<div dir="ltr"><div><br></div>Hi!<br><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 21 April 2016 at 19:40, Mredul Sarda <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mredul.sarda@gmail.com" target="_blank">mredul.sarda@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px"> am a student from a university in India applied for GSoC 2016. I have applied for Font Editor Activity under mentor Dave.</span></p></div></blockquote><div>Thanks again for your proposal - I'm sorry it was not selected. </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">I have started working around with the sugar activities. Just to mention that I found working with sugarizer more easier, I would prefer working on this web based activity if given a choice. However, Sugar Activities are more widespread among the education community so it might be a better option to start with. It would be great to have some opinions from the core Sugar Community about how do they look into the future of this activity. It is important that we are clear about our choices before starting.</span></p></div></blockquote><div>For me personally, I am not too biased towards python or javascript... I must admit that prefer writing python programs and using javascript ones ;) <br></div><div><br></div><div><div class="gmail_extra">Well, for this project, it is simple: The coding mentor for the project, Eli, is more interested in Python, so I suggest that the Font Editor activity be written in Python. </div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra">But generally, I think that to decide if a new Activity should be in python or js, it is wise to the end users must be kept in mind. It seem that the majority of Sugar users are using the XO laptop, and today there are very few users of Sugarizer (although no one really knows how many there are, but it surely can not be over 10,000, whereas it seems to me personally likely that there are still 10,000 active Sugar users.) </div><div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra">Mobile is going up up up right now, and at the moment, the Sugar community has developed Sugarizer as a way to bring Sugar Activity designs to any child who wants to learn with them... But it still in a relatively early stage. So it is probably best to write a standalone web application for kids, that can be packaged for Android, iOS and Sugar; Jamie's decision to do this seems instructive. </div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra">Even for the world's children, per <a href="http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/10/28/presentation-mobile-is-eating-the-world" target="_blank">http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/10/28/presentation-mobile-is-eating-the-world</a>, "mobile is eating the world" and desktops and laptops are in terminal decline:<br></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><img src="cid:ii_1543be034a7722d8" alt="Inline images 2" width="482" height="265"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">You don't hear this term much any more, but when I was a boy (I'm 33 now) then the term for a "desktop" before the 90s "wintel" era was a "micro-computer." (In fact this is where the company name "Microsoft" originates from; initially that company was called "Micro-soft" ;) </div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">This name made sense in the 70s and 80s because back then, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minicomputer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minicomputer</a> was as dominant and professional and serious and productive as desktop/laptops are today; like the PCs in the above graph, they ran a curve up from the mid 60s to the mid 70s, and when were at their peak, the earliest micro-computers were kind of silly - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I</a> is from 76, just look at it :) </div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">But then mini-computers were in terminal decline, down to the late 90s when less savvy people spent a lot of money bailing out their failing dot com start up's crappy software by using their VC money to buy bigger mini-computers ;) Meanwhile more savvy people built server farms out of GNU servers on cheap commodity PC hardware; the reason Google's brand colors are what they are is because the first server racks for those cheap PC motherboards were made out of the similarly colourful lego bricks ;) And now today, minicomputers are totally gone, I think - although mainframes persist. Maybe someone here knows of minicomputers in use today? :D </div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Anyway. The point is that all desktops and laptops - from Windows on down - are going away, and likely much faster than minicomputers went away. So I don't think it makes much sense to invest too much in desktop systems, no matter what language they are written in.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_extra">About 3 years ago I helped initiate an 'advanced' font editor project, that started in Python, and then after a year of prototyping, was restarted in JavaScript and worked on by a small team (<a href="http://www.metapolator.com">http://www.metapolator.com</a>). It still isn't really useful, and partly that's because so little existing font editor libraries existed in JavaScript, so the team had to write a lot of 'foundational' parts themselves. We understood at the time we'd be moving our starting position back, and today a lot of the foundational parts needed for a web based font editor now exist :) At the time I explained why we chose JavaScript/web-platform in <a href="https://github.com/metapolator/metapolator/wiki/faq#why-is-metapolator-a-web-tool" target="_blank">https://github.com/metapolator/metapolator/wiki/faq#why-is-metapolator-a-web-tool</a> </div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">But in learning about the history of OLPC and Sugar, I have been quite astonished to learn about Squeak and EToys. I think it would be exciting to write a font editor in Squeak, and it seems Squeak is very capable of running on any platform - even inside web browsers. </div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">So, Mredul, since in a prior private email you said you won't be able to contribute to the effort with out the GSOC funding, I do recommend spending some time learning about Squeak. I think you'll get a lot of value out of it :) <br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">I was going through TruFont app to identify the basic features and icons for the Sugar Activity. I understand that the pencil in their case itself has the Bezier Curves Algorithm implemented. However I feel that it should be separately implemented with another icon to twist the line drawn using the algorithm. </span></p></div></blockquote><div>Yes, I agree, there should be a tool for adding points, a tool for moving points, and a tool for removing points. </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p style="font-size:12.8px">Secondly, I think we should put up lines or grids, so as to accurately place the characters and glyphs and better finishing. </p></div></blockquote><div>I agree, although the guidelines should not be square, like graph paper, but rather based on horizontal alignments and on vertical 'cadence.'</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p style="font-size:12.8px">These are some small level improvisations possible. I am thinking more on the lines of Paint Activity with more control over the position and dimensions of glyphs.</p></div></blockquote><div>(Paint is a raster graphics application, whereas fonts are vectors.) </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">I have locally tried to edit the Paint Sugar Activity according to our requirements because many of the basic features remain exactly same. I would like to have inputs from the Sugar Community on the concerns and suggestions mentioned above.</span></p><p style="font-size:12.8px">Looking forward for your reply. </p></div></blockquote></div><div>Me too :) </div><div><br></div>-- <br><div>Cheers<br>Dave</div>
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