[Sugar-devel] Physics activity (Was: Release v3 tonight?)

[Gary C Martin]

Just cc:ing the list to keep others in the loop.

On 12 Jul 2009, at 22:55, Asaf Paris Mandoki wrote:

> A release will be great.

Think we need to make a call on the stability of the new Physics  
Journal state format first, or at least make sure everyone knows the  
storage format may (or may not) be stable long term (hate to see a  
bunch of folks generating/posting examples for lesson plans only to  
have them all fail to resume in a few versions from now).

> I also suggest scheduling an IRC meeting to discuss some "long" term  
> plans about what we're going to do and how we're going to do it.

Yes, an IRC meeting sounds like a good idea. I'm usually only on IRC  
for specific meetings so we'd need to pick a time. Perhaps we could  
make it a Physics specific ActivityTeam meeting on Friday, some other  
interested parties may join the discussions?

> I'm thinking about adding some sort of goals and objectives but I'm  
> not sure if there is where we want to go.

Well need to chat :-) but the X2o Activity seems like the place for  
driving "goals and objectives". I see Physics as more the open ended  
sand box for experiments, like a simple Paint tool for physics  
simulations. We need to keep an eye on the usability for younger kids,  
the number of tools is probably about right, but I have been looking  
at the idea of adding more options as secondary palettes, i.e. you  
hover over the circle tool and the palette includes extra options for  
"helium balloon", "rubber ball", "wooden ball", "stone ball"  for some  
pre-set material types, this would vary depending on the tool, so the  
motor could perhaps have clockwise and anti-clockwise as well as some  
torque settings (strong, medium, weak).

Perhaps another round of physics based games could use the new Physics  
as a starting point :-)

> I translated the activity to spanish at
>
> http://translate.sugarlabs.org/projects/honey/
>
> I could see if I can get some friends to add more languages, it's  
> just a 5 minute task.

If you can get some more friends to add translations that would be  
great :-)

> I noticed there was a commit on the repository for italian but I  
> don't see my translation being committed. I made it days ago so I'm  
> not sure if I should do something to get it commited.

Pootle usually pushes on Fridays I think, not sure if it is a hard rule.

> I think it would be good to include this translation in the release.

Yes. I currently just see translations for el, fa_AF, it, ja, pt_BR,  
si, at the moment. Perhaps we can hold off on a release until the next  
batch of .po make it in? Maybe give us time to ponder how stable the  
box2d pickle format will be.

> When I look at the details of a saved contraption in the journal I  
> don't see a preview. I'm not sure if I should do something extra to  
> save it or if it is an olpcgames problem.

Yea just a 50% grey preview here, I have a feeling I've read somewhere  
it was a pygames/olpcgames issue (Maze has the same problem). Hmmm,  
can activities provide their own thumbnail? I've read something but  
can't remember if it was a future proposal or an existing feature :-)

Anyone on the list have any hints?

> On 12 Jul 2009, at 22:39, Gary C Martin wrote:
>> How stable do you think the save format is? Using pickling might  
>> leave us at the mercy of changes in the box2d object structure.  
>> Once we release Physics-3 we'll want to be reasonably comfortable  
>> that the Journal entries it creates will continue to resume with  
>> future Physics releases.
>
> I didn't think about portability between box2d versions. I guess the  
> only way to ensure this is to manually generate a JSON structure of  
> the world and then save it. Maybe it's worth doing.

I don't know enough about the box2d pickling solution, did you see any  
mention of it when you were researching?

> I'll try to do some testing using SoaS.

Yep same here, seems to work real well on my SoaS VM so far tonight :-)

Regards,
--Gary

> Asaf

> On 12 Jul 2009, at 22:09, Brian Jordan wrote:
>
>> Hey Gary and Asaf,
>>
>> I think with Journal integration and destroy tool unpinning, it's  
>> time
>> for a new release!  What do you guys think?
>>
>> I put a bundle together if we're ready:
>> http://shell.sugarlabs.org/~bjordan/Physics-3.xo and can tag git if
>> we're ready to release.
>>
>> Gary -- want to throw it on a.sl.o?  Could also use one more test by
>> someone using SoaS (just to make sure the libraries work).
>>
>> For release notes:
>> Added functionality to save/load contraptions to/from the journal  
>> (Trac #1034)
>> Make destroy tool unpin an object (Trac #990)
>>
>> Thanks to both of you for your *fantastic* work on this activity.  I
>> really can't wait to see what happens when people start sharing what
>> they've created.
>>
>>
>> B
>