[etoys-dev] Additions to Etoys Reference Manual

[Rita Freudenberg]

On Sep 19, 2012, at 5:20 PM, Edward Mokurai Cherlin wrote:

> I have completed a first pass over the draft Etoys Reference Manual,
> adding as much information as I could easily find about Object types,
> program tiles, tools, menus, and so on, and adding outlines for a
> chapter on Etoys programming and a Glossary. More information is
> needed.

The chapter of Etoys programming should be part of another book, not of the reference manual. The manual is thought of as a technical reference book, where you can find bits of information, but not much prose. 
Also, the manual can be used as a check list: for users of what to find in Etoys, for developers what needs to be maintained, for beta testers what should still work in a new version.
We need the explanation chapters very much, maybe even more than the manual. But it should not be mixed up.

> 
> I am in a strange position, learning Etoys by writing substantial
> portions of its Reference Manual, something that I do not think would
> be possible for any other programming system. I found the early
> tutorials a delight, up to the point where everything else was
> completely opaque to me. After learning a bit of Squeak, and getting
> just a few more hints, I found Etoys starting to make real sense, and
> now I can use a substantial subset of it. When I get through the parts
> of this manual that I can do, I will turn to creating Etoys projects
> to illustrate the issues I found missing, and to take up various
> education topics. Some will be in the manner of my Turtle Art
> tutorials and Tony Forster's, but of course Etoys supports doing far
> more than that.
> 
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/TurtleArt/Tutorials
> 
> Can anybody help with these Etoys objects that either need explanation
> or are simply not present in the versions I have access to? In
> particular, communication between Etoys sessions and users remains
> entirely opaque to me.
> 
> Communications
> 
> Attachment Adjuster
> Badge
> Fridge
> NebraskaServer
> 
> 
> Objects not found in Object Catalog--Can we remove these?

> 
> Calendar
> Dr. Geo http://www.olpcnews.com/forum/index.php?topic=676.0
> Flap
> Graph
> Graphing
> H Number Line
> Key press
> Speech Bubbles
> 
I've started to make a note if objects are available in later version only, the calendar, for instance, is in Etoys 5.0.

> Other
> 
> Arrow Editor
> Image How to substitute another image?
I think you just need to remove the old image, make a new screenshot and upload it using the insert image symbol. 
> 
> Particles What is Kedama? http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1092381
> 
> Kedama: A GUI-Based Interactive Massively Parallel Particle Programming System
> http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/VLHCC.2005.49
> Purchase article: $19
> 
> http://community.ofset.org/index.php/Etoys_and_Kedama

This should be another book, maybe part of the programming etoys book.
> 
> I plan to combine redundant accounts of particular features, move a
> few topics to what seems to me a more logical order, and add some more
> topics.

We should discuss that. We had two book sprints when we started writing the manual and discussed its structure. The manual is 3/4 done, I would prefer not to open up more topics here and not to change basic things of the structure. But I would love to discuss this, because the manual should be a guide for users and if it is not helpful, we need to make it better.


> I especially plan to explain how Etoys development tools work,
> and how one accesses Squeak development tools from Etoys.

This is something we have often talked about, but not written down. Needs to be part of the Etoys programming book!

> A tutorial
> on either Etoys or Squeak development is, of course, inappropriate for
> this manual, but I do want to demonstrate how one can look inside
> Etoys object definitions using Squeak.

It is the Etoys manual and the transition is not on the focus. Therefore, if it should be part of this manual, I would like to put it in an appendix.

> This question is somewhat
> confusing, because things may have different names and different
> structures in their Etoys and Squeak manifestations. Has anybody ever
> made a tool for exposing the structure of the Squeak definitions of
> Etoys objects?
> 
> Lots more questions to come.
> 
> -- 
> Edward Mokurai (默雷/निशब्दगर्ज/نشبدگرج) Cherlin
> Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
> The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
> http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Replacing_Textbooks
> _______________________________________________
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> etoys-dev at squeakland.org
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Rita Freudenberg
rita.freudenberg at ovgu.de



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