Re: [sugar] alt-tabbing to the Journal
On 8 Oct 2008, at 03:51, Walter Bender wrote: The bottom line is that, at least as far as the XO is concerned (and other machines with limited memory and no swap) the list of activities to tab through, with or without the Journal, is going to be a short list, so is it really such a pressing issue? For tabbing, I think one frustration here is the current issue with tabbing where the delay is way too short before an Activity you're tabbing past is pulled into focus (I'd argue there should be no auto delay focus, only focus when alt key is lifted, allowing you to easily skip items in the stack). Currently in 8.2, accidentally tabbing the 'wrong way' through the active instances on the XO and getting shown the wrong thing (usually Journal given only having a few activities running) is painful enough time wise to distract you from whatever goal you had in mind. Example: TurtleArt, and 2 x ImageViewers showing some screen shots of different brick code you want to reference. Tabbing between TurtleArt and the images you trying to reference is constantly intruded upon by the redraw, and update of Journal – if you're just mucking around, it's less of a pain, but if you're actually trying to 'get stuff done' it can get quite annoying pretty quickly. I'd love the same passion developed to some of the issues/topics that impact the learning. How can we make the Journal better, regardless of how we open it and regardless of whether we consider it an activity or part of Sugar core? I guess most interested parties on the sugar list are more technical than pedagogical types. Both my parents were teachers, and when computers started to make their way into some of their lessons/labs, way back when, I seem to remember they would come home somewhat bemused, having been handed boxes of cables and computer kit. As an ~11yr old I would set it up, get things going, and show them how to load-up and use the software. It's an interesting generational shift, I wonder what new idea is going to come along and be so far from our expectations that we'll be too inflexible as adults to really pick it up well (here already?). Maybe it's just a personality trait thing and not age at all; I guess I know enough people my age who I wouldn't trust to safely 'shut down' an operating system without being given a lesson or two first ;-) OK. Journal, and its related use, have some UI improvement possibilities that could be targeted (and I think a few might be targeted already for work), without having to solve the big 'impact on learning' type wider research/study goals. Some things that come to mind just now (in no special order and I'm sure most have been discussed already at some point): - Sort view by creation date, not just by last modification date. Currently when you resume something, even just to take a look, it pulls it out of the time context of other entries it was created alongside. One click, and last weeks essays narrative/reflection is lost (the photos you took, the chat discussions you had with classmates, the audio you recorded, the picture you painted etc). - Filter view for starred items only, a single click way to quickly hide the unwanted. - Improve the 'Anything' pop-up UI. It takes me about 4-5sec of scrolling to get to the bottom of the Activity and mime file type list. And worse, if you do scroll way down, it takes just as long to get the Journal back to default after your search. I guess ideally this would become a custom palette grid of some kind, perhaps with just icons and mouse over text for the full names to save space. Another option could be for a short list of the most frequently used N activities (or the current Home view favourites), and then a 'more...' end item that would reveal a large slide-out, below toolbar dialogue with all installed activities and file types listed. Actually, you could cut to the chase and have an 'Anything' button that just triggers a slide down alert panel with all installed activities. - Realtime scrolling so you can just grab, drag, and look as it goes past. Currently, if what I'm after is not on the first page, and I think it's more than a page or two away, it might as well be infinitely far away. It's then time to try and remember the activity object type, or some text/metadata and start typing until it (hopefully) makes it onto page one. - Text search works reasonably well for me, but as mentioned already, some kind of slide-out alert to prompt for an Activity title, tags, star, possibly description (though I can't say I've ever meaningfully used the description field) would make a large difference in Journal entry quality. Think the dialogue will need to auto countdown and dismiss with sensible default values where ever possible. This feature could be really tough to make work without annoying everyone. Perhaps could also do with a don't keep
Re: [sugar] Sugar USB testing
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:02 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i _really_ think we need to make the XO base _and_ sugar be a place that developers are comfortable living in. our needs aren't quite the same as a school kid's, but i think there's a much bigger overlap than we often think. with the advent of the fedora spin we're going to lose xo/sugar mindshare among our g1g1 and development users [1], and i think we need to think seriously about taking up that slack. even if that means adding some poweruser-centric features which a grade-schooler would probably never use, it's worth considering, in return for the increased focus, and yes, discomfort it may cause. I agree! Marco ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Viewing PDFs from Browse
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 1:40 AM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey, this looks pretty cool, actually. One powerful addition which I think is necessary in order to adopt this is the addition of a Keep button in that toolbar, by which one *could* download the pdf for offline reading later if wanted. In a similar vein, would it be possible to create a supplemental toolbar like this for other media types which browse specifically supports? I could see having a similar UI for images, and a perhaps for audio and video, too. The ability to view various formats directly, yet also have a one-click means to download the file, sounds promising. Hmm, shouldn't the act of viewing a PDF create an entry in the journal that allows you to resume this act? If so, shouldn't the viewer plugin create an entry in the journal by itself and that entry would contain the PDF? Note that all this shouldn't duplicate files any more. Regards, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Module Proposal: Image Viewer Activity
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 9:04 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, I would like to propose the inclusion of the Image Viewer Activity into Fructose: Just gave it a try and looks awesome. Should we make it the default activity for images? http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=sugar;a=blob;f=data/mime.defaults;h=1cb26876abb7b2518b5282f474df2567f7356ad0;hb=fb24b313694e06e340be5074d9740e5ef64bb591 Regards, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
I filed #8350 regarding adding the journal object picker to Read, for the case when it is launched from Home View without a document. There was a recent discussion on the library list about this, since the show_launcher setting isn't relevant any more - Read appears in Home View if you star it. (If Read is installed in the software updater, it will be starred...) I have implemented this, and could release it for 8.2.1, but the journal object picker doesn't currently have any filters for an Activity to restrict the view to only relevant entries - so it pops up with the entire journal visible - images, Write entries, Browse entries, etc where all we can handle in Read are relevant downloaded documents, and previous Read instances. Is this going to cause more problems than it's worth? I could make the object picker pop up again if the selected entry failed to load, if that helps. An alternative to using the object picker is to have a string break and add a dialog that explains that you launched Read without a document, and so it isn't useful, and make that stop Read when acknowledged. Regards Morgan ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Module Proposal: Image Viewer Activity
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 10:27 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 9:04 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, I would like to propose the inclusion of the Image Viewer Activity into Fructose: Just gave it a try and looks awesome. Should we make it the default activity for images? http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=sugar;a=blob;f=data/mime.defaults;h=1cb26876abb7b2518b5282f474df2567f7356ad0;hb=fb24b313694e06e340be5074d9740e5ef64bb591 I think so. Marco ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:49 PM, Samuel Klein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The laptops feature the latest release of the Sugar window manager, ... I think we should be able to find a better term than window manager, Matchbox is the window manager used in 8.2 and it hasn't been modified by OLPC. Some suggestions: - learning environment, - collaborative user interface, etc Regards, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
Bert Freudenberg wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 10:33 schrieb Morgan Collett: I filed #8350 regarding adding the journal object picker to Read, for the case when it is launched from Home View without a document. There was a recent discussion on the library list about this, since the show_launcher setting isn't relevant any more - Read appears in Home View if you star it. (If Read is installed in the software updater, it will be starred...) I have implemented this, and could release it for 8.2.1, but the journal object picker doesn't currently have any filters for an Activity to restrict the view to only relevant entries - so it pops up with the entire journal visible - images, Write entries, Browse entries, etc where all we can handle in Read are relevant downloaded documents, and previous Read instances. Is this going to cause more problems than it's worth? I could make the object picker pop up again if the selected entry failed to load, if that helps. An alternative to using the object picker is to have a string break and add a dialog that explains that you launched Read without a document, and so it isn't useful, and make that stop Read when acknowledged. Why not extend the object chooser to include a query parameter? We discussed this a long time ago and it makes sense, it just has not bubbled to the top of the to-do list yet ... - Bert - http://sugarlabs.org/go/DevelopmentTeam/0.84/Ideas It is reflected here. Simon ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 11:10, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 10:33 schrieb Morgan Collett: I filed #8350 regarding adding the journal object picker to Read, for the case when it is launched from Home View without a document. There was a recent discussion on the library list about this, since the show_launcher setting isn't relevant any more - Read appears in Home View if you star it. (If Read is installed in the software updater, it will be starred...) I have implemented this, and could release it for 8.2.1, but the journal object picker doesn't currently have any filters for an Activity to restrict the view to only relevant entries - so it pops up with the entire journal visible - images, Write entries, Browse entries, etc where all we can handle in Read are relevant downloaded documents, and previous Read instances. Is this going to cause more problems than it's worth? I could make the object picker pop up again if the selected entry failed to load, if that helps. An alternative to using the object picker is to have a string break and add a dialog that explains that you launched Read without a document, and so it isn't useful, and make that stop Read when acknowledged. Why not extend the object chooser to include a query parameter? We discussed this a long time ago and it makes sense, it just has not bubbled to the top of the to-do list yet ... I'm looking into that, but it would be good to improve Read before 9.1 lands. Regards Morgan ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
Am 08.10.2008 um 11:51 schrieb Morgan Collett: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 11:10, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 10:33 schrieb Morgan Collett: I filed #8350 regarding adding the journal object picker to Read, for the case when it is launched from Home View without a document. There was a recent discussion on the library list about this, since the show_launcher setting isn't relevant any more - Read appears in Home View if you star it. (If Read is installed in the software updater, it will be starred...) I have implemented this, and could release it for 8.2.1, but the journal object picker doesn't currently have any filters for an Activity to restrict the view to only relevant entries - so it pops up with the entire journal visible - images, Write entries, Browse entries, etc where all we can handle in Read are relevant downloaded documents, and previous Read instances. Is this going to cause more problems than it's worth? I could make the object picker pop up again if the selected entry failed to load, if that helps. An alternative to using the object picker is to have a string break and add a dialog that explains that you launched Read without a document, and so it isn't useful, and make that stop Read when acknowledged. Why not extend the object chooser to include a query parameter? We discussed this a long time ago and it makes sense, it just has not bubbled to the top of the to-do list yet ... I'm looking into that, but it would be good to improve Read before 9.1 lands. Adding the query should be low-risk if nothing else in the UI is touched, so might be appropriate for 8.2.1? Changing tomeu's patch in #3060 to support a full query seems rather trivial. - Bert - ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
If we could limit the preset filter to a list of mime types, I think we would benefit from the simplicity. Can we do that? In which cases is this not enough? Filtering on mime types would be great. ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 1:30 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 12:03 schrieb Tomeu Vizoso: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 11:10 AM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 10:33 schrieb Morgan Collett: I filed #8350 regarding adding the journal object picker to Read, for the case when it is launched from Home View without a document. There was a recent discussion on the library list about this, since the show_launcher setting isn't relevant any more - Read appears in Home View if you star it. (If Read is installed in the software updater, it will be starred...) I have implemented this, and could release it for 8.2.1, but the journal object picker doesn't currently have any filters for an Activity to restrict the view to only relevant entries - so it pops up with the entire journal visible - images, Write entries, Browse entries, etc where all we can handle in Read are relevant downloaded documents, and previous Read instances. Is this going to cause more problems than it's worth? I could make the object picker pop up again if the selected entry failed to load, if that helps. An alternative to using the object picker is to have a string break and add a dialog that explains that you launched Read without a document, and so it isn't useful, and make that stop Read when acknowledged. Why not extend the object chooser to include a query parameter? I'm not 100% sure yet. How does the object chooser look when it is prefiltered? Can the user undo the filter? Which properties can be filtered? Any? Just the ones the user itself can? Can a free text string be provided? If we could limit the preset filter to a list of mime types, I think we would benefit from the simplicity. Can we do that? In which cases is this not enough? I don't know - it just seems unwise to artificially limit a powerful API that is already exposed elsewhere, just because we cannot think of a use case right now. But I'm not too hung up on that one, a simple list of mime types is much better than no filtering, so go for it. How about allowing glob patterns in addition to concrete types? Though that might require extending the DS. The thing is that the D-Bus DS API is not certain to live much longer, so I would prefer if the minimum expectations are set, so we can move later to a better API with less problems for everyone. Regards, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Sugar USB testing
Maybe you could rephrase you call for a show of hands: raise your left hand if you regularly use Sugar on an XO; raise your right hand if you use regularly Sugar on other hardware. Clap your hands if you use Sugar more than a standard WM. Now listen to the sound of one hand clapping (the right hand)!! -walter On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 10:02 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: marco pesenti gritti wrote: On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 6:37 PM, Walter Bender [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: CCing the Sugar list. and adding devel. It seems that one of the problems we will be encountering with generic spins is footprint. Even a standard Ubuntu without Sugar was seeming too fat to load from a LiveCD on a Pentium 4 with 256K of DRAM. I'm planning to dogfood the Fedora LiveUSB and I'll have a look to memory usage while doing so. In principle, unless there are relevant memory costs given by running on a LiveUSB, I'd expect it to work decently. i've been curious for a while -- can we have a show of hands for how many people dogfood the existing XO s/w? for my part, i don't, to the extent that i yum-install xfce and run that. so there's little memory pressure, and i don't run activities, nor networkmanager. but i'm still running the kernel and most of the system software. i can quickly switch to running sugar, and i do, when i discover something that i think needs investigating on a more real installation. i think even my limited dogfooding has been useful -- the bugs i've found or helped diagnose have tended to be power management issues, and some yum package management issues. i _really_ think we need to make the XO base _and_ sugar be a place that developers are comfortable living in. our needs aren't quite the same as a school kid's, but i think there's a much bigger overlap than we often think. with the advent of the fedora spin we're going to lose xo/sugar mindshare among our g1g1 and development users [1], and i think we need to think seriously about taking up that slack. even if that means adding some poweruser-centric features which a grade-schooler would probably never use, it's worth considering, in return for the increased focus, and yes, discomfort it may cause. paul [1] but i think we'll gain in overall project mindshare, so in net i'm in favor of it. =- paul fox, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 1:58 PM, Walter Bender [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I prefer the Sugar learning platform +1 Marco ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Reviews report
= New requests = Reset Registration with school servers - short term solution http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/7764 = Rejected requests = Candidate 767 shows odd text marking in first letter of Your Name field after upgrade http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/8784 ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Viewing PDFs from Browse
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 5:10 AM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey, this looks pretty cool, actually. One powerful addition which I think is necessary in order to adopt this is the addition of a Keep button in that toolbar, by which one *could* download the pdf for offline reading later if wanted. Yeah - the keep button is in my TODO list. However, something which might be a bit confusing is the fact that when Browse accesses a PDF, it creates an entry for that in the Journal, and once the user presses the Keep button, yet another entry will be created - which can be opened by Read later. Do you think two entries for the same thing might be confusing ? In a similar vein, would it be possible to create a supplemental toolbar like this for other media types which browse specifically supports? I could see having a similar UI for images, and a perhaps for audio and video, too. The ability to view various formats directly, yet also have a one-click means to download the file, sounds promising. For audio/video, it's definitely doable. I'm not sure about images, since I think Browse has its own way of handling images. - Eben PS. While I agree this is a nice thing to support in Browse, we'll need to make this change very clear, as teachers and kids are familiar with the current behavior which automatically downloads any .pdf clicked on. We wouldn't want to confuse them when it doesn't appear in their Journal directly. +1 Thanks, Sayamindu On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 6:46 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, It looks like reading PDF files from the web via Browse is a pain, since, Browse saves the file to Journal, and then one has to go to the Journal and open up the saved file via Read (#8330). Can we treat PDF files like we handle media files (oggs mostly) by means of a Browse plugin ? I took a look at this during the weekend, and came up with a hack which looks like http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/Screenshot_browse_pdf.png I used mozplugger and a simple PDF viewer using the Evince python bindings to make my work simpler. Can this be a possible workaround till we find a better solution ? Thanks, Sayamindu -- Sayamindu Dasgupta [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings] ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar -- Sayamindu Dasgupta [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings] ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 23:49, Samuel Klein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The laptops feature the latest release of the Sugar window manager, running on a Linux-based Fedora Core operating system. For answers to frequently asked questions, and for other XO giving programs, see the OLPC wiki. Just Fedora, not Fedora Core... Regards Morgan ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
Am 08.10.2008 um 13:49 schrieb Tomeu Vizoso: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 1:30 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 12:03 schrieb Tomeu Vizoso: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 11:10 AM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 10:33 schrieb Morgan Collett: I filed #8350 regarding adding the journal object picker to Read, for the case when it is launched from Home View without a document. There was a recent discussion on the library list about this, since the show_launcher setting isn't relevant any more - Read appears in Home View if you star it. (If Read is installed in the software updater, it will be starred...) I have implemented this, and could release it for 8.2.1, but the journal object picker doesn't currently have any filters for an Activity to restrict the view to only relevant entries - so it pops up with the entire journal visible - images, Write entries, Browse entries, etc where all we can handle in Read are relevant downloaded documents, and previous Read instances. Is this going to cause more problems than it's worth? I could make the object picker pop up again if the selected entry failed to load, if that helps. An alternative to using the object picker is to have a string break and add a dialog that explains that you launched Read without a document, and so it isn't useful, and make that stop Read when acknowledged. Why not extend the object chooser to include a query parameter? I'm not 100% sure yet. How does the object chooser look when it is prefiltered? Can the user undo the filter? Which properties can be filtered? Any? Just the ones the user itself can? Can a free text string be provided? If we could limit the preset filter to a list of mime types, I think we would benefit from the simplicity. Can we do that? In which cases is this not enough? I don't know - it just seems unwise to artificially limit a powerful API that is already exposed elsewhere, just because we cannot think of a use case right now. But I'm not too hung up on that one, a simple list of mime types is much better than no filtering, so go for it. How about allowing glob patterns in addition to concrete types? Though that might require extending the DS. The thing is that the D-Bus DS API is not certain to live much longer, so I would prefer if the minimum expectations are set, so we can move later to a better API with less problems for everyone. Well, the chooser is Journal API not DS API. And how would activities communicate with Sugar if not by D-Bus? - Bert - ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 2:33 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 14:23 schrieb Tomeu Vizoso: If we can keep things simple for now, I'd rather do it. Well, if that does not mean doing nothing, I'm all for it. Why not just push your old patch then? It looks good. It won't apply as-is, but that solution sounds good to me. Alternatively, instead of passing mime_types as an argument to the constructor, we could make it an argument to the run() method. Both seem good to me. Regards, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
Am 08.10.2008 um 11:16 schrieb Simon Schampijer: Bert Freudenberg wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 10:33 schrieb Morgan Collett: I filed #8350 regarding adding the journal object picker to Read, for the case when it is launched from Home View without a document. There was a recent discussion on the library list about this, since the show_launcher setting isn't relevant any more - Read appears in Home View if you star it. (If Read is installed in the software updater, it will be starred...) I have implemented this, and could release it for 8.2.1, but the journal object picker doesn't currently have any filters for an Activity to restrict the view to only relevant entries - so it pops up with the entire journal visible - images, Write entries, Browse entries, etc where all we can handle in Read are relevant downloaded documents, and previous Read instances. Is this going to cause more problems than it's worth? I could make the object picker pop up again if the selected entry failed to load, if that helps. An alternative to using the object picker is to have a string break and add a dialog that explains that you launched Read without a document, and so it isn't useful, and make that stop Read when acknowledged. Why not extend the object chooser to include a query parameter? We discussed this a long time ago and it makes sense, it just has not bubbled to the top of the to-do list yet ... - Bert - http://sugarlabs.org/go/DevelopmentTeam/0.84/Ideas Also found the old ticket: http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/3060 - Bert - ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
Am 08.10.2008 um 12:03 schrieb Tomeu Vizoso: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 11:10 AM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 10:33 schrieb Morgan Collett: I filed #8350 regarding adding the journal object picker to Read, for the case when it is launched from Home View without a document. There was a recent discussion on the library list about this, since the show_launcher setting isn't relevant any more - Read appears in Home View if you star it. (If Read is installed in the software updater, it will be starred...) I have implemented this, and could release it for 8.2.1, but the journal object picker doesn't currently have any filters for an Activity to restrict the view to only relevant entries - so it pops up with the entire journal visible - images, Write entries, Browse entries, etc where all we can handle in Read are relevant downloaded documents, and previous Read instances. Is this going to cause more problems than it's worth? I could make the object picker pop up again if the selected entry failed to load, if that helps. An alternative to using the object picker is to have a string break and add a dialog that explains that you launched Read without a document, and so it isn't useful, and make that stop Read when acknowledged. Why not extend the object chooser to include a query parameter? I'm not 100% sure yet. How does the object chooser look when it is prefiltered? Can the user undo the filter? Which properties can be filtered? Any? Just the ones the user itself can? Can a free text string be provided? If we could limit the preset filter to a list of mime types, I think we would benefit from the simplicity. Can we do that? In which cases is this not enough? I don't know - it just seems unwise to artificially limit a powerful API that is already exposed elsewhere, just because we cannot think of a use case right now. But I'm not too hung up on that one, a simple list of mime types is much better than no filtering, so go for it. How about allowing glob patterns in addition to concrete types? Though that might require extending the DS. - Bert - ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
I prefer the Sugar learning platform -walter On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:35 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:49 PM, Samuel Klein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The laptops feature the latest release of the Sugar window manager, ... I think we should be able to find a better term than window manager, Matchbox is the window manager used in 8.2 and it hasn't been modified by OLPC. Some suggestions: - learning environment, - collaborative user interface, etc Regards, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 11:10 AM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 10:33 schrieb Morgan Collett: I filed #8350 regarding adding the journal object picker to Read, for the case when it is launched from Home View without a document. There was a recent discussion on the library list about this, since the show_launcher setting isn't relevant any more - Read appears in Home View if you star it. (If Read is installed in the software updater, it will be starred...) I have implemented this, and could release it for 8.2.1, but the journal object picker doesn't currently have any filters for an Activity to restrict the view to only relevant entries - so it pops up with the entire journal visible - images, Write entries, Browse entries, etc where all we can handle in Read are relevant downloaded documents, and previous Read instances. Is this going to cause more problems than it's worth? I could make the object picker pop up again if the selected entry failed to load, if that helps. An alternative to using the object picker is to have a string break and add a dialog that explains that you launched Read without a document, and so it isn't useful, and make that stop Read when acknowledged. Why not extend the object chooser to include a query parameter? I'm not 100% sure yet. How does the object chooser look when it is prefiltered? Can the user undo the filter? Which properties can be filtered? Any? Just the ones the user itself can? Can a free text string be provided? If we could limit the preset filter to a list of mime types, I think we would benefit from the simplicity. Can we do that? In which cases is this not enough? Thanks, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 2:15 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 13:49 schrieb Tomeu Vizoso: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 1:30 PM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 12:03 schrieb Tomeu Vizoso: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 11:10 AM, Bert Freudenberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Am 08.10.2008 um 10:33 schrieb Morgan Collett: I filed #8350 regarding adding the journal object picker to Read, for the case when it is launched from Home View without a document. There was a recent discussion on the library list about this, since the show_launcher setting isn't relevant any more - Read appears in Home View if you star it. (If Read is installed in the software updater, it will be starred...) I have implemented this, and could release it for 8.2.1, but the journal object picker doesn't currently have any filters for an Activity to restrict the view to only relevant entries - so it pops up with the entire journal visible - images, Write entries, Browse entries, etc where all we can handle in Read are relevant downloaded documents, and previous Read instances. Is this going to cause more problems than it's worth? I could make the object picker pop up again if the selected entry failed to load, if that helps. An alternative to using the object picker is to have a string break and add a dialog that explains that you launched Read without a document, and so it isn't useful, and make that stop Read when acknowledged. Why not extend the object chooser to include a query parameter? I'm not 100% sure yet. How does the object chooser look when it is prefiltered? Can the user undo the filter? Which properties can be filtered? Any? Just the ones the user itself can? Can a free text string be provided? If we could limit the preset filter to a list of mime types, I think we would benefit from the simplicity. Can we do that? In which cases is this not enough? I don't know - it just seems unwise to artificially limit a powerful API that is already exposed elsewhere, just because we cannot think of a use case right now. But I'm not too hung up on that one, a simple list of mime types is much better than no filtering, so go for it. How about allowing glob patterns in addition to concrete types? Though that might require extending the DS. The thing is that the D-Bus DS API is not certain to live much longer, so I would prefer if the minimum expectations are set, so we can move later to a better API with less problems for everyone. Well, the chooser is Journal API not DS API. And how would activities communicate with Sugar if not by D-Bus? I was referring to the DS D-Bus API, the Journal D-Bus API makes use of it, so if we grow functionality on the journal api, we'll be growing the dependency on the DS API. Most probably the new DS API will support all this and more, but I would prefer not to increase the pressure on the DS because that has worked very bad for us till now. If we can keep things simple for now, I'd rather do it. Regards, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Journal Object Picker in Read
Am 08.10.2008 um 10:33 schrieb Morgan Collett: I filed #8350 regarding adding the journal object picker to Read, for the case when it is launched from Home View without a document. There was a recent discussion on the library list about this, since the show_launcher setting isn't relevant any more - Read appears in Home View if you star it. (If Read is installed in the software updater, it will be starred...) I have implemented this, and could release it for 8.2.1, but the journal object picker doesn't currently have any filters for an Activity to restrict the view to only relevant entries - so it pops up with the entire journal visible - images, Write entries, Browse entries, etc where all we can handle in Read are relevant downloaded documents, and previous Read instances. Is this going to cause more problems than it's worth? I could make the object picker pop up again if the selected entry failed to load, if that helps. An alternative to using the object picker is to have a string break and add a dialog that explains that you launched Read without a document, and so it isn't useful, and make that stop Read when acknowledged. Why not extend the object chooser to include a query parameter? We discussed this a long time ago and it makes sense, it just has not bubbled to the top of the to-do list yet ... - Bert - ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Sugar USB testing
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... To get developers eating dog food with the XO you would need the following: 1.) The Develop activity completed so it is usable for writing code ... 2.) An IMAP client Activity and corresponding IMAP server on a school ... actually, i don't think either of these is necessary, though they might be sufficient for some people to get them to use their XO more. i may have been misleading in my earlier mail: i don't use the XO for everything -- not even close. like most professionals i set high standards for my tools, and the XO doesn't meet a lot of those standards (e.g., speed, capacity, UI flexibility -- not to mention the keyboard :-). but it does some things very well, and i use my XO for things that are appropriate to its capabilities: i use it if i want to be connected while in the sun in the backyard. i took it on vacation as my only laptop, because it's so small. i tranfer all the email (and irc logs, and Weekend reports) that appear overnight onto my XO, and read them on the bus or subway on my way to the office in the morning -- where e-book mode is very convenient. i'll bet most people could choose one or two daily tasks and force themselves to use the XO for those activities. the main thing is to get yourself out of the debug/test/reload cycle, and see what it means to actually use the machine. paul =- paul fox, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Viewing PDFs from Browse
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:55 AM, Sayamindu Dasgupta [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 5:10 AM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey, this looks pretty cool, actually. One powerful addition which I think is necessary in order to adopt this is the addition of a Keep button in that toolbar, by which one *could* download the pdf for offline reading later if wanted. Yeah - the keep button is in my TODO list. However, something which might be a bit confusing is the fact that when Browse accesses a PDF, it creates an entry for that in the Journal, and once the user presses the Keep button, yet another entry will be created - which can be opened by Read later. Do you think two entries for the same thing might be confusing ? Yes, this actually does run counter to intuition. If we desire to show the pdf within the Browse activity (which is certainly an understandable goal), than we need to embrace the idea fully. It's just another file which gets temporarily cached for viewing purposes, unless a Keep button is pressed to indicate the desire for permanence. We shouldn't be making a new entry when the pdf is viewed within Browse at all. In a similar vein, would it be possible to create a supplemental toolbar like this for other media types which browse specifically supports? I could see having a similar UI for images, and a perhaps for audio and video, too. The ability to view various formats directly, yet also have a one-click means to download the file, sounds promising. For audio/video, it's definitely doable. I'm not sure about images, since I think Browse has its own way of handling images. Hmmm, interesting. I had thought images would be the easiest to handle. I think the ability to scale, rotate, etc. would be really slick to have, and images are something that one finds online quite often. Perhaps there is a way to override the default? It would be really nice to handle various media types consistently, with a short list of tools for interacting with them, and a keep button. - Eben PS. We'll likely want a copy button in addition to keep! Clipping media to the clipboard for direct integration in another activity is just as valid as holding onto it as its own entity. - Eben PS. While I agree this is a nice thing to support in Browse, we'll need to make this change very clear, as teachers and kids are familiar with the current behavior which automatically downloads any .pdf clicked on. We wouldn't want to confuse them when it doesn't appear in their Journal directly. +1 Thanks, Sayamindu On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 6:46 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, It looks like reading PDF files from the web via Browse is a pain, since, Browse saves the file to Journal, and then one has to go to the Journal and open up the saved file via Read (#8330). Can we treat PDF files like we handle media files (oggs mostly) by means of a Browse plugin ? I took a look at this during the weekend, and came up with a hack which looks like http://dev.laptop.org/~sayamindu/Screenshot_browse_pdf.png I used mozplugger and a simple PDF viewer using the Evince python bindings to make my work simpler. Can this be a possible workaround till we find a better solution ? Thanks, Sayamindu -- Sayamindu Dasgupta [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings] ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar -- Sayamindu Dasgupta [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings] ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Viewing PDFs from Browse
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:46 PM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:24 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 1:40 AM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey, this looks pretty cool, actually. One powerful addition which I think is necessary in order to adopt this is the addition of a Keep button in that toolbar, by which one *could* download the pdf for offline reading later if wanted. In a similar vein, would it be possible to create a supplemental toolbar like this for other media types which browse specifically supports? I could see having a similar UI for images, and a perhaps for audio and video, too. The ability to view various formats directly, yet also have a one-click means to download the file, sounds promising. Hmm, shouldn't the act of viewing a PDF create an entry in the journal that allows you to resume this act? If so, shouldn't the viewer plugin create an entry in the journal by itself and that entry would contain the PDF? Well, in this new model, I'd think not, actually. I can view an image directly within Browse without creating a new Journal entry. Basically, anything Browse handles natively remains a part of my Browse session. Anything which it cannot, or which I explicitly wish to keep for myself, becomes a new downloaded object. So Browse would create some kind of entry that would allow resuming the reading of that book? Thanks, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Module Proposal: Image Viewer Activity
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:34 AM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 10:27 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 9:04 PM, Sayamindu Dasgupta [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hello, I would like to propose the inclusion of the Image Viewer Activity into Fructose: Just gave it a try and looks awesome. Should we make it the default activity for images? http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=sugar;a=blob;f=data/mime.defaults;h=1cb26876abb7b2518b5282f474df2567f7356ad0;hb=fb24b313694e06e340be5074d9740e5ef64bb591 I think so. I agree. - Eben Marco ___ 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
Re: [sugar] adding versions to journal/datastore
Christopher Sawtell, in responded to my post in this thread, suggested that versioning would support Undo. Now _that's_ a worthwhile goal to think about -- giving kids a simple-to-use datastore undo/redo capability. mikus ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Viewing PDFs from Browse
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:24 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 1:40 AM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey, this looks pretty cool, actually. One powerful addition which I think is necessary in order to adopt this is the addition of a Keep button in that toolbar, by which one *could* download the pdf for offline reading later if wanted. In a similar vein, would it be possible to create a supplemental toolbar like this for other media types which browse specifically supports? I could see having a similar UI for images, and a perhaps for audio and video, too. The ability to view various formats directly, yet also have a one-click means to download the file, sounds promising. Hmm, shouldn't the act of viewing a PDF create an entry in the journal that allows you to resume this act? If so, shouldn't the viewer plugin create an entry in the journal by itself and that entry would contain the PDF? Well, in this new model, I'd think not, actually. I can view an image directly within Browse without creating a new Journal entry. Basically, anything Browse handles natively remains a part of my Browse session. Anything which it cannot, or which I explicitly wish to keep for myself, becomes a new downloaded object. - Eben Note that all this shouldn't duplicate files any more. Regards, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Viewing PDFs from Browse
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 10:53 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:46 PM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:24 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 1:40 AM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey, this looks pretty cool, actually. One powerful addition which I think is necessary in order to adopt this is the addition of a Keep button in that toolbar, by which one *could* download the pdf for offline reading later if wanted. In a similar vein, would it be possible to create a supplemental toolbar like this for other media types which browse specifically supports? I could see having a similar UI for images, and a perhaps for audio and video, too. The ability to view various formats directly, yet also have a one-click means to download the file, sounds promising. Hmm, shouldn't the act of viewing a PDF create an entry in the journal that allows you to resume this act? If so, shouldn't the viewer plugin create an entry in the journal by itself and that entry would contain the PDF? Well, in this new model, I'd think not, actually. I can view an image directly within Browse without creating a new Journal entry. Basically, anything Browse handles natively remains a part of my Browse session. Anything which it cannot, or which I explicitly wish to keep for myself, becomes a new downloaded object. So Browse would create some kind of entry that would allow resuming the reading of that book? Of course. Basically, the following would happen: 1. Child clicks on a link to a pdf (or natively supported media type) 2. Browse displays the pdf directly, with the contextual toolbar 3. Browse does not yet interact with the DS; this is just part of what it does (Stopping here would result in no Journal entry, apart from the Browse one) 4. Child clicks Keep button in contextual toolbar 5. Browse initiates a download of the pdf, as it does now 6. The resulting object in the Journal is just a pdf 7. pdfs open in Read by default; Read opens when the child clicks the book Does this model make sense? While within Browse, we're still just browsing about within the context of the Browse session itself. When we keep a media object, we download that object in its raw form, and it can later be opened by any supporting activity, but will always be opened with the default handler for its mime-type by default. (It won't be associated with Browse). - Eben Thanks, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
Not yet... if someone wants to make a pdf from that page, this would rock. Something to discuss on Friday. As for window manager v. learning platform... an updated [[Glossary]] isn't a bad idea. SJ On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 6:26 PM, Polychronis Ypodimatopoulos [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: is there anything like a poster/flyer in high resolution PDF? p. Samuel Klein wrote: This year's G1G1 program will start November 17 in the US. Please help us spread the word. Below is a short email blurb about this year's program ( from [[G1G1 2008/text]] ). We are coordinating some community art and outreach on the grassroots list as well (http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/grassroots). There will be a lunch outreach meeting about G1G1 in #olpc on irc.freenode.net this Friday at 1200 EST (and @ 1CC for those in the area); sign up if you think you can make it, or leave your thoughts about what we should cover / who we should contact / what we can do better this time around: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/G1G1_meetings For giving, SJ = One Laptop per Child is launching its second ''Give 1, Get 1'' [G1G1] program starting November 17, 2008, following last year's popular program which received donations from over 80,000 people. This year the XO laptops will be shipped to donors through Amazon.com. The laptops feature the latest release of the Sugar window manager, running on a Linux-based Fedora Core operating system. For answers to frequently asked questions, and for other XO giving programs, see the OLPC wiki. More on G1G1 2008: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/G1G1_2008 More about the XO: http://laptop.org/en/laptop/ Photos, stories and other media from the first year's deployments are available from a community media page and from the OLPC photostream. If you have been involved with a deployment, please contribute your own. OLPC's Flickr photostream: http://flickr.com/photos/olpc Contribute share media: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Community_media ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar -- 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] alt-tabbing to the Journal
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 3:26 AM, Gary C Martin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On 8 Oct 2008, at 03:51, Walter Bender wrote: The bottom line is that, at least as far as the XO is concerned (and other machines with limited memory and no swap) the list of activities to tab through, with or without the Journal, is going to be a short list, so is it really such a pressing issue? For tabbing, I think one frustration here is the current issue with tabbing where the delay is way too short before an Activity you're tabbing past is pulled into focus (I'd argue there should be no auto delay focus, only focus when alt key is lifted, allowing you to easily skip items in the stack). Currently in 8.2, accidentally tabbing the 'wrong way' through the active instances on the XO and getting shown the wrong thing (usually Journal given only having a few activities running) is painful enough time wise to distract you from whatever goal you had in mind. Example: TurtleArt, and 2 x ImageViewers showing some screen shots of different brick code you want to reference. Tabbing between TurtleArt and the images you trying to reference is constantly intruded upon by the redraw, and update of Journal – if you're just mucking around, it's less of a pain, but if you're actually trying to 'get stuff done' it can get quite annoying pretty quickly. I'd love the same passion developed to some of the issues/topics that impact the learning. How can we make the Journal better, regardless of how we open it and regardless of whether we consider it an activity or part of Sugar core? I guess most interested parties on the sugar list are more technical than pedagogical types. Both my parents were teachers, and when computers started to make their way into some of their lessons/labs, way back when, I seem to remember they would come home somewhat bemused, having been handed boxes of cables and computer kit. As an ~11yr old I would set it up, get things going, and show them how to load-up and use the software. It's an interesting generational shift, I wonder what new idea is going to come along and be so far from our expectations that we'll be too inflexible as adults to really pick it up well (here already?). Maybe it's just a personality trait thing and not age at all; I guess I know enough people my age who I wouldn't trust to safely 'shut down' an operating system without being given a lesson or two first ;-) OK. Journal, and its related use, have some UI improvement possibilities that could be targeted (and I think a few might be targeted already for work), without having to solve the big 'impact on learning' type wider research/study goals. Some things that come to mind just now (in no special order and I'm sure most have been discussed already at some point): - Sort view by creation date, not just by last modification date. Currently when you resume something, even just to take a look, it pulls it out of the time context of other entries it was created alongside. One click, and last weeks essays narrative/reflection is lost (the photos you took, the chat discussions you had with classmates, the audio you recorded, the picture you painted etc). This is a big part of the need for versions. What you really get when you worked on something last week, and also today, are two versions of that thing, distributed in time appropriately. Sorting by either creation or modification date is incorrect. - Filter view for starred items only, a single click way to quickly hide the unwanted. Yes! I had hoped this would make 8.2, but we didn't have time to finish it. Right now, starring is utterly useless, apart from the visual indication to the user that they might care about it. Being able to filter to only starred items will be a big big advantage for usability of the Journal. - Improve the 'Anything' pop-up UI. It takes me about 4-5sec of scrolling to get to the bottom of the Activity and mime file type list. And worse, if you do scroll way down, it takes just as long to get the Journal back to default after your search. I guess ideally this would become a custom palette grid of some kind, perhaps with just icons and mouse over text for the full names to save space. Another option could be for a short list of the most That's an interesting idea. In fact, we might consider something like that for all of the filters. They're kind of ugly as is, and take up a lot of horizontal space that could be better used. I'll try some mockups. The time popup, then, could even have a calendar in it, so that in addition to some basic ranges, you could say show me everything I made the month of december last year. frequently used N activities (or the current Home view favourites), and then a 'more...' end item that would reveal a large slide-out, below toolbar dialogue with all installed activities and file types listed. Actually, you could cut to the chase and have an 'Anything' button that just
Re: [sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 7:58 AM, Walter Bender [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I prefer the Sugar learning platform +1 from me as well. (I'm torn on platform vs. environment; the latter actually sounds a little friendlier, to me.) - Eben -walter On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:35 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:49 PM, Samuel Klein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The laptops feature the latest release of the Sugar window manager, ... I think we should be able to find a better term than window manager, Matchbox is the window manager used in 8.2 and it hasn't been modified by OLPC. Some suggestions: - learning environment, - collaborative user interface, etc Regards, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 5:52 PM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 7:58 AM, Walter Bender [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I prefer the Sugar learning platform +1 from me as well. (I'm torn on platform vs. environment; the latter actually sounds a little friendlier, to me.) I guess in platform Sugar would be supporting learning, where in environment Sugar would be where learning happens. I would vote for platform, as the learning really happens inside the user. Regards, Tomeu - Eben -walter On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:35 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:49 PM, Samuel Klein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The laptops feature the latest release of the Sugar window manager, ... I think we should be able to find a better term than window manager, Matchbox is the window manager used in 8.2 and it hasn't been modified by OLPC. Some suggestions: - learning environment, - collaborative user interface, etc Regards, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
This is also a Sugar Labs branding issue. Sugar Learning Platform does a better job of conveying we are not a stand alone solution. We are a common point of collaboration on which educators and developers build solutions for their own unique classrooms and situations. thanks david On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 10:57 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 5:52 PM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 7:58 AM, Walter Bender [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I prefer the Sugar learning platform +1 from me as well. (I'm torn on platform vs. environment; the latter actually sounds a little friendlier, to me.) I guess in platform Sugar would be supporting learning, where in environment Sugar would be where learning happens. I would vote for platform, as the learning really happens inside the user. Regards, Tomeu - Eben -walter On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:35 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:49 PM, Samuel Klein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The laptops feature the latest release of the Sugar window manager, ... I think we should be able to find a better term than window manager, Matchbox is the window manager used in 8.2 and it hasn't been modified by OLPC. Some suggestions: - learning environment, - collaborative user interface, etc Regards, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
I prefer platform since I think the platform is a key element in the overall environment. -walter On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 12:11 PM, David Farning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This is also a Sugar Labs branding issue. Sugar Learning Platform does a better job of conveying we are not a stand alone solution. We are a common point of collaboration on which educators and developers build solutions for their own unique classrooms and situations. thanks david On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 10:57 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 5:52 PM, Eben Eliason [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 7:58 AM, Walter Bender [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I prefer the Sugar learning platform +1 from me as well. (I'm torn on platform vs. environment; the latter actually sounds a little friendlier, to me.) I guess in platform Sugar would be supporting learning, where in environment Sugar would be where learning happens. I would vote for platform, as the learning really happens inside the user. Regards, Tomeu - Eben -walter On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:35 AM, Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:49 PM, Samuel Klein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The laptops feature the latest release of the Sugar window manager, ... I think we should be able to find a better term than window manager, Matchbox is the window manager used in 8.2 and it hasn't been modified by OLPC. Some suggestions: - learning environment, - collaborative user interface, etc Regards, Tomeu ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
I prefer the Sugar learning platform And my laundress prefers fabric revitalization consultant. Sugar isn't about learning. Sugar is a user interface. It draws icons and decorations on the screen, starts and stops programs, and lets you turn control knobs. The things Sugar competes with aren't learning platforms, they're user interfaces, like Gnome or Hildon. John ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 1:05 PM, John Gilmore [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I prefer the Sugar learning platform And my laundress prefers fabric revitalization consultant. Sugar isn't about learning. Sugar is a user interface. It draws I find your first statement wholly contestable. Moreover, the two (user interface, learning; or, stated differently, what Sugar /is/ and what Sugar /is about/) are by no means mutually exclusive. If any one of us thought that Sugar was nothing more than a different way to draw some stuff on a screen, why would we bother? The Sugar interface, as with all interfaces (or, good ones), provides a means to an end; Our end is learning. icons and decorations on the screen, starts and stops programs, and lets you turn control knobs. The things Sugar competes with aren't learning platforms, they're user interfaces, like Gnome or Hildon. That really depends on who's judging the competition, or perhaps, who's even holding one. I don't much care to compete with Gnome. - Eben John ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia
On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 06:14:16PM +0200, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote: On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Erik Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my mind the fundamental problem is that users aren't required to fully qualify names for their work. Doing so seems to lie outside of one of the core points of Sugar's design (There are no files, folders, or applications. -- http://sugarlabs.org/go/Main_Page). Is it conceivable that we could change this feature of the system in future releases to clarify data management on Sugar-running XOs? You keep repeating this and it makes no sense. As Eben said we need to encourage people to tag and name things. Saying that it's outside the Sugar philosophy is nonsense. I read there are no files ... to mean that requiring a user to name something before storing it for later retrieval is outside Sugar design philosophy. Named chunk of data is pretty much the definition of a computer file. So if we're asking users to name their chunks of data to address a usability problem, aren't we just asking them to engage in file management? Can we do this and still abide by the no files principle? Erik ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:08 PM, Nia Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Marco, That was a really nice welcome. I work with Elana and the learning team here at OLPC and one thing we are trying to do is increase communications between our group and the technical side of the house. It seems the best way to communicate this information from the field is to use the mailing list that reaches the people creating the technology. Perhaps I am out of the loop but all of the people who have chimed in here are active participants in this project and are just as devoted and dedicated as you and I. To suggest they are uninformed seems a little harsh. If you have better suggestions as to how we should communicate the issues we find in the field and work toward fixing them, please let me know. Hello Nia, Huh! No, sorry, this is totally a misunderstanding. I was not referring to Elana feedback at all with that phrase. It was *exclusively* a technical remark to Erik approach to performance work. I appreciate Elana feedback and I highly value it. Keep it coming please :) My apologies for the misunderstanding, I hope this clarify. Marco ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
John Gilmore wrote: I prefer the Sugar learning platform And my laundress prefers fabric revitalization consultant. Sugar isn't about learning. Sugar is a user interface. It draws icons and decorations on the screen, starts and stops programs, and lets you turn control knobs. The things Sugar competes with aren't learning platforms, they're user interfaces, like Gnome or Hildon. At first, it sounds like your correct, but I think you're not. Gnome is a general-purpose desktop environment, hildon is gear towards mobile interfaces on small screen real estate, and Sugar is an environment with a focus on collaboration and abstraction of concepts such as files and user accounts. As such, it could sustain a learning process better than other general purpose environments. 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] notes from the field - Mongolia
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:21 PM, Nia Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks, MArco. I still think talking to Erik like that isn't very nice either:) Nia, this kind of flames are customary in a technical mailing list and I don't really think Erik should take personal offence about them. If you go back in the archives you will see way more offensive things said about my and the other Sugar developers work. Marco ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:30 PM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:21 PM, Nia Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks, MArco. I still think talking to Erik like that isn't very nice either:) Nia, this kind of flames are customary in a technical mailing list and I don't really think Erik should take personal offence about them. If you go back in the archives you will see way more offensive things said about my and the other Sugar developers work. Btw I went back and re-read my statement... There is actually nothing offensive or flaming in it Uninformed simply means that Erik assertions are not based on factual data (which I suggested him to acquire doing profiling work). Marco ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia
On Wed, Oct 08, 2008 at 08:30:27PM +0200, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote: On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:21 PM, Nia Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks, MArco. I still think talking to Erik like that isn't very nice either:) Nia, this kind of flames are customary in a technical mailing list and I don't really think Erik should take personal offence about them. If you go back in the archives you will see way more offensive things said about my and the other Sugar developers work. Marco Nia, For what it's worth, I'm not hurt and understood what Marco intended. Email is hard because it's difficult to hear the intention of the person. I think this feature of electronic communication is probably a principal cause of flamewars in their various guises. Thank you, Erik ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 2:11 PM, Erik Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 06:14:16PM +0200, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote: On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Erik Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In my mind the fundamental problem is that users aren't required to fully qualify names for their work. Doing so seems to lie outside of one of the core points of Sugar's design (There are no files, folders, or applications. -- http://sugarlabs.org/go/Main_Page). Is it conceivable that we could change this feature of the system in future releases to clarify data management on Sugar-running XOs? You keep repeating this and it makes no sense. As Eben said we need to encourage people to tag and name things. Saying that it's outside the Sugar philosophy is nonsense. I read there are no files ... to mean that requiring a user to name something before storing it for later retrieval is outside Sugar design philosophy. I don't think this statement is meant as literally as you interpret it. Obviously the system is full of files, and you're correct that a named chunk of data is basically what were talking about. The intent of the no files sentiment is that kids needn't (necessarily) think about named chunks of data. Instead, a child might make [this thing], and then choose to give it [some name]; naming is a natural process that applies to objects in the real world, too. Named chunk of data is pretty much the definition of a computer file. So if we're asking users to name their chunks of data to address a usability problem, aren't we just asking them to engage in file management? Can we do this and still abide by the no files principle? We want the kids to make stuff. Call each thing they make an object; call it a thing; call it whatever you'd like. We just didn't want to force the definition of the term file on them, since this term really stems from the early days of computing in which files were predominantly text. The natural metaphor was files and folders. In Sugar, we want to focus on creation of all sorts of things, and ascribing the term file to [this song I composed] or [this image I drew] seems limiting. - Eben Erik ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia
I encourage those interested in Journal issues to attend my talk @ 1cc next Wednesday, or to view the video of that talk when it's posted. Most of the journal issues have straight-forward solutions. Yesterday, I heard from the IT manager for the city of Key Largo, Florida; his 60-year old goverment workers have many of the same problems as our Mongolian users or 6-year olds. We can make things better. As Eben has mentioned, one part of this is prompting for names and descriptions at appropriate times. Think of Gmail: it doesn't let you send an email without a subject line without a bit a of effort. We can get better information from users, which will help them more easily find stuff later. Some objects, however (think of photos) really don't have good names: I've got a folder full of files named imgp12314.jpg and similar. Chronological search really is a decent way to find such things, and tags can help you re-find them later. I haven't put boot time on my personal 9.1.0 roadmap yet, but Mitch Bradley and others have done a good deal of work on the issue. I think we could make a sizable improvement for 9.1.0 if that's a priority (assuming some of the other technical enablers also make it into 9.1.0, like ubifs and partitions). --scott -- ( http://cscott.net/ ) ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Sugar-meeting REMINDER (Thursday October 9 2008 - 14.00 (UTC)) --- irc.freenode.net, #sugar-meeting
===Topics=== Roadmap * update and discuss the existing concrete items (i.e. icon cache) See you there, Simon ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] naming, was Re: notes from the field - Mongolia
snip Obviously the system is full of files, and you're correct that a named chunk of data is basically what were talking about. The intent of the no files sentiment is that kids needn't (necessarily) think about named chunks of data. Instead, a child might make [this thing], and then choose to give it [some name]; naming is a natural process that applies to objects in the real world, too. My pet peeve regarding this is that the process of naming is still uncomfortable, and doesn't show on the desktop Look at y'all! You were happilly discussing naming under the moniker of notes from the field - Mongolia, even though it would have been so simple to set it to a more intuitive name for the discussion on hand. Now, under Sugar you have to go to the Activity tab (1 step), then set a 'name' there (second step). Even then the name you assigned will not even show up in the desktop view or to the neighborhood, only in the Journal. That is, you have 3-4 'Write' activities that you are doing at once, you have to open each one to figure out which one is the one you want at a given moment. Microsoft Word had something that compared looks as a genius feature, that would set as default (editable) name for the .doc document the first few words of the document, which usually is its title. Also, by default DOS would add a number when something repeated a name already in the folder, thus at least we would have 'Write Activity 1', different from 'Write Activity 2'. Could we have some of that, please? and be able to see the name of an Activity at least when the mouse hovers, if not even better right there under the icon? Yes, usabilitity criteria should be more important than the minimalist look, which is a rather empty artistic statement rather than a practical, useful design decision. Since we're at it, let also be plainly visible with a plain old number which is which of the 3 circles that represent the mesh networks. That would save some useless hovering around when several kids are trying to get on the same one. We want the kids to make stuff. Call each thing they make an object; call it a thing; call it whatever you'd like. We just didn't want to force the definition of the term file on them, since this term really stems from the early days of computing in which files were predominantly text. The natural metaphor was files and folders. In Sugar, we want to focus on creation of all sorts of things, and ascribing the term file to [this song I composed] or [this image I drew] seems limiting When translating file to Aymara the word chosen was 'khepi', which usually means the wrapped up parcel, with a piece of cloth, that you can see in pictures of Andean people carrying all sorts of stuff, even their own babies, thus semantically translated as 'a wrap of stuff to carry or store'. It doesn't matter what it is, when put together to safekeep or move, it is a 'khepi'. Big discussion came up for folder, but that's another story. ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] naming, was Re: notes from the field - Mongolia
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 4:32 PM, Yamandu Ploskonka [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip Obviously the system is full of files, and you're correct that a named chunk of data is basically what were talking about. The intent of the no files sentiment is that kids needn't (necessarily) think about named chunks of data. Instead, a child might make [this thing], and then choose to give it [some name]; naming is a natural process that applies to objects in the real world, too. My pet peeve regarding this is that the process of naming is still uncomfortable, and doesn't show on the desktop Agreed. Look at y'all! You were happilly discussing naming under the moniker of notes from the field - Mongolia, even though it would have been so simple to set it to a more intuitive name for the discussion on hand. Now, under Sugar you have to go to the Activity tab (1 step), then set a 'name' there (second step). Even then the name you assigned will not even show up in the desktop view or to the neighborhood, only in the Journal. The multistep process is something I very much want to avoid, if possible. Encouraging naming when an activity is stopped for the first time is a big step in that direction. Providing really good default names even when we do encourage custom names will also be helpful. The fact that name changes aren't immediately reflected in each of a) the Journal b) the neighborhood view c) a shared instance of the activity d) the activity palette in the Frame e) anywhere else appropriate is a bug (well, lots of bugs). (I didn't check to see which of these do update, by the way...some of these might work.) I also didn't have a chance to dig up tickets on these issues. If anyone knows that they do or don't exist, please link them or create them as needed! That is, you have 3-4 'Write' activities that you are doing at once, you have to open each one to figure out which one is the one you want at a given moment. Yeah, I agree with you. This is no fun, nor is it the intention. Microsoft Word had something that compared looks as a genius feature, that would set as default (editable) name for the .doc document the first few words of the document, which usually is its title. This type of naming is up to the activity authors to provide, since doing something that makes sense depends on the context of the activity. That said, you're right that we could probably do better in many of them. Opening tickets for specific activities would be quite helpful! Write is a good example. Also, by default DOS would add a number when something repeated a name already in the folder, thus at least we would have 'Write Activity 1', different from 'Write Activity 2'. This, and the better default naming you mentioned above, has been planned for a while, but hasn't been built yet. See http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/3900 and http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/3225 for background. Thanks for the feedback! Keep this discussion going so we don't miss any wrinkles that need to be ironed out. I hope that this naming problem (lack of naming, lack of tagging, laborious naming process, poor default names, buggy name updates, etc.) can be nearly if not completely cleared up in the next major release. - Eben Could we have some of that, please? and be able to see the name of an Activity at least when the mouse hovers, if not even better right there under the icon? Yes, usabilitity criteria should be more important than the minimalist look, which is a rather empty artistic statement rather than a practical, useful design decision. Since we're at it, let also be plainly visible with a plain old number which is which of the 3 circles that represent the mesh networks. That would save some useless hovering around when several kids are trying to get on the same one. We want the kids to make stuff. Call each thing they make an object; call it a thing; call it whatever you'd like. We just didn't want to force the definition of the term file on them, since this term really stems from the early days of computing in which files were predominantly text. The natural metaphor was files and folders. In Sugar, we want to focus on creation of all sorts of things, and ascribing the term file to [this song I composed] or [this image I drew] seems limiting When translating file to Aymara the word chosen was 'khepi', which usually means the wrapped up parcel, with a piece of cloth, that you can see in pictures of Andean people carrying all sorts of stuff, even their own babies, thus semantically translated as 'a wrap of stuff to carry or store'. It doesn't matter what it is, when put together to safekeep or move, it is a 'khepi'. Big discussion came up for folder, but that's another story. ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar ___ Sugar mailing list
Re: [sugar] naming
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 6:06 PM, Yamandu Ploskonka [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: snip I hope that this naming problem (lack of naming, lack of tagging, laborious naming process, poor default names, buggy name updates, etc.) can be nearly if not completely cleared up in the next major release. - Eben I appreciate your agreement as to easier to use alternatives. I am afraid that part (or the origin?) of the naming/tagging problem is philosophical / ideological / aesthetic. There is a major current of icons only confectioners :-), folks who believe the typical user is illiterate, that cannot read text accompanying the icons, i.e pre-schoolers. Or they suppose localization will be easier, as icons don't need translation? Or is it just the look of the thing overriding its use? To clarify my position on the matter, several considerations did factor into the current approach. The text was kept secondary mostly due to lack of space on the screen, and only in small part because we thought (really young) kids might react better to less text, at first. Pushing the text into the palettes allowed us to make both the icons and the text bigger, which we thought was important, both so the icons could be read more easily and so the clickable areas were easier to hit, especially with the imprecise touchpad. I don't expect all kids using Sugar to be illiterate, and more importantly, I sincerely hope that Sugar will actually aid in teaching children the associations between word and image. It was very important to me that we didn't simply abandon the text altogether; Connecting the text to each object/button/whatever provided a way to keep the interface light, while providing the additional context when needed. Localization certainly isn't any less needed in this modality, as the strings still exist, but it does certainly minimize the impact that localization inflicts upon the layout. Some languages have substantially longer strings for various words and phrases, which can pose difficulty on a screen with space constraints. Additionally, some layouts are affected by this much more than others. In the activities, many of the buttons are self evident, or become so after trying them out once (we encourage exploration, and aim to make it easy by also making it just as easy to undo something). Additionally, most standard applications I know don't show text with buttons in the UI (though the menu system is a different story), and instead depend on tool-tips to reveal what they do upon hover, much like our palettes. In views such as the Neighborhood, of course, you have a valid point. The search field is a partial solution, but we also aim to provide list views in places like the neighborhood, which will reveal both icon and text, ordered and perhaps even sortable, so that finding things can be approached more directly. Then there's those of us who believe in usability and shout fertilizer to cutesy-pooh post-modern fashion statements that block actual results. (oh my, I will be tagged for flaming...) He heh. I hope my explanations make you consider the approach as slightly more valid than just cutesy-pooh, even if you still disagree with it. Anyway, another one: a NEED (yes, I mean to shout it) is that 'file' names or whatever you call them BY DEFAULT carry the author / child / machine ID, so that when that file ends up in the teacher's machine, he can figure out which one of the 35 'Write Activity' that were submitted is Roberto's. Yes, I think making this part of the Sugar default naming scheme makes prefect sense, and also humanizes it a bit more. Eben's Painting 1 sounds much better than Untitled 1, even if Painting of my House might be more appropriate. The tickets I linked to before include this in description of the default name. Additionally, metadata is something that's still being perfected in Sugar, but all activities actually store their author (and, actually, all participants) in metadata, so it should be possible to see who worked on what even without having it in the name. I think some work needs to be done to properly retain and/or expose this type of information. Now, this is one of the serious, serious missing links when it comes to using the XOs for actual schoolwork. Teachers assign homework. Kids do it. In a contemporary-ideal setup :-( these pieces of work are sent to the teacher for evaluation. This has maybe a 50-50 chance of working if the teacher can follow up and figure who's who. Otherwise, it will never fly. (oh yes, the /untrained/ teacher could train kids to name and tag files) Yes yes, in an _ideal_ world teachers do not evaluate schoolwork... I think evaluation is good, but perhaps not in the A,B,C,D scale. Reflection on work, and discussion of progress, is certainly part of learning. I wrote up some thoughts about how we might begin providing better structure for giving and submitting assignments in another recent thread on narrative.
[sugar] Error : Model for window 4195586 does not exist. (Using jh-build)
Hello I am using jh-build having sugar 0.83.x. I am running it on fedora 7. I have my code in pygtk. When i run it using terminal of jh-build, it works perfectly. But when i try to port my activity to sugar using setup.py and MANIFEST files etc., and then try starting my activity by clicking on icon, it shows the following error : *1223101292.624087 ERROR root: Model for window 4195143 does not exist. *I am using gtk.Window(window_TOPLEVEL) in my code. I downloaded an an activity *BlockParty *from net and built it on sugar. Although it also uses the same type of window, it is working fine. I could not find out any other bug in the program. Can somebody please help sorting out this problem. Thanks in advance Regards Naveen Aggarwal 3rd year Computers Engineering Student NSIT, New Delhi India ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] [IAEP] Narrative.
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 2:09 PM, Michael Stone [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Bryan Berry wholly captured my attention tonight when he said (in summary): Sugar offers an excellent mode for discovery but no excellent way to manipulate narratives. Both discovery and narrative are essential for learning. [1] This statement seems to me both indisputable and damning; if true, it strikes to the core of the claim that Sugar is appropriate for learning. Even though Bryan has already found some partial solutions to this problem [2], we should take time to debate the more primitive thesis that: Narrative is a basic component of much educational material which Sugar ought to 'natively' recognize, respond to, and manipulate. so that we may decide whether this issue should receive a greater share of our limited design and implementation resources. Regards, Michael [1]: Sugar presently records actions which may occasionally be decomposed into narrative or situated within an external narrative; however, Sugar is presently blind to these relationships. [2]: Bryan is currently encoding narratives in HTML and is attempting to use Offline Moodle to make this cheaper to support. I decided to write this email because I believe that it might well be worth our time to either give him a hand with his effort or to bake support for similar use cases directly in to Sugar. bryan's ideas are explained more fully in this article on olpcnews: http://www.olpcnews.com/content/education/scaling_constructionism_with_dynabooks.html the comments there are worth reading too it's hard to discuss without having the ideas spelt out narrative is good is not really a sufficient basis for a discussion but bryan's article has more detail ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Sugar USB testing
Here are a few more details: We tried a Fedora 9 LiveCD also and it never fully booted. The TinyLinux we used was Puppy Linux. It was remarkably faster then Fedora and Ubuntu. My notes and a link to Walter's notes are here: http://schoolkey.net/blog/2008/10/04/sugar-pups Thanks, Caroline On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:37 PM, Walter Bender [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: CCing the Sugar list. It seems that one of the problems we will be encountering with generic spins is footprint. Even a standard Ubuntu without Sugar was seeming too fat to load from a LiveCD on a Pentium 4 with 256K of DRAM. Although we didn't try it, I expect Fedora would present similar challenges. I don't know how feasible it is to make a lean Fedora for these use cases: Maybe the subset of packages we grab for the OLPC image only. I defer to the magic that Dennis and Greg can yield. Meanwhile, it is probably worth looking at some of the purposefully small distros, such as TinyLinux, to see how bloated they get when we build Sugar on top of them. It may be a good interim-term solution. -walter On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:24 PM, Caroline Meeks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, I'm absolutely willing to test any and all USB work! I have several test computers at home and when we get something that works on everything here I can go into Shaw any Friday morning. Thank you for your help. Caroline On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 12:18 PM, David Farning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yes, the Sugar spin is really an early beta. The engineers at Redhat were still working on it Thursday night to get it ready for you and another Boston area deployment to test. Are you willing to try again this Friday? We can leverage your willingness to test the spin as an incentive for the Redhat engineers to improve the spin for another release later this week. thanks david On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Caroline Meeks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: hmm new sugar-spin did not boot my home 4GB Pentium 4 successfully. So it may not be ready for prime time yet. On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 11:28 AM, Caroline Meeks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Cool, I have a Fedora CD and i also just burned the new sugar-spin. I have bootable USBs of other things. So I think we will have the tools we need for diagnosis. See you soon. On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 11:22 AM, Walter Bender [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I recommend the Fedora CD for today. If I get a chance, I'll try to make a LiveUSB of the same image as well. -walter On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 10:59 AM, Caroline Meeks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi David, Any luck with the USB? How is it going? Walter and I will be at the school today and we will try the Fedora CDs and the joyride CD. Anythign else you want us to try while we are there? Thanks, Caroline On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 7:17 PM, David Farning [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 5:35 PM, Caroline Meeks [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi David, Since I don't have an exact duplicate of the machine here, Friday's trip will be devoted to figuring out the answers to your questions. Let me test my understanding. Are these statements true? - The XO hardware only has 256MB of RAM so in theory Sugar should work on a Pentium 4 with 256MB RAM This is not necessarily true. The xo runs a heavily modified version of Fedora. We are putting Sugar on top of stock Fedora, Debian, and Ubuntu distributions. The trade off is engineering time vs. size. It take a tremendous amount of engineering time to maintain a modified distribution. By using stock distributions as our base we greatly reduce the effort needed to push Sugar through the distribution channels. The JoyRide live CD you were giving out at the conference will likely not work unless there is more then 300MB of RAM I am not sure of the specific needs of the version of Sugar we distributed. Rather then try to determine if a older CD works, let's see if stock fedora, ubuntu and debian work on your equipment. Let me know what information you'd like me to collect on Friday. Here are my thoughts. Goal 1 - See if we can get Sugar to run stable on the Shaw Computer Lab computers. Sounds like I can probably just burn a bunch of CDs and use those. What do you want me to test? The distributions listed on this page: http://www.sugarlabs.org/go/Supported_systems Are the various ones for different Linux Distros full system or are they just the files you need to add Sugar to an existing Linux install? Fedora This one? http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora i686 - Live CD Yes, the live cd would be the place to start. 6.3. x86 Specifics for Fedora This section covers specific information about Fedora and the x86 hardware
Re: [sugar] Sugar USB testing
Sebastian has already built a slimmer version of the Fedora/Sugar Live spin, and is working on getting it integrated into a Windows-based installer. Sugar is intended to be a first-class citizen starting with F10. --g Is there a LiveCD version I can try? Thanks -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove [EMAIL PROTECTED] 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Sugar USB testing
Thanks, I'm specifically looking for light-weight install that has a chance of working on older machines and 256MB Ram. On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 4:24 PM, Sebastian Dziallas [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Caroline Meeks wrote: Sebastian has already built a slimmer version of the Fedora/Sugar Live spin, and is working on getting it integrated into a Windows-based installer. Sugar is intended to be a first-class citizen starting with F10. --g Is there a LiveCD version I can try? Thanks Hi Caroline, sorry for the late reply... Well, this is still the Sugar Spin that you already tested and which is located here: http://sdz.fedorapeople.org/olpc/sugar-spin.iso We're currently in the progress of getting more sugar-activities into Fedora, so that we can provide a better experience for the users. I'm currently - as Greg pointed out - working on getting the spin integrated into a Windows-based installer and on creating a new version of the image. I'll let you know and post another announcement once we've something ready. --Sebastian -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove [EMAIL PROTECTED] 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Sugar USB testing
Hi, I wanted to check in on how its going. I am going to the Fenway High School today to talk to the Future Engineers club. They are going to be helping to test USB based operating systems for students. My plan for today is to talk to them and see what their interstest are. I have met with the teacher but not the students yet. I don't know whehter they woudl rather have a normal, winowish looking, Linux with Scratch or whether they would rather try out Sugar, or have some other interests. Is there a LiveUSB Sugar I can try today? The Fenway has far more modern computers then the Shaw, I should be able to get a JoyRide LiveCD to work on their computers to demo. I have one from around Oct 24th. Are there enough changes that I should burn the most recent one? Thanks, Caroline On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 6:41 PM, Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 6:37 PM, Walter Bender [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: CCing the Sugar list. It seems that one of the problems we will be encountering with generic spins is footprint. Even a standard Ubuntu without Sugar was seeming too fat to load from a LiveCD on a Pentium 4 with 256K of DRAM. I'm planning to dogfood the Fedora LiveUSB and I'll have a look to memory usage while doing so. In principle, unless there are relevant memory costs given by running on a LiveUSB, I'd expect it to work decently. Marco -- Caroline Meeks Solution Grove [EMAIL PROTECTED] 617-500-3488 - Office 505-213-3268 - Fax ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia
Hi Marco, That was a really nice welcome. I work with Elana and the learning team here at OLPC and one thing we are trying to do is increase communications between our group and the technical side of the house. It seems the best way to communicate this information from the field is to use the mailing list that reaches the people creating the technology. Perhaps I am out of the loop but all of the people who have chimed in here are active participants in this project and are just as devoted and dedicated as you and I. To suggest they are uninformed seems a little harsh. If you have better suggestions as to how we should communicate the issues we find in the field and work toward fixing them, please let me know. Thanks, Nia Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/07/08 12:08 PM To Erik Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc elana langer [EMAIL PROTECTED], Reuben K. Caron [EMAIL PROTECTED], Julia Reynolds [EMAIL PROTECTED], Tyler Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED], sugar@lists.laptop.org, Nia Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 6:33 PM, Erik Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: How are we going to rectify the general slowness of our user interface? It may not be enough to work on the performance problem from within the existing framework. How will we know if this is the case? We will spend more time profiling and understanding the system and less in uninformed mailing list discussions. Marco ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia
Thanks, MArco. I still think talking to Erik like that isn't very nice either:) Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/08/08 02:17 PM To Nia Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc [EMAIL PROTECTED], elana langer [EMAIL PROTECTED], Erik Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED], Julia Reynolds [EMAIL PROTECTED], Reuben K. Caron [EMAIL PROTECTED], sugar@lists.laptop.org, Tyler Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:08 PM, Nia Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi Marco, That was a really nice welcome. I work with Elana and the learning team here at OLPC and one thing we are trying to do is increase communications between our group and the technical side of the house. It seems the best way to communicate this information from the field is to use the mailing list that reaches the people creating the technology. Perhaps I am out of the loop but all of the people who have chimed in here are active participants in this project and are just as devoted and dedicated as you and I. To suggest they are uninformed seems a little harsh. If you have better suggestions as to how we should communicate the issues we find in the field and work toward fixing them, please let me know. Hello Nia, Huh! No, sorry, this is totally a misunderstanding. I was not referring to Elana feedback at all with that phrase. It was *exclusively* a technical remark to Erik approach to performance work. I appreciate Elana feedback and I highly value it. Keep it coming please :) My apologies for the misunderstanding, I hope this clarify. Marco ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia
oh well, maybe it was just where we newbies entered the conversations - if that's the way you all work then fine. My main concern is that the info from the field gets to the right people. Best, Nia Marco Pesenti Gritti [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/08/08 02:33 PM To Nia Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc [EMAIL PROTECTED], elana langer [EMAIL PROTECTED], Erik Garrison [EMAIL PROTECTED], Julia Reynolds [EMAIL PROTECTED], Reuben K. Caron [EMAIL PROTECTED], sugar@lists.laptop.org, Tyler Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 8:21 PM, Nia Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Thanks, MArco. I still think talking to Erik like that isn't very nice either:) Nia, this kind of flames are customary in a technical mailing list and I don't really think Erik should take personal offence about them. If you go back in the archives you will see way more offensive things said about my and the other Sugar developers work. Marco ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Sugar USB testing
You bring up a good point. It would be good if the developers used XO and Sugar. We would see more progress in software efficiency amongst other things. I use Sugar most of the time as a G1G1 user when I am home and testing the latest bits. I do have Ubuntu on an SD card but rarely boot to it. Maybe once a month I boot to Ubuntu just to demonstrate to someone that it is possible. I use another system for email. To get developers eating dog food with the XO you would need the following: 1.) The Develop activity completed so it is usable for writing code in an efficient manner. Too many problems with Develop Activity at the moment and does not seem to play well with build 767 (or maybe just existing bugs). 2.) An IMAP client Activity and corresponding IMAP server on a school server. Perhaps UW IMAP http://www.washington.edu/imap/ or cyrus http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/ . This would permit email access with a rich user experience while leaving the messages on the server. On Oct 7, 2008, at 7:02 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: marco pesenti gritti wrote: On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 6:37 PM, Walter Bender [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: CCing the Sugar list. and adding devel. It seems that one of the problems we will be encountering with generic spins is footprint. Even a standard Ubuntu without Sugar was seeming too fat to load from a LiveCD on a Pentium 4 with 256K of DRAM. I'm planning to dogfood the Fedora LiveUSB and I'll have a look to memory usage while doing so. In principle, unless there are relevant memory costs given by running on a LiveUSB, I'd expect it to work decently. i've been curious for a while -- can we have a show of hands for how many people dogfood the existing XO s/w? for my part, i don't, to the extent that i yum-install xfce and run that. so there's little memory pressure, and i don't run activities, nor networkmanager. but i'm still running the kernel and most of the system software. i can quickly switch to running sugar, and i do, when i discover something that i think needs investigating on a more real installation. i think even my limited dogfooding has been useful -- the bugs i've found or helped diagnose have tended to be power management issues, and some yum package management issues. i _really_ think we need to make the XO base _and_ sugar be a place that developers are comfortable living in. our needs aren't quite the same as a school kid's, but i think there's a much bigger overlap than we often think. with the advent of the fedora spin we're going to lose xo/sugar mindshare among our g1g1 and development users [1], and i think we need to think seriously about taking up that slack. even if that means adding some poweruser-centric features which a grade-schooler would probably never use, it's worth considering, in return for the increased focus, and yes, discomfort it may cause. paul [1] but i think we'll gain in overall project mindshare, so in net i'm in favor of it. =- paul fox, [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ Devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Sugar USB testing
On Oct 7, 2008, at 9:25 PM, Martin Dengler wrote: On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 07:45:13PM -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You bring up a good point. It would be good if the developers used XO and Sugar. [...] To get developers eating dog food with the XO you would need the following: [...] 2.) An IMAP client Activity and corresponding IMAP server on a school server. Perhaps UW IMAP http://www.washington.edu/imap/ or cyrus http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/ . This would permit email access with a rich user experience while leaving the messages on the server. For text junkies, offlineimap (read gmail too!) + mutt (+ screen, if you want) works great. Is that cheating / not Sugary enough? Martin That is fine for those that like text mode but an IMAP activity client would be cool for the end users. Not every one is happy with using gmail or yahoo mail etc. Though I thought someone had started developing an IMAP activity. It would be neat to have a canned IMAP server on the XS. /Robert H ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] Sugar USB testing
Caroline Meeks wrote: Sebastian has already built a slimmer version of the Fedora/Sugar Live spin, and is working on getting it integrated into a Windows-based installer. Sugar is intended to be a first-class citizen starting with F10. --g Is there a LiveCD version I can try? Thanks Hi Caroline, sorry for the late reply... Well, this is still the Sugar Spin that you already tested and which is located here: http://sdz.fedorapeople.org/olpc/sugar-spin.iso We're currently in the progress of getting more sugar-activities into Fedora, so that we can provide a better experience for the users. I'm currently - as Greg pointed out - working on getting the spin integrated into a Windows-based installer and on creating a new version of the image. I'll let you know and post another announcement once we've something ready. --Sebastian ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] naming
On Wed, 2008-10-08 at 18:06 -0400, Yamandu Ploskonka wrote: snip I hope that this naming problem (lack of naming, lack of tagging, laborious naming process, poor default names, buggy name updates, etc.) can be nearly if not completely cleared up in the next major release. - Eben I appreciate your agreement as to easier to use alternatives. I am afraid that part (or the origin?) of the naming/tagging problem is philosophical / ideological / aesthetic. There is a major current of icons only confectioners :-), folks who believe the typical user is illiterate, that cannot read text accompanying the icons, i.e pre-schoolers. Or they suppose localization will be easier, as icons don't need translation? Or is it just the look of the thing overriding its use? Then there's those of us who believe in usability and shout fertilizer to cutesy-pooh post-modern fashion statements that block actual results. (oh my, I will be tagged for flaming...) Anyway, another one: a NEED (yes, I mean to shout it) is that 'file' names or whatever you call them BY DEFAULT carry the author / child / machine ID, so that when that file ends up in the teacher's machine, he can figure out which one of the 35 'Write Activity' that were submitted is Roberto's. Now, this is one of the serious, serious missing links when it comes to using the XOs for actual schoolwork. Teachers assign homework. Kids do it. In a contemporary-ideal setup :-( these pieces of work are sent to the teacher for evaluation. This has maybe a 50-50 chance of working if the teacher can follow up and figure who's who. Otherwise, it will never fly. (oh yes, the /untrained/ teacher could train kids to name and tag files) Yes yes, in an _ideal_ world teachers do not evaluate schoolwork... Another religious issue there, should XOs be used for contemporary schoolwork? While we could certainly do this automatically via metadata tags, from an Educational point of view, what is wrong with students putting their name to to their work? ie. The Purpose of Humankind Martin Sevior, Grade 3E ? Yama ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] notes from the field - Mongolia
Mikus Grinbergs [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Tagging isn't as much of an issue as being able to save files to a USB key easily. I'm trying to think of why a kid would want to save files to a USB key. Normally, except for off-loading objects to a school repository (a process about which I know nothing), 'files' would be kept at the XO itself, and not on removable storage devices. Maybe we should not only think in terms of purposes, but also in terms of causes: what makes children want to save files to USB stick? What I've seen is that children wants to save to a USB stick because they are told so by teachers, and teachers wants to save to a USB stick because they often lost files and are afraid of losing more... (I've not seen a school server in action, so I cannot discuss whether saving to a USB looks safer for teachers/children than saving to a USB stick.) -- Bastien ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
[sugar] Give a Laptop, Change the World : G1G1 2008
2008/10/8 Tomeu Vizoso [EMAIL PROTECTED]: On Tue, Oct 7, 2008 at 11:49 PM, Samuel Klein [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The laptops feature the latest release of the Sugar window manager, ... I think we should be able to find a better term than window manager, Matchbox is the window manager used in 8.2 and it hasn't been modified by OLPC. Some suggestions: - learning environment, intuitive student's learning environment, interactive student's learning environment, international student's learning environment, All to be pronounced the same as Isle. A small island. imho the word 'Sugar' should be avoided simply because it's completely meaningless to an uninitiated target audience. -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell ___ Sugar mailing list Sugar@lists.laptop.org http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
Re: [sugar] adding versions to journal/datastore
On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 9:04 PM, Christopher Sawtell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am new around here did not realise that the list server doesn't munge the addresses, my apologies. Anyway, I responded to Mikus thus:- I agree the 'effort' is theoretically trivial, what versioning provides is a new version number without the need to _remember_ that one has to create a new file name for the new version, and that, for many people, is far from trivial. Remember that in times of yore - pre 1981 - versioning was a standard feature offered by many O/Ss. These days the need for versioning has become somewhat nebulous because the various source code control systems allow one to check in and out, and to see the differences very simply. Whether or not children should have to deal with that level of complexity in order to be able to 'undo' the latest, erroneous, changes to their current 'magnum opus' is, I suppose, open to debate. We certainly don't plan on exposing them to that, unless they absolutely want it. Instead, the model will simply be along the lines of I messed up this picture, but it looked good yesterday before I scribbled on it. Let me scroll back in time through the Journal to yesterday's entry, when it still looked OK, and resume that. Previews and dates should assist the process of rediscovering old versions. Another potential option is to build versioning support into the undo/redo buttons of an activity, such that it's possible to skip back through old entries by undoing. This idea, of course, has its share of intricacies to figure out, but it could be a powerful system. - Eben -- Sincerely etc. Christopher Sawtell ___ 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
