[sugar] PenTablet user interface

[Patrick Dubroy]

Great! I think the best thing to do right now is for me to release
what I have. Can you (or anybody else) suggest the best place to put
the code?

Here's what I have:
- a GTK widget for the 1-to-1 case. This is eventually destined for
sugar.graphics, I think.
- an activity that demonstrates the proposed interfaces for the
unconstrained drawing task (e.g. Paint)
- (soon) a GTK container widget for the unconstrained drawing task.
However, the actual behaviour of this widget is still to be
determined.

Would it make sense to create a branch in the sugar-toolkit repository
for the GTK widgets? For the activity, I could either host that on my
own svn server, or put it into an OLPC repository.

Pat
--
Patrick Dubroy
http://dubroy.com/blog - on programming, usability, and hci

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 4:10 PM, Eben Eliason <eben.eliason at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Pat -
>
>  I think that the technical solutions you've identified sound quite
>  good, and make some nice improvements on my initial behavioral sketch
>  as written up for the Paint activity.  I'd definitely be interested in
>  seeing any technical demos you have working, and also would like the
>  chance to work with you on some graphical aspects of the widget and/or
>  the experience (and hance, the API) for more complex use cases.
>
>  - Eben
>
>
>
>
>  On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 3:27 PM, Patrick Dubroy <pdubroy at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > (This was posted to olpc-devel a few weeks ago, but I just realized
>  >  that it belongs more on this list)
>  >
>  >  Hi,
>  >
>  >   I'm working on a project to improve the PenTablet support. I have two
>  >   main goals:
>  >
>  >   1. Build a GTK widget that an application developer could use to get
>  >   tablet support "for free". The widget would provide a 1-to-1 mapping
>  >   between the physical tablet and the on-screen drawing area. For
>  >   example, a penmanship application might have an area on-screen where a
>  >   child could practice their writing.
>  >
>  >   2. For the more complicated case of freehand drawing in e.g. the Paint
>  >   activity, my goal is to define the interface through which the user
>  >   will be able to draw on an arbitrary area of the canvas.
>  >
>  >   Of course, this is all pending proper driver support for the
>  >   PenTablet. For now, I am prototyping these applications by reading
>  >   directly from /dev/input/event5.
>  >
>  >   I know that this has been discussed previously on the mailing list,
>  >   but to my knowledge there's been no agreement on exactly how the UI
>  >   will work for the PenTablet. I've created a page in the wiki
>  >   (http://wiki.laptop.org/go/PenTablet_UI) that summarizes the previous
>  >   suggestions that I am aware of. If you have any opinions on this,
>  >   please take a look at let me know what you think.
>  >
>  >   My personal feeling is that the best option is this:
>  >   - the tablet is always mapped to a rectangle in the center of the
>  >   screen. Using the grab button and the stylus, the canvas can be moved
>  >   around underneath the rectangle (Option 1 for Adjusting the Mapping)
>  >   - to allow for precise drawing, the user can engage a "hover mode" by
>  >   holding down the Alt key while dragging the stylus (Option B for
>  >   Precise Drawing)
>  >
>  >   I have an application which demonstrates some of these techniques,
>  >   which I could make available to anyone who is interested. I am also
>  >   planning on doing a small, informal user study to test some of the
>  >   techniques.
>  >
>  >   Pat
>  >   --
>  >   Patrick Dubroy
>  >   http://dubroy.com/blog - on programming, usability, and hci
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>