[SoaS] [support-gang] [IAEP] SoaS Good News/Bad News

[Bert Freudenberg]

Thanks Sean. People sometimes forget that all this is written by volunteers in their spare time. E.g., I made the image-writer-mac.py script. Is it what a regular Mac user would want to use? Of course not. It does not have a graphical interface, and cannot be used from the Finder. But it's a lot easier and safer than having to manually figure out the necessary commands.  I could program a graphical interface too, yes, but I don't really have time. I need to work to feed my family too. And the little spare time that's left I spend on Etoys. Because that requires some rather specific skills, whereas writing say an AppleScript GUI to copy SoaS could basically be done by *any* developer on a Mac.

So here's a plan: find more Mac developers, tell them your problems ;)

- Bert -

On 09.04.2010, at 09:44, Sean DALY wrote:
> 
> These are all valid comments, but keep in mind the Sugar on a Stick
> team is quite small and needs help. Anyone who can help including with
> teacher-friendly documentation is invited to join the SoaS list.
> Thanks.
> 
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/soas
> 
> Sean
> 
> 
> On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 3:44 AM, Yamandu Ploskonka <yamaplos at bolinux.org> wrote:
>> "Me too" postings are discouraged in good lists, but I myself feel so in
>> agreement by what Gregg is pointing out to that I cannot but say, hear
>> hear!
>> 
>> What we have is too complicated, thus error prone and unfriendly, thus not
>> really *usable*
>> 
>> For Sugar or anything to revolutionize education it has to be really, really
>> easy to get going
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 04/08/2010 06:16 PM, Gregg Ambrosi wrote:
>> 
>> This is just my opinion, but if the process cannot be performed reasonably
>> simply by a large number of folks, including teachers (we want their input
>> into the product no?), then it is too complicated. We need to offer simpler
>> ways for user to run Sugar. Yes, everyone will point to Sugar on a Stick,
>> however:
>> 
>> 1. the documented CD creation process for Macs is not simple (use the
>> Terminal?  Come now...)
>> 2. if someone only has one computer, this means they have ONLY sugar or ONLY
>> their main OS. How do you evaluate/work with Sugar and make notes, or
>> document something (egads - don't say write it on paper).
>> 
>> Simple, easy to use VMs seem to me the way to go. However, those that are
>> referenced in the various places are certainly not just - copy and play. I
>> am running both VM player and Parallels and I have not found a download yet
>> that 'just works'. We have to remember that not everyone that wants to help
>> out (or would be great to have help out) are highly technical. That is
>> supposedly the point of Sugar no - you don't need any technical ability?
>> 
>> Food for thought.
>> 
>> g
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 4:09 PM, James Cameron <quozl at laptop.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 09:55:34AM -0700, Caryl Bigenho wrote:
>>>> Thanks for the info. I'm glad I asked.  Now that leads to another
>>>> question.  If I wanted to skip the redundant download and open the
>>>> image-writer-mac file in Terminal from the larger download Tom G.
>>>> posted (Sugar-Creation-Kit-ver05.iso) how would I do that?  I have
>>>> copies of that download both on my desktop and burned on a DVD.
>>> 
>>> Skipping it might not be worth the effort, since it is only a few
>>> kilobytes, and by downloading it again you'll get it placed in the
>>> folder that the instructions expect ... the folder called Downloads.
>>> 
>>> However, to answer your question ... you would copy it to your Downloads
>>> directory, either by dragging it across between two Finder windows (one
>>> opened on the DVD, one opened on Downloads), or by figuring out the
>>> filesystem paths for each and typing a Terminal command similar to this:
>>> 
>>>        cp /Volumes/SugarDVD/image-writer-mac.py ~/Downloads/
>>> 
>>> (Since I don't have a copy of this DVD, and the method used to create it
>>> is manual and not automatically scripted, I can't determine what the
>>> filesystem path after the "cp" would be.)  This command does the same as
>>> dragging the file between two Finder windows, but is more exact and
>>> reproducible.  The end result should be that file image-writer-mac.py is
>>> in the Downloads folder.