squeakland April 2005

squeakland@lists.squeakfoundation.org

25 participants
28 discussions

Pausing animation?
by Bob Irving 16 Aug '05

16 Aug '05

I can't find a way to insert a pause in an animation. My students want to slow down their animations. I taught Microworlds last year, and in that language, you inserted a pause of x seconds in the script to slow down the motion. Is there a way to do this in Squeak? Thanks in advance, Bob Irving Middle School Technology Facilitator Lancaster Country Day School Lancaster, PA Blog: www.e-lcds.org/wordpress/ "It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." W. Edward Deming

5 4

forums status?
by Randy Heiland 30 Apr '05

30 Apr '05

How long is forums.squeakland.org expected to be down? --Randy

3 3

mathematical text in squeak
by José L. Redrejo Rodríguez 29 Apr '05

29 Apr '05

I am trying to build an electronic book for maths using squeak. I have developed an interface to use maxima ( http://maxima.sourceforge.net/ ) and show the results formatted in squeak, and developed some exercising tools. But now I am having problems trying to insert text inside Squeak. The text is being written by a maths expert friend, and he is using latex for that. Latex output can be html, rtf, pdf, ps, etc. But no one of those formats can be seen correctly in Squeak. The easiest way seemed to be html, so I tried it using scamper or using openoffice and the openoffice importer in squeak, but I always get the same problem: vertical alignment. I haven't been able to find any way to align correctly the mathematical formulas between the text. So , any ideas? is there a ps or pdf working renderer for squeak? Does anybody have any idea about who to edit formulas inside squeak?. It could be really important in education if we could make electronic books using the interactivity, simulation and multimedia capabilities of squeak with scientific texts. If anybody thinks this is a question for the squeak-dev mailing list, feel free to forward it or tell it to me and I will do it. Regards.

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Re: [Squeakland] A few questions
by Darius 29 Apr '05

29 Apr '05

Miriam, > * ... the updates did not execute well ... Could you send a couple of the SqueakDebug.log files from the offending PC's to the list from the C:\My Squeak\<user name> folder? When you select the "about this system" menu option from the help menu from the world menu, do you see: "Squeakland 3.8.5967 latest update: #419"? If you click on the "System Box" in the top right corner of the MS Windows window that contains the Squeak program (to the left of the title bar), then select the menu option "VM preferences", then "Display version information", do you see "Squeak 3.6.2 / Tea 1.9 VM (release) from Nov 12 2003 Compiler: gcc 2.95.2 19991023 (release)" ? > * ... about objects disappearing from session to session ... Have you tried "middle click" on the world, select the "menu" halo, select "playfield options...", select "round up strays" & then "show all players" from the same "playfield options..." menu? Cheers, Darius

1 0

A few questions
by Miriam Bogler 28 Apr '05

28 Apr '05

I am teaching a Squeak class to gifted elementary students. They love it and are highly engaged in it; however I gathered a few problems that they seem to encounter while working on their projects. * We installed Squeak on all our Dell computers in the lab last year. This year we updated the machines with the new version. The technician who made the updates did not notice that on some of the machines the updates did not execute well. I detected the same thing when I installed the update on my XP system. The prompt informs the user that an update is due and reports a successful update, but it never executes because when you check the supplies flap it contains the same old text object. At my house, on my Windows 2000 operating system the update performed well, while on another machine that has the XP operating system it didn't. As far as I know, all the machines at school have the same Windows 2000 operating system, yet not all updates performed well. * Students were complaining several times about objects disappearing from session to session. I was convinced that they forgot to publish and therefore could not account for some objects they created. However these complains kept repeating and from multiple sources. Finally, I experienced the same thing one time. I asked students to tally their objects before they publish and compare it to their project when they reopen them next time. Some kept missing objects, while others regained them. I am sure that there is something I don't know about how to reclaim objects that disappear. Please enlighten me. * Students save their projects using a certain name and each time they publish, Squeak adds a number to the name. Some students insist on keeping the original name and change it back. Does this have an effect on the project and is it O.K. to do. * What is the difference between creating a sibling and between copying an object to the buffer and pasting it from the buffer by activating the new morph command. I like to use the last one because it replicates the object with its scripts but the object has its own identity and cannot be confused with the other. Am I confused here, please let me know. I could not figure out yet how to utilize siblings. I will appreciate your help. Thanks, Miriam Bogler

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cellular automata
by Randy Heiland 28 Apr '05

28 Apr '05

Am I able to create a very simple cellular automata example using just Etoys? Basically, create a small 2-D grid of cells and assign on/off (black/white) to a cell based on its neighbor(s). A simple, Wolfram-style 1-D CA is what I had in mind. thanks for any hints, Randy

3 3

Re: [Squeakland] Pausing animation?
by Origbj＠aol.com 28 Apr '05

28 Apr '05

Bob: You can also slow down an animation by putting multiple copies of each sequence of the animation into the holder . This causes the animation to pass onto the same sequence multiple times, giving the impression that that animation is slowed down. Best BJ Conn

1 0

Re: [Squeakland] Pausing animation?
by Bob Irving 27 Apr '05

27 Apr '05

Thanks to Bert and Kim for the suggestions . Actually, I was not looking for a way to pause the script, but to slow down the animation. Bert's suggestion about changing the tick rate on the "script clock" was a revelation. Who knew? (obviously not me). And actually, Kim's idea of adding a blank "something" to the holder was one I came up with out of desperation in class yesterday. I suggested it aloud and within about three minutes, one of my 6th-graders had done it! All of which makes me wish that we had some serious documentation for Squeak. I know that it's asking the impossible for an open-source project, where most people volunteer their time. Perhaps if we had a wiki for newbies, a la some Linux distros (see http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/FrontPage for an example), it would at least serve as a central repository for stuff like this. I realize there already is a Squeak wiki, but most of it seems aimed at a more technical audience than perhaps use Squeak for eToys. Just my .02, Bob Irving Middle School Technology Facilitator Lancaster Country Day School Lancaster, PA Blog: www.e-lcds.org/wordpress/ "It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." W. Edward Deming

2 1

power glitches and problems with posting
by Kim Rose 27 Apr '05

27 Apr '05

Hi, folks - Some of you may have experienced problems posting to this list in the past few weeks. Our office suffered 3 power outages (!) in a 2 week period which brought down the Squeakland server for a few hours each time. Although we believed we had restored all, apparently not. We think we're fully up and restored now, but we beg your patience and ask if you posted something within the past week and have either not seen it nor have had a response that you resend your posting. Sorry for any inconvience. By the way, the local news reported that racoons were responsible for our problems (!!!) And I thought I lived in a big city! cheers to all, Kim

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Re: [Squeakland] Continued planning for SqueakFest '05
by Bob Irving 27 Apr '05

27 Apr '05

Any idea of the cost of registration? Ballpark figure? And would presenters get to waive the registration fee? I would love to come, but cost and the timing might be obstacles. Bob Irving Middle School Technology Facilitator Lancaster Country Day School Lancaster, PA Blog: www.e-lcds.org/wordpress/ "It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory." W. Edward Deming

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squeakland April 2005