[Sugar-devel] Feedback on SoaS

[Sean DALY]

InfoSlicer has been called out in our two press releases... as a
resource for teachers....



On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 2:47 PM, Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 14:43, Caroline Meeks <solutiongrove at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Tomeu,
>>
>> I'm curious how setting which activities show up as Favorites works at a
>> technical level.
>>
>> How hard is that to change? Its quite important right now as part of the
>> initial user experience.  We don't want broken activities, we want cool
>> activities that people "get" quickly.  Ideally, when a cool activity is
>> fixed it would be great to add it to the beta, but we have to balance that
>> against stability of the image.
>>
>> If its not too hard to change I think we should set up a wiki page where we
>> can discuss what should be in the favorites rings and potentially update the
>> image fairly regularly.
>
> It's quite easy, a matter of editing this file here:
>
> http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/soas/repos/mainline/blobs/master/sugar.ks#line83
>
> and spinning a new build.
>
>> Personally, I nominate FlipSticks and think InfoSlicer should not be in the
>> ring.
>>
>> Also when a new activity is downloaded is it automatically added to the
>> favorites ring?
>
> Yes.
>
> Regards,
>
> Tomeu
>
>> Thanks,
>> Caroline
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 18, 2009 at 4:16 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 23:21, James Simmons <jim.simmons at walgreens.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > I haven't actually tried SoaS-Beta-1 (I'm assuming this is different
>>> > from what was released on the 10th) but I do have some leftover comments
>>> > based on what I saw last week.
>>> >
>>> > One thing we have to consider with Sugar on a Stick is that for many,
>>> > maybe most people it will be their first experience of Sugar.  We need
>>> > to consider that when we choose what Activities to install by default.
>>> > We want Activities that make a good first impression.  By that, I mean
>>> > Activities that a kid can click on the icon to bring them up and start
>>> > fooling around with them without having to read instructions first.
>>> >
>>> > I am flattered as hell that View Slides made the cut, but as its author
>>> > I say it is a lousy choice.  Read Etexts, which is not included but
>>> > which I believe Aleksey Lim was thinking about including, would have
>>> > been equally bad.  To actually use these Activities you need to read the
>>> > website first.  You can't just click on their icons and get them to do
>>> > anything useful.  To use View Slides you need to have some content in
>>> > the Journal, it has to be in the correct format, and you have to do
>>> > something non-obvious to Resume it.  View Slides doesn't make a good
>>> > first impression.
>>> >
>>> > In contrast to that, the Tam Tam Activities make a *much* better first
>>> > impression but are not included.
>>>
>>> In http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ticket/768
>>>
>>> > Pippy might be a better choice than Develop, for similar reasons.  Pippy
>>> > has built in code samples ready to try out.  Develop does not.  Also, on
>>> > the machines I tried Develop used a *very* small font in the edit
>>> > window.
>>>
>>> Created http://dev.sugarlabs.org/ticket/767
>>>
>>> > I notice Read is not included.  Now Read *could* be something that gives
>>> > a good first impression.  Suppose you had the DJVU evince plugins
>>> > installed, you could perhaps start SoaS with an eBook from the Internet
>>> > Archive already in the Journal.  A good choice might be the beautifully
>>> > illustrated edition of The Wizard of Oz from that website, in either
>>> > djvu or PDF format.  The kid would click on the entry in the Journal,
>>> > and because it uses a MIME type that is only used by Read it would open
>>> > right up.
>>>
>>> The idea was that viewer activities like Read, Read ETexts, etc would
>>> not appear in the favorites window. They are installed (can see in the
>>> activities list), but will be launched only once the user tries to
>>> view some content from the journal.
>>>
>>> Has been suggested that we ship some files already in the journal.
>>>
>>> > I'm warming up to the idea of Unified Bundles that was discussed on
>>> > Sugar-devel last week.  If we had that working we could include actual
>>> > books in the Activity Ring and properly show off what Sugar could do
>>> > with plain text files, slide shows, etc.
>>> >
>>> > Until then I would prefer that kids find out about Read Etexts and View
>>> > Slides from http://activities.sugarlabs.org/.  They'll have a better
>>> > idea what to expect from them if they read about them on that website
>>> > first.
>>>
>>> Sounds good, please keep opening tickets so people are reminded about it.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Tomeu
>>>
>>> > James Simmons
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Sugar-devel mailing list
>>> > Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>> >
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Caroline Meeks
>> Solution Grove
>> Caroline at SolutionGrove.com
>>
>> 617-500-3488 - Office
>> 505-213-3268 - Fax
>>
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