[Sugar-devel] Deployment feedback braindump

[Gary C Martin]

Hi Albert,

On 12 Aug 2009, at 12:22, Albert Cahalan wrote:

> S Page writes:
>> On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Daniel Drake<dsd at laptop.org>  
>> wrote:
>
>>> adding an interactivity component that would be impossible
>>> to have when working with paper-based exercise books.
>>
>> And impossible with PDFs.
>
> No way. PDFs can be interactive in many ways.

Absolutely. I have a point and click graphic (maths) adventure that  
works fine in Read (though I'd like Read to have a single page mode  
for better presentation). The adventure is not complete yet, otherwise  
I'd upload it as example content.

> First of all, a PDF is pretty much just well-behaved postscript.
> You can embed that in more postscript. The user can thus scribble
> all over the document.
>
> Second, the PDF format has long had form support. It's pretty much
> like HTML forms, but much more attractive. I've used this several
> times in xpdf and/or evince, and it works very well. You get the
> choice of filling out the PDF form directly, or doing things the
> traditional way on paper.

FWIW, I've not tested PDF form support in evince, but a quick google  
some seem to suggest it's supported.

> Finally, you can put JavaScript in a PDF. I'm not sure if any of
> the free software viewers can handle this yet.

I've tested a range of JavaScript PDF examples in Read but with no  
luck (was hoping to use it to auto generate math quiz like questions  
for the adventure). So currently the best you can do in PDF seems to  
be to allow point and click to jump about a document in a non-linear  
way – still, that alone can be pretty engaging if you put your mind to  
it.

Regards,
--Gary