[Sugar-devel] Advice request: XO sound recording

[Art Hunkins]

James (and others who replied to my query about reading/finding audio 
files - thanks):

I see now that working through the Journal would have many benefits - 
especially for dealing with files generated by Record, which writes its 
files to the Journal (where they can be appropriately named by children) and 
where they can easily be located.

I've looked at the FileChooser method, and this has none of the above 
advantages: file structure is different for SoaS and XO's, locations of file 
storage are different for different activities, filenames are nonsensical, 
etc., etc.

Please indicate where, in your wonderful manual (or elsewhere), I can find a 
simple example of retreiving Journal entries. (I cannot readily locate one.) 
I need to retrieve an Ogg Vorbis (.ogg) or other audio file, and insert it 
as a filename string in my script. Presumably this process would be 
instigated by a button press.

Thanks for your help.

Art Hunkins

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Simmons" <nicestep at gmail.com>
To: <sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org>
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 12:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Sugar-devel] Sugar-devel Digest, Vol 24, Issue 2


> 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
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