[Sugar-devel] RFC:Simple Help widget for activities

[Thomas C Gilliard]

Build a Remix .iso for Soas

Help files as included .pdf?

Example from Floss Manuals
  http://people.sugarlabs.org/Tgillard/floss_manuals/TurtleArt_06Sep08.pdf


http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Build_Your_Own_Remix_with_Fedora

Include Documents in Books directory?:
and link from activity?
(From section Mel gave to me)

%post --nochroot
# Mel's Example starts  (thanks to Mel Chua)
# pull and include sample content
WD=$PWD
CACHE_DIR=$WD/../cache/books
CONTENT_DIR=$INSTALL_ROOT/home/liveuser/Desktop/books
mkdir -p $CACHE_DIR
mkdir -p $CONTENT_DIR
cd $CONTENT_DIR
PDF="$PDFhttp://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Creation_Kit"
PDF="$PDFhttp://people.sugarlabs.org/Tgillard/floss_manuals/TurtleArt_06Sep08.pdf  <http://people.sugarlabs.org/sdz/ForwardPages5-6.pdf>"
PDF="$PDF link  <http://people.sugarlabs.org/sdz/Sugar_on_a_Stick-3-Creation_Kit-en-US.pdf>"
PDF="$PDF link"
PDF="$PDF link"
PDF="$PDFlink  <http://en.flossmanuals.net/Sugar/FM_Sugar_28Oct08.pdf>"
for pdf in $PDF ; do
  remote_file=$(basename $(curl -4 -s -L -w %{url_effective} -I $pdf | tail -1))
  file=$CACHE_DIR/$remote_file
  if [ ! -f $file ] ; then
    curl -s -4 -L $pdf>  $file
  fi
  cp -p $file $CONTENT_DIR
done
%end



On 03/07/2012 04:53 AM, Walter Bender wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 7, 2012 at 7:37 AM, Gonzalo Odiard<gonzalo at laptop.org>  wrote:
>> We receive many times request about adding help in the activities,
>> and if is true Sugar propose a exploratory approach,
>> not all the people learn in the same way,
>> and there are people who prefer a little guidance.
>>
>> For the development we need a simple api, and easy i18n,
>> and a non obtrusive experience for the user.
>>
>> Inspired by the DescriptionItem, I was experimenting with a widget to add
>> simple help to activities.
>> This is not:
>> * A manual
>> * Lessons
>> * Tips
>> Is a short startup help for the activity.
>>
>> Use only text and the icons already used by the activity.
>>
>> A example can be seen here:
>> http://dev.laptop.org/~gonzalo/images/simple_graph_help.png
>>
>> In the activity we only need do:
>>
>>      helpitem = HelpButton()
>>      toolbar.insert(helpitem, -1)
>>      helpitem.show()
>>      helpitem.add_section(_('Basic usage'))
>>      helpitem.add_paragraph(_('First you need add data to create the
>> graphic'))
>>      helpitem.add_paragraph(_('You can add data with this button'),
>>              'row-insert')
>>      helpitem.add_paragraph(_('...or remove data with this button'),
>>              'row-remove')
>>      helpitem.add_paragraph(_('To change the graphic title, just change the
>> activity title'))
>> ....
>>
>> This proposal is late for sugar 0.96, but may be we can try it in one or two
>> activities,
>> and start thinking about this topic.
>> I really like the help in the Implode activity, but have the following
>> problems:
>> * I don't know if apply to other type of activities.
>> * Is modal
>> * need a lot of code to implement it.
>>
>> Comments?
>>
>> Gonzalo
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sugar-devel mailing list
>> Sugar-devel at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/sugar-devel
>>
> I am busy working on my 4th generation of help for TA. None of the
> previous attempts have been satisfactory to date:
>
> (1) FLOSS Manual and very extensive wiki page : no evidence that our
> users are aware of these pages or have access to them;
> (2) Hover help : really annoying to have pop ups all the time -- maybe
> I could have adjusted the time outs, but it never seemed very good.
> (3) Hover help where the messages appear on the toolbar : the help
> toolbar must be selected at the time or the help messages are not
> available -- not sure it is discoverable;
> (4) Using mallard to generate an indexed manual. Not sure yet how I'll
> integrate this into the activity, but is uses the strings from #2 and
> #3 which are already in Pootle and artwork generated by the activity.
>
> The advantage of the mallard approach is at least we'll get a help
> manual that will work with yelp/browse even if the in-activity
> experience is not better.
>
> I'll let you know how it goes.
>
> -walter
>
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