[Sugar-devel] Sugar-devel Digest, Vol 24, Issue 2

[James Simmons]

Art,

Really the best way to share data between Activities is to create and
read Journal entries.  The "Make Your Own Sugar Activities!" FLOSS
Manual explains how to do this.  Activities have only a few
directories they can write to, which are not shareable with other
Activities.  Sugar does this by design to prevent a malicious Activity
from trashing a kid's computer.  Using Journal entries isn't that
difficult.

James Simmons


> Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2010 13:56:33 +0200
> From: "tom.staubitz at fhtw-berlin.de" <tom.staubitz at fhtw-berlin.de>
> Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] Advice request: XO sound recording
> To: Art Hunkins <abhunkin at uncg.edu>
> Cc: sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
> Message-ID: <2380056B-83CE-491D-A4C0-38AE3A40B559 at fhtw-berlin.de>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> On Oct 1, 2010, at 12:33 AM, Art Hunkins wrote:
>
>> My new activity, FileMix, encourages children to create their own "nature"
>> recordings to mix and process in FileMix (i.e., create "soundscapes"). Files
>> can be mono or stereo, any sample rate and duration, and most file formats.
>> The files also need to be renamed and placed in the FileMix.activity folder.
>>
>> The Record activity is a natural for recording audio, and I had thought it
>> would be the appropriate vehicle. I've recently discovered that it only
>> produces Ogg Speex files, not the higher-quality Ogg Vorbis variety.
>> Unfortunately, Csound and libsndfile handle only Ogg Vorbis - not Speex. (It
>> would be very nice if Record *could* output Ogg Vorbis.)
>>
>> So I turned to eToys. I find it somewhat iffy to record in eToys (on an
>> XO-1.5); sometimes it works, sometimes not. The main obstacle I face is that
>> recordings seem embedded in projects, and I don't find where/how to access
>> the recording by itself. (The sound editor, and variety of output
>> resolutions [including WAV and VORBIS] are excellent.) The documentation
>> (floss) isn't helpful here either.
>>
>> I am able to record and save, but to where I don't know -not, it seems, to
>> the Sound Library. The Library location is not given. It seems you can take
>> something out of it, but not put something in? (Confusing.) I very much need
>> a simpler procedure to save and transfer/relocate individual recordings.
>
> I'm currently working on a radio play production with Berlin based children's radio Radijojo[1].
> We are planning to produce as much of the play as possible on the XO and currently are facing exactly the same problem.
> Your new activity sounds pretty interesting. We considered recording with Etoys (if we find a way to access the audio files)
> and then do the mixing with Audacity. A tool that is easier to use than Audacity would be very much appreciated though.
>
> Tom Staubitz