[Sugar-devel] Physics release?

[Gary C Martin]

Hi Asaf,

Having used the roll tool more now, I'm worried it is less 'realistic'  
to use than the pinned motor tool. It's odd, say, to create a  
rectangle nearly the width of the display, add roll property, and see  
it spin and catapult its self off the screen with no indication of  
where the force came from. Having said that, roll tool is more  
flexible in that it allows the creation of freely moving (self  
powered) objects/vehicles.

I'm wondering if we should keep roll (rotational torque force) out of  
the toolbar for this release (not enough time), and introduce it in  
Physics-4 ASAP, when we perhaps will also have linear forces tool  
(rocket motors) and have more time to work and test on the user  
interface? A couple of minor issues just now for roll, 1) there's no  
visual indication that a shape has had torque applied, 2) there's no  
way to remove torque once it is added, other than deleting the shape.

One thought is that both roll tool, and future rocket tool should be  
specific visual shapes, not some invisible force you can apply to any  
existing shape, but an actual specific shape with the force already  
applied on the canvas. So we'd have a little ball with roll arrows in  
it (roll shape), and a little rocket with an arrow in it (rocket  
shape). And when you use them, they create actual circles and rocket  
shapes on canvas, that you would then attach with links to the rest of  
your constructions.

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I really like the extra possibilities we get with the roll tool, just  
not sure the UI is where it should be just now. What do you guys think?

Regards,
--Gary

On 18 Aug 2009, at 03:51, Asaf Paris Mandoki wrote:

> Hi,
> I'll be away from home the whole week and I only brought a pentium III
> computer so I won't be able to help much.
>
> I think we should remove the motor tool. What do you think?
>
> Greetings,
> Asaf
>
> On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 8:55 PM, Gary C Martin<gary at garycmartin.com>  
> wrote:
>> On 18 Aug 2009, at 02:29, Brian Jordan wrote:
>>
>>> For what it's worth, I did a test on the F11 SoaS Strawberry image  
>>> and
>>> all functionality checked out.
>>
>> Fab, thanks, same here so far.
>>
>> --G
>>
>> P.S. Have a bunch of (small) stuff to commit, hopefully get it in  
>> later
>> Tuesday.
>>
>>