by the OLPC School server project. On a different note, your elaboration of the target end-user groups sums up the topic very neatly! Also, I will be contacting the OLPC group in the Solomon Islands for more on their TTS efforts. Will you be doing any mentoring work during GSoC 2008? Best, Alex On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 11:09 PM, Joshua Minor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I haven't tried to make a new espeak voice either. It would be great if there were more female and child voices in addition to the existing male voices in espeak. I suggest you give it a try. If it takes a lot of ram or cpu time or just a lot of steps for the user, that may limit the possibilities - or just shape the focus of the project. Your proposal for making voices easily probably appeals to at least three groups. First to educators and developers trying to add new voices for a particular language or country. The second group, is obviously kids who might like to learn about voice synthesis or just have the thrill of customizing the laptop to have a new voice. The final one is the disabled community who would like to use the XO as a tool to help folks communicate more easily. I know that the Solomon Island OLPC deployment is interested in creating voices for the local languages there. ( http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2008-January/010412.html ) You might want to contact them to see what sort of effort they have made and what parts they found difficult. I built Speak because there was no gui for espeak on the XO. It was a pretty easy thing to make and seems to fill the gap nicely. The more people put effort into the underlying synthesis engine and more ways to access it (like the excellent speechd effort) the more powerful the system will become. Adding more voices will be a great way to expand the appeal of the system. -josh On Apr 5, 2008, at 8:15 AM, Alex Escalona wrote: HI Josh, Thank you for voicing your support! It's great to hear that there is general interest out there for this type of activity. I have to confess that I have not tried the existing process for adding a new voice. However, I am aware of the efforts required to undergo such an undertaking, and hope to make such endeavors more accessible for XO users and their communities. Can you share any experiences or knowledge that you might have on this subject? I understand that you were involved in creating and maintaining the Speak activity on the XO. As well, I have noted some interest in this proposal on the devel list (e.g., http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2008-February/011076.html). And of course, I know that Hemant Goyal has done considerable work in forwarding Speechd on the XO as a speech synthesis interface, as well as advancing efforts in TTS in general. Best, Alex On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 10:07 PM, Joshua Minor [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is an awesome idea. A couple of people have contacted me to ask how to add new voices to Speak. It would be great to make this process easier. Have you actually tried the existing process for adding a voice? -josh On Apr 4, 2008, at 5:58 PM, Alex Escalona wrote: Hi Everyone, I just created a page on the OLPC wiki detailing my activity proposal--Your voice on XO http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Your_Voice_on_XO. I hope to develop this activity via GSoC 2008. A brief abstract of my proposal follows. This is a proposal for the creation of a new activity for the XO that would advance localization efforts in TTS development, as well as promote the involvement of the local community overall. Your voice on XO would consist of a long-term, community-based project to build and/or further development of a synthetic voice for the language used locally (for more on synthetic-voice building, see http://www.festvox.org/bsv/p710.html, and http://espeak.sourceforge.net/add_language.html). This activity would entail integrating the voice-building capabilities of eSpeak http://espeak.sourceforge.net/, or perhaps Festivalhttp://festvox.org/festival/, into Sugar on the XO, as well as working to facilitate synthetic-voice building in a classroom, or community setting (for an overall view of how the voice building process might proceed, see http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/emasters/summer_school_2005/tutorial3/tutorial.html ). Your feedback and comments are much
Re: [sugar] [PATCH] Add palettes to activities in list view
Looks good to me. Though: +Palette.__init__(self, None, None, primary_text=activity_info.name, + icon=activity_icon) Do we really need the two None? I hoped we could just make those default to None in sugar.graphics.Palette... Marco ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] A Sugar TODO List, of Sorts
Forgot to add my items: - Implement search in the activity list (needs specs) - Implement sorting in the activity list (just name and date?) - Implement installation date in the activity list - Execute the correct version of the activated bundle (patches pending discussion) - Transfer missing bundles when joining an activity - Transfer the activity icon along the rest of the information about a shared activity - Store in the journal the version of the bundle that created the entry Tomeu On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 9:00 PM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, follow some requests for comments, details, etc. I propose to move the items marked as Ok to a page in the wiki, and continue to do so as we progress in the clarification of the rest of the items. Sounds good? On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 7:20 PM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Shell Notifications • Make notifications slide into or out of the Frame Which notifications slide in or out? • Create notification API (delay, type (in|out|remain)) Can you specify how the different types of notifications behave? • Reveal palette when clicking on notification, or reaching screen corner Ok • Add AlertBox for use with palettes/notifications Ok Clipboard • Use notification (instead of revealing Frame) when making a clipping Ok • Create clipping API (title, creator, icon, preview) Asked about this in a separate thread. • Add clipping previews (related to above) Which clipping types can be previewed? Just images and text? • Color copy/paste buttons in activities Which colors should take? Just the local colors? • Fix visual style for drag'n'drop Can you specify? People • Use notifications for XOs in Frame, when joining/leaving the activity Ok • Render XOs that have been invited or have temporarily left as outlines in Frame Ok • Expose buddy-active and buddy-inactive signals in PS, to enable above Ok • Expose a status property for buddies in PS Ok • Expose an avatar property for buddies in PS? svg? any pixbuf? which size limit? • Implement status as secondary text in buddy palettes Ok Activities/Places • Expose the activity name, activity preview in PS Activity preview is doable? Which screen size? Which maximum size for transfer in the mesh? • Implement share with functionality (from Frame) Ok • Make current activity icon clickable in Frame Ok • Make activity zoom level button cycle active activities? What's the doubt here? Devices • Tweak battery fully charged behavior What needs tweaking? • Implement white vs. colored battery style When is one or the other? • Add speaker device, with volume adjustment Ok • Add screen device, with brightness, color/BW adjustment Ok • Add device notifications (battery, storage, etc.) Can you specify each of those? Neighborhood • Remove mesh portals from neighborhood Ok • Add icons to palettes of APs, add channel as secondary text Ok • Remove ... from Disconnect option on APs Ok • Identify the school server visually in the mesh Ok. Which actions contains the palette? • Attach register option to the school server icon Ok • Gray badges along with icons when searching Ok • Add list view, group people under activities Do we have mockups? • Add modal alert before destructive changes (eg. change channel)? From where can the channel be changed? Groups • Refactor visualization of Groups, according to designs Do we have mockups in the wiki? • Provide basic support for creating groups, inviting people to groups Can you specify? • Add list view, group people under activities Mockups? Home • Implement start with functionality Ok • Add recent view of Home, or at least recent items in palettes Ok • Implement basic launcher service for search field Can you specify? • Add grouping (by identity thread) to activities list Pending on ongoing discussions about bundle signing. Activity • New activity launch behavior Needs to be specified. • Remove activity toolbar, add non-modal naming notification? Needs to be specified. • New toolbar design? Needs to be specified. Core • Fix startup sequence colors, etc. Can you detail more? • Create a sane color picker Mockups? • Improve object picker design, add search/filters Can you specify? • Add the control panel work Ok Journal -- • Use new visual style for list Do we have mockups? • Add palettes to activity icons Ok,
Re: [sugar] PenTablet user interface
Best would be to create personal trees for sugar-toolkit and Paint: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Creating_a_personal_git_tree But you would need an account in dev.laptop.org for that. You can ask to Henry Hardy (our sysadmin) in a similar way to project hosting requests: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Project_hosting But I guess it will be easier for you to just send the patches to this mailing list, that's also fine. Thanks, Tomeu On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 10:24 PM, Patrick Dubroy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Great! I think the best thing to do right now is for me to release what I have. Can you (or anybody else) suggest the best place to put the code? Here's what I have: - a GTK widget for the 1-to-1 case. This is eventually destined for sugar.graphics, I think. - an activity that demonstrates the proposed interfaces for the unconstrained drawing task (e.g. Paint) - (soon) a GTK container widget for the unconstrained drawing task. However, the actual behaviour of this widget is still to be determined. Would it make sense to create a branch in the sugar-toolkit repository for the GTK widgets? For the activity, I could either host that on my own svn server, or put it into an OLPC repository. Pat -- Patrick Dubroy http://dubroy.com/blog - on programming, usability, and hci On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 4:10 PM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Pat - I think that the technical solutions you've identified sound quite good, and make some nice improvements on my initial behavioral sketch as written up for the Paint activity. I'd definitely be interested in seeing any technical demos you have working, and also would like the chance to work with you on some graphical aspects of the widget and/or the experience (and hance, the API) for more complex use cases. - Eben On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 3:27 PM, Patrick Dubroy [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (This was posted to olpc-devel a few weeks ago, but I just realized that it belongs more on this list) Hi, I'm working on a project to improve the PenTablet support. I have two main goals: 1. Build a GTK widget that an application developer could use to get tablet support for free. The widget would provide a 1-to-1 mapping between the physical tablet and the on-screen drawing area. For example, a penmanship application might have an area on-screen where a child could practice their writing. 2. For the more complicated case of freehand drawing in e.g. the Paint activity, my goal is to define the interface through which the user will be able to draw on an arbitrary area of the canvas. Of course, this is all pending proper driver support for the PenTablet. For now, I am prototyping these applications by reading directly from /dev/input/event5. I know that this has been discussed previously on the mailing list, but to my knowledge there's been no agreement on exactly how the UI will work for the PenTablet. I've created a page in the wiki (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/PenTablet_UI) that summarizes the previous suggestions that I am aware of. If you have any opinions on this, please take a look at let me know what you think. My personal feeling is that the best option is this: - the tablet is always mapped to a rectangle in the center of the screen. Using the grab button and the stylus, the canvas can be moved around underneath the rectangle (Option 1 for Adjusting the Mapping) - to allow for precise drawing, the user can engage a hover mode by holding down the Alt key while dragging the stylus (Option B for Precise Drawing) I have an application which demonstrates some of these techniques, which I could make available to anyone who is interested. I am also planning on doing a small, informal user study to test some of the techniques. Pat -- Patrick Dubroy http://dubroy.com/blog - on programming, usability, and hci ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Typing Tutor: LetsType Update
Hello Everyone! I have updated some sections of my proposal and it might sound interesting. Please refer: *Features* http://wiki.laptop.org/go/LetsType#Features_of_.E2.80.9CLetsType.E2.80.9D *Future Developments* http://wiki.laptop.org/go/LetsType#Future_Development Any feedback/suggestion is most welcome. :-) Cheers, -- Prakhar Agarwal (prakhar.jiit.googlepages.com) Technical Head - Library RD Team 3rd Year B.Tech, IT JIIT University,Noida Life is the greatest teacher ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] scrollbar arrows
Looked at the ePals activity. On my G1G1, the screen text it presented was offset. The only means available to me to center the text was to drag the slider within the horizontal scrollbar. In typical Linux windows, the scrollbars have arrows at their ends. By clicking on these, the material on the screen can be scrolled slightly. I prefer to click on such arrows, rather than attempt to fine tune text position by dragging the scrollbar slider. Did the ePals developers choose to leave out 'scrollbar arrows', or is the Sugar interface so simplified as to omit them entirely ? mikus ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] scrollbar arrows
It's currently omitted in the Sugar theme. Eben can comment on the reason of that choice... Marco On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 11:53 PM, Mikus Grinbergs [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Looked at the ePals activity. On my G1G1, the screen text it presented was offset. The only means available to me to center the text was to drag the slider within the horizontal scrollbar. In typical Linux windows, the scrollbars have arrows at their ends. By clicking on these, the material on the screen can be scrolled slightly. I prefer to click on such arrows, rather than attempt to fine tune text position by dragging the scrollbar slider. Did the ePals developers choose to leave out 'scrollbar arrows', or is the Sugar interface so simplified as to omit them entirely ? mikus ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Issue Resolved: Emulated Sugar XO Communications
Just letting you know that my previous question about communication between XOs and Emulators has been resolved. In order to set up a group just go into terminal activity and type *sugar-control-panel -s jabber xochat.org.* Then just reset it and enjoy talking to other people. (xochat.org can be replaced by any server from the list on the OLPC Wiki) Thanks for your great responses Chris ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] scrollbar arrows
I'm going to attempt to greatly abbreviate a response on a topic that has seen its share of conversation by noting 3 things: an argument for the omission, the proposed solution, and a temporary solution. 1) The arrows at top and bottom of the scrollbars were left out because, in most cases, they would appear directly adjacent the screen corners, where Frame activation occurs. This in conjunction with our personal distaste for trying to position the cursor over small targets caused us to seek alternative solutions. 2) We consciously omitted them, instead placing our bets on the grab key which, when held, will turn the touchpad into a panning mechanism for the underlying view, allowing one to move small amounts in any direction with ease, akin to the two-finger scrolling on Mac laptops, or like a modified grab-and-drag as in some graphics applications. 3) As the grab key hasn't yet been implemented due to issues (or unfamiliarity) at the X level, the temporary workaround is to simply press the arrow keys, which should serve the same function without all the fuss of trying to position the cursor over a little button. My apologies for not having a better answer to this at the moment; I think we're making some progress on the grab key, and I sincerely hope that we will have at least a minimal implementation working in the not too distant future. - Eben On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 7:08 PM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It's currently omitted in the Sugar theme. Eben can comment on the reason of that choice... Marco On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 11:53 PM, Mikus Grinbergs [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Looked at the ePals activity. On my G1G1, the screen text it presented was offset. The only means available to me to center the text was to drag the slider within the horizontal scrollbar. In typical Linux windows, the scrollbars have arrows at their ends. By clicking on these, the material on the screen can be scrolled slightly. I prefer to click on such arrows, rather than attempt to fine tune text position by dragging the scrollbar slider. Did the ePals developers choose to leave out 'scrollbar arrows', or is the Sugar interface so simplified as to omit them entirely ? mikus ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] UI for working on it
The recent talk on Sugar about notifications reminds me that the OLPC currently appears to lack easy-to-check I'm working on that feedback to the user. Combined with Sugar's a single screen for whatever one is doing philosophy, this serves to HIDE what is going on from the user. I had originally thought as long as information is shown somewhere, that's good enough -- let the user come looking. But seeing how much I myself resent interruptions to what I am involved in, status ought to be available where the user is looking, and notification ought not to impose non-deferrable taking the user away from his current task. [I hate it if I'm typing something, and the Frame pops up and obscures where I was working.] Two recent 1825 experiences have raised my sensitivity to how to know what is/is_not going on: (1) I clicked (in Home list mode) on a rarely-used icon. Nothing seemed to happen. Losing patience, I navigated to a Terminal activity I had previously opened, and was about to type in something when the XO screen changed over to the newly-launched activity. [From the information available where I was looking, I thought the XO was not working on it (was not launching the new activity).] [On Linux (and Windows), once the user has clicked on something, the cursor changes (e.g., includes a bouncing ball). As long as the cursor change persists, the user can feel I don't need to do anything more RIGHT NOW about what I clicked on. Normally, the requested action will start (accompanied by a visual indication). Else, when the cursor reverts to its non-changed form, the user knows that he should investigate the possibility that the requested action never started.] On 1825 the only place that shows activity being launched is an obscure corner of the Frame -- and I had gotten rid of the Frame to be able to switch Home view into list mode. [I'm sorry, but to me the Frame is too intrusive so far to be useful as a current status display -- I only use it when I want to perform some action.] For me, showing loading is going on by in a corner blinking a dark icon on a dark background is much too easily overlooked. At least, both Home view modes need to give a *positive* indication at the clicked-on icon that your click-request was accepted. [Perhaps have the background of the icon be highlighted until launching completes.] [All to be noticed areas of the Frame should have a WHITE (or at the least, a contrasting) background.] (2) I had attempted to connect to an AP, by clicking on its icon in the Neighborhood view. I got bored after several minutes waiting for that icon in the Neighborhood view to stop blinking, and went back to working within activities. I don't know what the ultimate result was of me having done that click in Neighborhood view. [From the information available where I was looking, I believed the XO had kept on working on it (was still trying to connect).] I think the XO ought to have notified me, either when it decided it had accomplished that connection, or when it decided it could *not* make that connection. Elsewhere (#1385) I've proposed that the two LEDs on the XO front show peer connection status and data server connection status. It's a pity that there are not three LEDs - AP connection status also deserves a front LED (visible all the time, which the Frame thank goodness is not). [If important information changes status on the Frame (or on a different screen than what the user is currently looking at), let me suggest blinking (i.e., one-time dimming and brightening) the current screen. Then, when he is ready to be interrupted from what he was doing, the user can go off to view whatever that status change was.] mikus ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Fixing the Pen Tablet
I've heard that the tablet is enabled is in recent joyride builds. Is there a build that has it that would be particularly good to try out? And how does the tablet mapping work? Does it control the core pointer, or is it accessed as an XInput device? I'm really interested in trying this out, as an alternative to reading directly from /dev/input/event5, as I'm doing now. Thanks, Pat -- Patrick Dubroy http://dubroy.com/blog - on programming, usability, and design 2008/3/23 Michael Stone [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Folks, Below are patches to the kernel source code and the xorg-x11-server and xorg-x11-drv-evdev packages which restore function to the ALPS Pen Tablet (dlo#5268), which fix the twin clicks bug that plagued previous approaches (dlo#6079), and which cause X to configure the Pen Tablet in absolute mode (mapped to the entire screen, dlo#1002) while leaving Glide Sensor in relative mode (discussion at dlo#4260). Blake Michael ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Copy/Paste icon colour (Re: A Sugar TODO List, of Sorts)
On 7 Apr 2008, at 20:00, Tomeu Vizoso wrote: • Color copy/paste buttons in activities Which colors should take? Just the local colors? I've always been unclear about the purpose of this, and have not seen an explanation – always thought the coloured icon looked out of place in the toolbar. Anyone know the reason/metaphor that makes colouring it so important? Gary ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] project idea - any takers?
I admit this kind of (very) late, but here is a project idea that I would love to mentor: Depending on your coding skills you could write a small activity to abstract the process of writing simple network applications that involve various hardware parts of the laptop (sound card, camera, microphone, network card). This activity would allow children to synthesize simple network programs like when my laptop hears a sound, send an email to my friend X, if you receive a message (packet) from this friend, take a picture and send it to my other friend Y For example a child may write small program using your activity to detect a sound and when it does, it will take a picture and send it somewhere over email (a nifty little monitoring system). Children should be able to put together simple programs like that in a la etoys, by drag-n-drop of icons on screen and setting their properties, making loops and so on. Any takers? Pol -- Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos Graduate student Viral Communications MIT Media Lab Tel: +1 (617) 459-6058 http://www.mit.edu/~ypod/ ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] project idea - any takers?
Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos wrote: I admit this kind of (very) late, but here is a project idea that I would love to mentor: Depending on your coding skills you could write a small activity to abstract the process of writing simple network applications that involve various hardware parts of the laptop (sound card, camera, microphone, network card). This activity would allow children to synthesize simple network programs like when my laptop hears a sound, send an email to my friend X, if you receive a message (packet) from this friend, take a picture and send it to my other friend Y For example a child may write small program using your activity to detect a sound and when it does, it will take a picture and send it somewhere over email (a nifty little monitoring system). Children should be able to put together simple programs like that in a la etoys, by drag-n-drop of icons on screen and setting their properties, making loops and so on. Any takers? We have done similar things with Scratch/Squeak... I believe E-Toys might help you do that kind of thing more easily as the framework is already there. regards, Kim -- Operating Systems, Services and Operations Information Technology Services, The University of Adelaide [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Mini-Conference Proposal: Toolbars Tabs (or lack thereof)
On 5 Apr 2008, at 16:44, Tomeu Vizoso wrote: What if on rollover would appear a normal palette with all the buttons that would be in the subtoolbar? This palette would have an option for pinning it, and that would mean inserting a subtoolbar between the toolbar and the canvas like in the mockups. Benefits: - palettes don't disturb the layout of the underlying window, - existing UI component, - buttons are grouped closer to the main button, requiring less mouse travel, - buttons are in an area not as thin, making easier to move the mouse without going out (thus hiding the palette), - we could keep the toolbar label. Thoughts? Hmmm, a regular palette pop-up will often end up being way too tall, with the (usual) screen orientation a full row of buttons would not fit. And it gets messy when the buttons are not simple square icons, say like in Write where font size is represented by two element (an icon and a pop-up size list), or the font family picker (a wide pop-up text list). Trying to arrange these vertically in a pallet is going to fill up a good chunk of the display with mainly empty black space padding. After much musing, I think Eben's designs at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Designs/Toolbars are a good compromise, but they would need to (as mentioned by another list member): A) On mouse hover over a tab button, float the new toolbar over the existing activity canvas (obscuring some content), and not moving/ resizing the activity canvas area. B) A click on a tab icon would lock it in place (pinning), and than cause the main canvas to reflow/resize. Sub toolbar buttons still get to have their mouse over textual hints, but the top level tab buttons have none – I know this is an issue for some folks... I guess, and it's a flakey guess, with the above AB alteration, you could; during hover state A, show an extra horizontal strip with the tab name below the new toolbar strip; then after click state B, you'd just insert the new toolbar strip and loose the extra text row to save space. Does anyone build working prototypes of these kind'a interactions? makes all the difference (usually a pretty instant, yuck or fine reaction). Would be quick to do, Eben is that me I hear you volunteering?? Gary ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
