[squeak-dev] Re: Brand new Ubuntu experience with etoys

Sat May 8 01:17:52 UTC 2010

Hi Bert,

>I just changed the wording on the "missing plugin" page - is that better?

Ouch no. See below.

>And indeed, the distro package should register the plugin. Maybe it doesn't, I don't know.

FYI

The eToys blurb from their distro:

eToys
A media-rich model, simulation construction kit and authoring tool
   Installed
Squeak Etoys was inspired by LOGO, PARC-Smalltalk, Hypercard, and starLOGO. It is a media-rich authoring environment with a simple powerful scripted object model for many kinds of objects created by end-users that runs on many platforms, and is free and open source. It includes 2D and 3D graphics, images, text, particles, pres-entations, web-pages, videos, sound and MIDI, etc. It includes the ability to share desktops with other Etoy users in real-time, so many forms of immersive mentoring and play can be done over the Internet.

This is the Squeak image developed for the OLPC project.

Canonical does not provide updates for eToys. Some updates may be provided by the Ubuntu community.

License: Unknown	Version: 3.0.1916+svn132-2ubuntu1 (etoys)

=====

Above is the info from the Ubuntu Software when You get to eToys.
Note the version and the license info.

After playing a bit I realized I needed to close firefox and try again.

So I did.

Close.
then

Firefox
Squeakland>Showcase>All>Musical Chords>launch
Which now sends me to the launch url.
Which now just shows me a blank page.
IMHO this is worse than before, at least then it seemed it was trying to help.

launch page Url:

http://squeakland.org/launcher/?http://squeakland.org/content/showcase/everyone/accounts/digimath/Music%20Chord%20game.011.pr

This page (after Bert's changes) now shows up as a blank white page on my screen.

page source: <extra lines removed>  

   <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd ">
   <html>
   <head>

   <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1">

   <!--[if lte IE 6]>
   <script type="text/javascript" src="/sm/includes/supersleight.js"></script>
   <![endif]--> 

<title>Etoys Project</title>
</head>

<body>

<!-- content start -->

<script language="javascript">

   //This script detects the Squeakland plugin

   var agt = navigator.userAgent.toLowerCase();
   var ie = (agt.indexOf("msie") != -1);
   var ns = (navigator.appName.indexOf("Netscape") != -1);
   var win = ((agt.indexOf("win") != -1) || (agt.indexOf("32bit") != -1));
   var mac = (agt.indexOf("mac") != -1);
   var olpc = (agt.indexOf("olpc") != -1);
   var url = document.URL;
   var src = url.substr(url.indexOf("?")+1);
   var prj = unescape(src.substr(src.lastIndexOf("/")+1));

   if ( ie && win )
   {
      SqueakInstalled = detectIE("SqueakOCX2.SqueakOCX.1", "Squeak");
   }

   if ( ns || !win )
   {
      nse = "";
      for ( var i = 0; i < navigator.mimeTypes.length; i++ ) nse += navigator.mimeTypes[i].type.toLowerCase();

      SqueakInstalled = nse.indexOf("application/x-squeak-source") != -1;
   }

   function detectIE( ClassID, name )
   {
      result = false;
      document.write('<' + 'SCRIPT LANGUAGE=VBScript>\n on error resume next \n result = IsObject(CreateObject("' + ClassID + '"))<' + '/SCRIPT>\n');
      if ( result ) return true;
      else return false;
   }

   if ( SqueakInstalled )
   {
      document.write('<OBJECT\n' +
                     'ID="SqueakOCX Control"\n' +
                     'WIDTH=800 HEIGHT=600\n' +
                     'ALIGN=center BORDER=2\n' +
                     'CLASSID="CLSID:2BE9C39E-8386-4435-B337-FCDAD8EAB006"\n' +
                     'CODEBASE="/content/installers/EtoysInstaller.exe">\n' +
                     '<PARAM name="src" value="' + src + '">\n' +
                     '<PARAM name="pluginspage" value="/download/">\n' +
                     '<PARAM name="apiSupported" value="false">\n' +
                     '<embed\n' +
                     'type="application/x-squeak-source"\n' +
                     'ALIGN="CENTER"\n' +
                     'WIDTH="800"\n' +
                     'HEIGHT="600"\n' +
                     'src="' + src + '"\n' +
                     'apiSupported="FALSE"\n' +
                     'pluginspage="/download/"\n' +
                     '></embed>\n' +
                     '</OBJECT><br>\n'+
                     'You may also download <a href="' + src + '">' + prj +'</a> and open it in Etoys.')
   }
   else
   {
      if ( olpc )
      {
          document.write(
         'Downloading Etoys project <a href="' + src + '">' + prj + '</a>. Please wait.\n'+
         '<br><br><br><big>When the download is finished, start <b>' + prj + '</b> from your Journal.</big>' );
          window.location = src;
      }
         else
      {
            document.write('You do not seem to have the Etoys plugin installed.<br>\n' +
              'If you are using a Macintosh or Windows PC, please download the ' + 
              '<a href="/download/">plugin here</a> and then run the installer.<br>\n' +
              'As a Linux user, please install your distribution's "Etoys" package.<br><br>\n' +
              'You could also download <a href="' + src + '">' + prj +'</a> and open it in Etoys.<br>\n'+
              'Perhaps you want to use <a href="/download/">Etoys-To-Go</a> for that, which should work ' +
              'equally well on Linux, Mac, or Windows machines.\n');
      }
   }

</script>

</body>

</html>

======

Anyway to reiterate,

1) First it should work out of the box and it does not. 
Is the plugin present?
What specifically is detected to determine the plugin is there or not on Ubuntu?
I can't test for windows or macs at this point.

2) How should Squeakland help with the troubleshooting?
  IMO a specific help should be provided for fixing the plugin problem.
  It should mention the plugin problem.
  And Either provide a remedy for just the plugin problem OR
  direct the user to remove the Ubuntu provided installation. (I.E. go to where you got it and press REMOVE).
  Then direct then how to reinstall the whole Magila from the Squeakland distribution.
  Basicly do not leave a user with the need to make a choice they have not been given enough information to make.
  Better still help make the choice for them.

Yours in curiosity and service, --Jerome Peace
P.S. Please cc: me personally as well as replying to the list. The only list I let send me mail right now is the beginners. Cheers --Jer