[etoys-dev] new project icon in the NavBar

[Bert Freudenberg]

On 26.08.2010, at 20:56, Steve Thomas wrote:

> I lean towards Kathleen's preference of leaving it there, because it is quick and simple for kids to create new projects.

What do you want the kids to learn by being able to quickly create a series of nested projects?

> Why two clicks when one will do? (That said you can't have one click for everything)
> 
> So I see two issues attempting to be addressed (not that what I see is accurate or complete ;)
> Consistent interface across platforms
> Avoiding issues associated with nested projects
> removing the "new project" icon does not avoid this although it may limit the frequency of occurrences.  You can create nested projects by dragging a .pr file onto the Etoys screen, at least this works on Mac and I assume PC's and Linux.
> Also, I guess one of the issues I have is how do you navigate between multiple projects.  The project icons on the home screen look ugly to me.  The "Thread Navigator" does allow me to navigate through multiple projects.  

If you use the thread navigator, the forward/backward buttons in the tool bar become even less predictable than they are now. The forward button is pretty much useless anyway.

> One possibility would be a project Navigator in the Sugar Flap. Which does create new projects (don't know all the implications of doing this in Sugar, which I'm sure there are some and that is why its not there) and perhaps on "mouse down for a while" drops down to a list of current project icons, possibly hierarchical depending on where you created them from, but I'm probably getting too complex for my own good with that).
> 
> Stephen
> 
> On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 10:07 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
> 
> On 26.08.2010, at 16:02, <kharness at illinois.edu> wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > There was a recent discussion about whether the new project icon would be in the new release or not. Some about the OLPC needs.
> > Was a decision reached?
> 
> Yes. It's gone. To make a new project, have students go to the home screen.
> 
> - Bert -
> 
> > If not, I would speak in favor of leaving that icon where it is. As I was starting students with Etoys this week I noticed how many used that icon, the back and forward arrows, and the little windows in the top left corner of the world to move around in projects. My lab computers then become a set of current examples of classwork that each class during the day can look at to see other people's ideas.
> > They have learned to remove the little window project when they publish their own. They use the menu, read the choices, and choose correctly every time.

Making multiple projects uses up lots of RAM. From a resources viewpoint, a project should be dropped from memory as soon as you leave it. 

The unit of work in Etoys as it is now is a single project, not multiple projects. We lack the man power to correct this. So why do we want to frustrate kids by offering options that we know do not work anyway?

- Bert -


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