[etoys-dev] popups in project-info

[Scott Wallace]

On Aug 8, 2009, at 6:57 AM, <kharness at illinois.edu> <kharness at illinois.edu 
 > wrote:

> Good Morning,
> Maybe someone could send me a screen print of what we are talking  
> about and I can answer my own questions? Sorry to ask about things  
> so close to the release date but . . .

Hi, Kathleen!

FWIW here's an example of such a form; as you'll see, it isn't really  
much different from the current format.  (I reduced the size here just  
to be more e-mail friendly; the actual size is the same as before):

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In the above, the user has supplied the contents for the first three  
boxes (Project Name, Description, Author) and the "Tags" (n? Key  
Words) by typing, and from Age and Region by choosing from pop-ups of  
choices.

The three pop-up items are Subject, Age, and Region.  These look much  
the same as the other items, it's just that when you click in the box  
of one of these, instead of getting an insertion point for text- 
editing, you get a pop-up of explicit choices from which to choose.

--------

> Is this pop-ups box only going to appear for people who are  
> uploading projects to Squeakland? Or is it the one for every project  
> stored on a local computer?

As I understand it this will be a general change to the project-info  
dialog.


> Will there still be a field for the name of the project in this new  
> system? Will all the fields currently in the save dialogue box still  
> be there and these are only additions. Are they mandatory, will a  
> project save to a local computer with incomplete info?

Project-name:  still there.  Old fields still there?  well, sub- 
category was eliminated, and 'category' became 'Subject'.  Mandatory:   
no.  Okay to save with incomplete info:  yes.   (As for policy  
regarding missing data for projects submitted for the showcase, I  
don't know.)


> Why is age being included? Is it to help sort what is of interest/ 
> appropriate for that age group and why would we do that, the visitor  
> to the projects will decide what they want to look at no matter  
> their age or the age of the author?  I am picturing myself adding a  
> project of my own and typing in my age

> The Etoyslllinois site avoids any mention of age for two reasons,  
> one is to keep private information just that Private. And secondly,  
> we don't need to know the age of the author, as a matter of fact in  
> practice it may mean some 7th graders wouldn't deign to look at  
> sudoku if they knew the author was a first grader and yet the puzzle  
> is good no matter the age.
>
> Is the new Squeakland site going to have a Search function using  
> these terms?
>
> Kathleen
> July 5, 1946


I'll leave these for Tim and Rita to respond to.  But neither your age  
nor mine is within the age-ranges covered by the age pop-ups :-)


   -- Scott


> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Sat, 8 Aug 2009 04:55:39 -0700
>> From: Scott Wallace <scott.wallace at squeakland.org>
>> Subject: [etoys-dev] popups in project-info
>> To: Timothy Falconer <timothy at squeakland.org>
>> Cc: etoys dev <etoys-dev at squeakland.org>
>>
>> Hi, Tim, and all,
>>
>> Attached is a fileout providing changes to the project-info dialog as
>> requested for the benefit of the "showcase" on Squeakland.org.
>>
>> Basically, the "project info" dialog now contains three "enumerated"
>> items, "Subject", "Age", and "Region".  These three are all governed
>> by pop-ups (in local language) rather than by type-ins.  The results
>> are included in the project manifest.
>>
>> Important notes:
>>
>> (1)  It is essential that this be filed in to an image updated at
>> least through update 2246PolygonFix-kfr.  If filed in to an earlier
>> image, subsequently loading updates will clobber some of the changes
>> provided here.
>>
>> (2)  Yoshiki is also modifying code in the EToyProjectDetailsMorph
>> area in this same time-frame, so integration is likely to be  
>> necessary
>> before our two fileouts are published.
>>
>> (3)  There are a few obvious rough edges which someone may wish to
>> tweak, though I don't know of any show-stoppers.  For example, this
>> has always been an English-only dialog, but now that the field names
>> are localized, there may be layout issues in some languages (once
>> translations are available.)  Also, for the pop-up fields, if they've
>> never been set they show as blank, whereas once they've been set to
>> "(none)" (equivalent to blank) they show the text "(none)".  Probably
>> we should always show "(none)" when values for these three popups  
>> have
>> not been supplied.  Also, since some of the fields are now type-in  
>> and
>> some are pop-ups, perhaps some UI convention (slight color
>> difference?) should be used to hint at whether a field functions as a
>> type-in or a pop-up.
>>
>> (4)  This turned out to involve quite a bit of code, most of it
>> written with a fever and at very late hours.  So there's the distinct
>> possibility of errors.  I did test it briefly and it seemed to work  
>> as
>> I expected.  HOWEVER:  it really needs verification by someone else.
>>
>> (5) The Preamble (please read if planning to test or use):
>>
>> -=------
>>
>> Change Set:		projectInfoPopUps-sw
>> Date:			8 August 2009
>> Author:			Scott Wallace
>>
>> Changes to the project-info dialog, in support of new data desired  
>> for
>> the 'showcase' on squeakland.org:
>>
>> -  'Sub-Category' removed.
>> -  Subject, Age, and Region are added as pop-ups.
>> -  Choices for Subject, Age, Region popups, and corresponding codes,
>> obtainable from web-site.
>> -  Project manifest now includes Age, Subject (category,) and Region
>> info.  The codes are strings of numbers, e.g. '554' as a Subject code
>> means 'Language Arts'
>>     (look in #defaultAgeTriplets, #defaultSubjectTriplets,
>> #defaultRegionTriplets on class-side of EToyProjectDetailsMorph.)
>> -  Names of fields are presented to the user in localized form.
>> -  Choices for values of pop-up fields are presented to the user in
>> localized form.
>>
>> Notes:
>>
>> - There is support provided for obtaining up-to-date lists of the
>> subject, age, and region alternatives from the web site (see
>> EToyProjectDetailsMorph class updateTripletsFromWebSite) but it is  
>> not
>> actually called at this point, out of concern for potential for long
>> delay if connection to web site is slow.
>>
>> - The *region* codes are at present *not* obtained from the web-site
>> (even when the user explicitly calls #updateTripletsFromWebSite,) but
>> rather a 'fake' set of regions, basically the continents, is
>> provided.  This is probably temporary.  We have no reasonable way to
>> confront the user with a pop-up showing 250 choices.
>>
>> However, as per Tim's request, I have made it a point to include
>> Antarctica in the region list.  (Tim:  look at method
>> #defaultRegionTriplets for the current point of departure, if you  
>> want
>> to adopt that, temporarily at least, on the web site.  And/or of
>> course change any defaults as needed.
>>
>> -----------
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>>  -- Scott
>>
>> ________________
>> projectInfoPopUps-sw.7.cs.gz (7k bytes)