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Line 5: − + − The OLPC devel team did some tweaks to Sugar to enhance it on the tablet: the Frame can be invoked by dragging your finger to the lower right-hand corner of the screen. Clicking anywhere on the canvas hides the Frame. Works pretty well. Of course, there is a ways to go to realize a full touch integration. It was amusing to watch people use the gestures they've grown accustom to on their iPads to no effect in Sugar. The work on porting to GTK-3 (Sugar 0.96) will make a big difference there.+ − I made a few tweaks to Turtle Blocks for the demo: (1) I try to distinguish between a click on a block and a short drag of the block--it is hard to click on a touch screen without some x-y displacement; (2) I added a mechanism for changing the values in number blocks without a keyboard; and (3) I tightened up the toolbars so that they would fit on the smaller XO-3.0 display. While all of these changes are more general in their applicability, #3 is something we need to think about for all small displays as it is often the case that not all of the toolbar buttons fit.+ − 2. In addition to the GTK-3 migration, we have a few more features queued up for Sugar 0.96 (See [[0.96/Feature_List#Accepted_Features_for_0.96]]). The one I am working on at the moment is [[Features/Write_to_journal_anytime|Write to Journal anytime]]. The goal is to encourage more writing and reflection throughout the process of using an Activity, not just when you close it at the end of the first session. The mechanism I am experimenting with is to add a new toolbar palette to the Activity Toolbar that incorporated a text-entry field. By typing into this field, you can add notes to the Activity Description found in the Journal. It is my hypothesis that by making it easier to take notes while one is working, we may see more note taking and the vision of the Journal as a "lab notebook" may finally be realized.+ − 3. Aleksey Lim continues to make progress on the "[[Sugar Network]]", a platform he is developing in Peru in order to facilitate sharing of content, with an emphasis on the needs of off-line deployments.+ + + − 4. Bernie Innocenti and Stefan Unterhauser (Dogi) are getting ready to migrate our servers to a new colocation site. We have been hosted by the Free Software Foundation, but since they are going to be moving to a new colocation site, we are planning to consolidate our servers in a server room at MIT. Details about the migration will be announced well in advance and we don't expect any major disruption of services. Stay tuned.+ − 5. Tony Forster, Guzmán Trinidad, Andrés Aguirre, Facundo Benavides, Federico Andrade, Alan Aguiar, Gonzalo Tejera, and I have written a paper about [[File:Turtle_sensors.pdf|using Turtle Blocks with sensors]]. A draft is in the wiki.+ + + + + + + + + Line 24:
Line 34: − + − File:2011-Dec-24-30-som.jpg|2011 Dec 24th-30th (18 emails) − File:2011-Dec-17-23-som.jpg|2011 Dec 17th-23rd (16 emails) − +
Sugar Labs/Current Events (view source)
Revision as of 10:23, 25 January 2012
, 10:23, 25 January 2012→Sugar Digest
== Sugar Digest ==
== Sugar Digest ==
1. 2012 has started off with a big splash. In the OLPC demonstration of their prototype tablet--the XO-3.0--at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Sugar figured prominently. The XO surrounded by a spiral of Activity icons was everywhere (e.g., [http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2012/01/img1983.jpg 1]). Featured in Ed McNierney's (OLPC CTO) nonstop demo was Measure, Turtle Blocks, Wikipedia, and Fraction Bounce, among others.
1. I was in Colombia last week and had a chance to meet up with some Sugar hackers in Bogota. It was nice to catch up with Rafael Ortiz and Pilar Saenz and to meet Fabian Prieto. The interest in Sugar in Colombia is on the rise, so it is great that there is a local community that can offer support.
In Cali, I met with [http://eduteka.org Eduteka], a comprehensive education portal used throughout the region. I gave them a mini-Turtle Art workshop with the goal that they would be able to write a plugin for a simple USB IO device that they have built.
2. Speaking of USB IO devices, [http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/2012/01/arduino-and-xo-laptop.html Tony Forster is having fun] with the [http://www.freetronics.com/pages/leostick-quickstart-guide Freetronics Leostick], an Arduino "on a stick". It looks really cute. I haven't been able to find a price for it anywhere on the Freetronics website, but it looks quite promising. [http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/2012/01/wedo-plugin-for-turtle-art.html Tony] also pulled together a [[File:Wedo_plugin.tar.gz|WeDo plugin]] for Turtle Art into shape (based on the work of [https://github.com/itdaniher/WeDoMore/tree/master/TurtleArt Ian Daniher]).
3. Speaking of Turtle Art plugins, I have begun working on a new plugin to explore nutrition. The idea is to have a variety of food "blocks", each representing a polynomial description of their nutritional value. Numerical value blocks will accumulate factors such as calories, protein, fat, carbohydrates, calcium, iron, fiber, salt, vitamin A, vitamin C, saturated fats, cholestoral, et al. The blocks can then be used to calculate the various nutritional value of a recipe or diet. Eventually, I'd like to add various operations such as the impact of cooking. Stay tuned.
4. Along with Pacita Pena and Martin Oesterreich, the first release version of the [http://git.sugarlabs.org/icanread I Can Read activity] is just about ready. Keep an eye out on activities.sugarlabs.org.
--
5. Quote of the week: "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." —Richard Feynman
=== In the community ===
6. There will be an eduJAM! in the week of May 7-12 in Montevideo. Details to follow.
=== Tech Talk ===
7. The Devel Team has been making great progress on the [[0.96/Feature_List|new features for Sugar 0.96]].
8. AlanJAS (Alan Jhonn Aguiar Schwyn) has embarked upon an ASLO cleanup. See [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AntaXnq4oy2_dHpvZHhLeGRQYzc1cDlRZU9Mc1NldGc] for the details on all of his analysis work. There are many small tasks that need attention. Please jump in to help if you have time.
9. Sugar is a learning community: I love reading Sascha Silbe's patch reviews. I learn something every time.
=== Sugar Labs ===
=== Sugar Labs ===
<gallery>
<gallery>
File:2011-Dec-31-Jan-6-som.jpg|2011 Dec 31st-Jan 6th (30 emails)
File:2012-January-7-13-som.jpg|2012 Jan 7th-13th (45 emails)
</gallery>
</gallery>
Visit our [http://planet.sugarlabs.org planet] for more updates about Sugar and Sugar deployments.
Visit our [plant.sugarlabs.org planet] for more updates about Sugar and Sugar deployments.
== Community News archive ==
== Community News archive ==