[IAEP] RFC:Simple Help widget for activities

[Edward Mokurai Cherlin]

On Wed, March 7, 2012 7:37 am, Gonzalo Odiard wrote:
> We receive many times request about adding help in the activities,
> and if is true Sugar propose a exploratory approach,
> not all the people learn in the same way,
> and there are people who prefer a little guidance.

I yield to nobody in my preference for letting students discover as
much as possible about Sugar, or anything else, but as I noted in The
Undiscoverable on the Wiki, it is not always possible, particularly
when dealing with named functions in math and programming, and
sometimes in other areas. There are times when hints are required, and
times when outright explanation is required. You will find many
examples of both in The Undiscoverable, and in the draft Discovering
Discovery at http://booki.treehouse.su.

On the other hand, Donald Norman famously complained, in The
Psychology of Everyday Things/The Design of Everyday Things, about
doors that require a user manual, even of one word, whether Push or
Pull. One should apply his design principles, and others like them, to
every item that appears to require a help entry.

> For the development we need a simple api, and easy i18n,
> and a non obtrusive experience for the user.

None of which is easy to replicate when reinventing the training wheel. ^_^

> Inspired by the DescriptionItem, I was experimenting with a widget to add
> simple help to activities.
> This is not:
> * A manual
> * Lessons
> * Tips
> Is a short startup help for the activity.
>
> Use only text and the icons already used by the activity.
>
> A example can be seen here:
> http://dev.laptop.org/~gonzalo/images/simple_graph_help.png
>
> In the activity we only need do:
>
>     helpitem = HelpButton()
>     toolbar.insert(helpitem, -1)
>     helpitem.show()
>     helpitem.add_section(_('Basic usage'))
>     helpitem.add_paragraph(_('First you need add data to create the
> graphic'))
>     helpitem.add_paragraph(_('You can add data with this button'),
>             'row-insert')
>     helpitem.add_paragraph(_('...or remove data with this button'),
>             'row-remove')
>     helpitem.add_paragraph(_('To change the graphic title, just change the
> activity title'))
> ....

We should get the result of your work, when it stabilizes, added to
Making Your Own Sugar Activities.

> This proposal is late for sugar 0.96, but may be we can try it in one or
> two activities,
> and start thinking about this topic.
> I really like the help in the Implode activity, but have the following
> problems:
> * I don't know if apply to other type of activities.
> * Is modal
> * need a lot of code to implement it.
>
> Comments?

Thank you.

> Gonzalo

-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks