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New lessons. In 3D !!!!

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Americo Damasceno

New lessons. In 3D !!!!

The next lesson of our Manual is the Table of Content of a "sub Manual" that
will teach how to create terrains and 3D objects, for Cobalt islands, using the
free software: Blender.

And all the lessons will be presented using "Cobalt islands" !!!!

You will see one of the uses of Cobalt: when 3D objects are better to ilustrate
a text than 2D images

And 3D objects are good to ilustrate any text...because the real world is not
plane :-)

(By the way: this can be one of the first "3D pages" of the new "3D web",
supported by Cobalt. WOW!!! We are doing history!

What are you waiting to go ahead and create your 3D site using Cobalt!

Fortunes at Internet were made when someone was a pioneer in some area... ;-o

Any feedback is welcome. Are you reading well the text? Seeing well the 3D
objects?

Thanks.

Americo Damasceno

New lessons. In 3D !!!!

Sorry, but appears that there are some problems with the images of the panels
in the island. I will try to fix it, if possible...
If you are not having problems let me know.

waufrepi III

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

yeah, I was just about to post. The images are all fuzzy.

On 4/10/08, Americo Damasceno <[hidden email]> wrote:

Sorry, but appears that there are some problems with the images of the panels
in the island. I will try to fix it, if possible...
If you are not having problems let me know.

Americo Damasceno

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

Not fixed the problem, but by-passed: needs to download/unzip a very little
aditional file. Read again the directives for lesson at:

http://www.opencroquet.org/index.php/Island_Creator/Blender_Basic_Lessons_TOC

and let me know if all is OK now.

Sorry.

Les Howell

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

On Thu, 2008-04-10 at 22:34 -0400, Americo Damasceno wrote:
> Not fixed the problem, but by-passed: needs to download/unzip a very little
> aditional file. Read again the directives for lesson at:
>
> http://www.opencroquet.org/index.php/Island_Creator/Blender_Basic_Lessons_TOC
>
> and let me know if all is OK now.
>
> Sorry.
HI, Americo,
I downloaded the TOC and placed it in the cache folder, then unzipped
it and it inflated the files OK with no errors.
However in the Cobalt window I do not get the window shown in the
webpage. The good news is that I seem to have all the SELinux errors
overridden correctly and it appears to work with just two error messages
both of which I expect and do no harm. I'll figure out how to clean
those up a bit later. I should have fixed the one about REUSEPORT prior
to this juncture, but I have basically just been monitoring the
discourse.

At this time I really want to proceed with using Blender and Croquet.
I have a grandson whom I think will be the next programmer in my family
(currently 11, and yes, I am a proud grandparent) I want to try cobalt
so he and I can learn together. I have already had him programming a
BasicStamp, and using C from the command line, so he has been exposed to
tools and their use. He also has a gift for art, and so I think Blender
and Croquet will give him a new creative outlet.

So the question is how to get there from here. I have one system
running Cobalt, on with Cobalt loaded but not yet running on Fedora 8,
which I can fix I am sure. I think from monitoring the messages the
issues revolve around the video driver and PulseAudio. I can remove
Pulse Audio, and I can replace the video driver (and will this week
end.) I'll let you all know how that goes.

Regards,
Les H

Americo Damasceno

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

Les wrote:

"The good news is that I seem to have all the SELinux errors
overridden correctly and it appears to work with just two error messagesboth of
which I expect and do no harm. I'll figure out how to clean those up a bit
later."

Congratulations, Les.

Now Paul is our Mac specialist and you is being declared our Linux specialist
:-)

By the way: if I understood well, you are seeing the island of the 3D lesson
but not the text inside the Panels? Try the new lesson, please and let me know.
Thanks.

Les Howell

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 15:28 -0400, Americo Damasceno wrote:

> Les wrote:
>
> "The good news is that I seem to have all the SELinux errors
> overridden correctly and it appears to work with just two error messagesboth of
> which I expect and do no harm. I'll figure out how to clean those up a bit
> later."
>
> Congratulations, Les.
>
> Now Paul is our Mac specialist and you is being declared our Linux specialist
> :-)
>
>
> By the way: if I understood well, you are seeing the island of the 3D lesson
> but not the text inside the Panels? Try the new lesson, please and let me know.
> Thanks.

No, I will capture a screen shot of what I see. When I first open the

app using the cobalt script I created, I get a blank desktop with the
Cobalt Croquet ball icon on the bottom left and the about and old demos
tabs at the bottom and the tool tab at the side. If I drag the Cobalt
Ball to the desktop, it opens and I see one portal which I can go
through, but is basically a blank world, and the odd pyramid off to one
side. I do not see the ghost avatar that others have spoken of.

I do not see the portal to the lesson. Moreover there doesn't appear
any way to open such a portal from the tools I have tried. The zip file
I got appears only to contain some icons,

Also here is the converted SqueakDebug.log I received. Note that the
stack trace didn't come out well, sorry, I will work on the conversion
program more next week. I think that is a longer term project than just
fixing Cobalt for use, and there is a tool in Cobalt for displaying the
stack I think.

I unzipped the blender1.zip file in the /cobalt-base-current-build/cache
directory. Should it have been in the cache-global instead? I read
"cache" in the directions and did see the other .c3d files in the cache
directory.

Regards,
Les H

temp.txt (7K) Download Attachment

Screenshot-.-cobalt.1.image-1.png (174K) Download Attachment

Americo Damasceno

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

Les,

The island you are presenting in the screen shot is the basic island of the
Cobalt Browser. You need to select in the Menu: Place | Load New | Place
template from URL.

At the new little window, type the address of the island/lesson:

www.dmu.com/cobalt/blender1.c3d

and wait some time (depends of the velocity of your Internet conection.

Will appear a "Portal". You (your avatar) needs to cross it to be in the 1st 3D
lesson.

Let me know if it works for you.

Your feedback is very important for us. Maybe we are not being very clear at
our instructions.

Thanks,

Americo

Ric Moore

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

In reply to this post by Les Howell

On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 11:52 -0700, Les wrote:

> On Thu, 2008-04-10 at 22:34 -0400, Americo Damasceno wrote:
> > Not fixed the problem, but by-passed: needs to download/unzip a very little
> > aditional file. Read again the directives for lesson at:
> >
> > http://www.opencroquet.org/index.php/Island_Creator/Blender_Basic_Lessons_TOC
> >
> > and let me know if all is OK now.
> >
> > Sorry.
> HI, Americo,
> I downloaded the TOC and placed it in the cache folder, then unzipped
> it and it inflated the files OK with no errors.
> However in the Cobalt window I do not get the window shown in the
> webpage. The good news is that I seem to have all the SELinux errors
> overridden correctly and it appears to work with just two error messages
> both of which I expect and do no harm. I'll figure out how to clean
> those up a bit later. I should have fixed the one about REUSEPORT prior
> to this juncture, but I have basically just been monitoring the
> discourse.
>
> At this time I really want to proceed with using Blender and Croquet.
> I have a grandson whom I think will be the next programmer in my family
> (currently 11, and yes, I am a proud grandparent) I want to try cobalt
> so he and I can learn together. I have already had him programming a
> BasicStamp, and using C from the command line, so he has been exposed to
> tools and their use. He also has a gift for art, and so I think Blender
> and Croquet will give him a new creative outlet.
>
> So the question is how to get there from here. I have one system
> running Cobalt, on with Cobalt loaded but not yet running on Fedora 8,
> which I can fix I am sure. I think from monitoring the messages the
> issues revolve around the video driver and PulseAudio. I can remove
> Pulse Audio, and I can replace the video driver (and will this week
> end.) I'll let you all know how that goes.

I have killed off Selinux completely for those reasons. Do you think
there is some remnant of it blocking anything? Ric

--
================================================
My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say:
"There are two Great Sins in the world...
..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity.
Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
Linux user# 44256 Sign up at: http://counter.li.org/
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/oar
http://www.wayward4now.net <---down4now too
================================================

Les Howell

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

In reply to this post by Americo Damasceno

OK, I got the menu up, and tried to copy and paste the url from the
email. That didn't work. It appears that the control v command to
paste doesn't work. So I typed in the URL and almost immediately got an
error message. I the tried to copy and paste a copy of the error
documents from the Croquet debugger window, but that didn't work.
Moreover I succeeded in getting the Croquet to lock up. However the X
to close it still worked and Croquet closed.

This time I will take a snapshot of the screen.
This time it worked. My guess is that the use of the control v and
control c keys somehow corrupted the Cobalt or Croquet execution.

HOORAY, I'm in.

Regards,
Les H

On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 17:50 -0400, Americo Damasceno wrote:

> Les,
>
> The island you are presenting in the screen shot is the basic island of the
> Cobalt Browser. You need to select in the Menu: Place | Load New | Place
> template from URL.
>
> At the new little window, type the address of the island/lesson:
>
> www.dmu.com/cobalt/blender1.c3d
>
>
> and wait some time (depends of the velocity of your Internet conection.
>
> Will appear a "Portal". You (your avatar) needs to cross it to be in the 1st 3D
> lesson.
>
> Let me know if it works for you.
>
> Your feedback is very important for us. Maybe we are not being very clear at
> our instructions.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Americo

Les Howell

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

In reply to this post by Americo Damasceno

On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 17:50 -0400, Americo Damasceno wrote:

OK, I got through the portal, and read the two signs there, one about
where to obtain blender, and one that explained the basic prims in
Blender. Is that all there is to the lesson?

Regards,
Les H

Les Howell

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 17:23 -0700, Les wrote:

> On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 17:50 -0400, Americo Damasceno wrote:
> > Les,
> >
> > The island you are presenting in the screen shot is the basic island of the
> > Cobalt Browser. You need to select in the Menu: Place | Load New | Place
> > template from URL.
> >
> > At the new little window, type the address of the island/lesson:
> >
> > www.dmu.com/cobalt/blender1.c3d
> >
> >
> > and wait some time (depends of the velocity of your Internet conection.
> >
> > Will appear a "Portal". You (your avatar) needs to cross it to be in the 1st 3D
> > lesson.
> >
> > Let me know if it works for you.
> >
> > Your feedback is very important for us. Maybe we are not being very clear at
> > our instructions.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Americo
> OK, I got through the portal, and read the two signs there, one about
> where to obtain blender, and one that explained the basic prims in
> Blender. Is that all there is to the lesson?
>
> Regards,
> Les H
>

I continued on, loading the blender2 by the same means... It, however,
was a not so good experience. Good news though, I can get into it, and
I can navigate, but not well. I had trouble reading the text (extremely
blurry and illegible at least to me). So I tried clicking on some of
the portal controls. This succeeded in closing one of the portals. I
hope I did not mess up your island. Anyway I then navigated around a
bit, an then closed the cobalt window, and then croquet using the
menues. I did NOT save, for fear of messing up your island.

Now, How can we clean up that text? Is the blurriness a result of the
conversion from Blender, or a different problem. Do you see blurred
text as well? By the way, I am vision impaired. I have Glaucoma. The
dark screens in cobalt, and especially the dark background for text
entry in the place to type the URL makes it extremely difficult to use.
I really need high contrast to be successful.

Regards,
Les H

Les Howell

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

In reply to this post by Americo Damasceno

On Thu, 2008-04-10 at 18:53 -0400, Americo Damasceno wrote:
> Sorry, but appears that there are some problems with the images of the panels
> in the island. I will try to fix it, if possible...
> If you are not having problems let me know.
I think I figured out what is happening. In one of your responses you
mentioned reducing the facet count to reduce the transfer time. If you
reduce facet count and then apply antialiasing to text, it will be just
what I was seeing in the blender2 island once I got there. it will be
large blobular text with shadows. That is what I was seeing.

If you can choose to control the facet size or number in the conversion
process, that may be your issue with the blurry text, assuming you are
creating the panel text views with Blender.

Regards,
Les H

waufrepi III

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

In reply to this post by Les Howell

hi Les,

you need to extract to your 'cache' directory

http://www.dmu.com/cobalt/blender1.zip

and

http://www.dmu.com/cobalt/blender2.zip

found in the manual here

http://www.opencroquet.org/index.php/Island_Creator/Blender_Basic_Lessons_TOC

that should clear up the blurryness.

copying and pasting the URL won't cause any problems with Croquet.

also, you are using your own copy of the Island so don't worry about messing anything up.

finally, if you you need to revisit the info....say you closed a window with text that you need to reference again you can always copy and paste the Isalnd URL back into your Cobalt "browser" and re-enter the island....well that's one way

best,

waufrepi

On 4/12/08, Les <[hidden email]> wrote:

On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 17:23 -0700, Les wrote:
> On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 17:50 -0400, Americo Damasceno wrote:
> > Les,
> >
> > The island you are presenting in the screen shot is the basic island of the
> > Cobalt Browser. You need to select in the Menu: Place | Load New | Place
> > template from URL.
> >
> > At the new little window, type the address of the island/lesson:
> >
> > www.dmu.com/cobalt/blender1.c3d
> >
> >
> > and wait some time (depends of the velocity of your Internet conection.
> >
> > Will appear a "Portal". You (your avatar) needs to cross it to be in the 1st 3D
> > lesson.
> >
> > Let me know if it works for you.
> >
> > Your feedback is very important for us. Maybe we are not being very clear at
> > our instructions.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Americo
> OK, I got through the portal, and read the two signs there, one about
> where to obtain blender, and one that explained the basic prims in
> Blender.  Is that all there is to the lesson?
>
> Regards,
> Les H
>

I continued on, loading the blender2 by the same means... It, however,
was a not so good experience.  Good news though, I can get into it, and
I can navigate, but not well.  I had trouble reading the text (extremely
blurry and illegible at least to me).  So I tried clicking on some of
the portal controls.  This succeeded in closing one of the portals.  I
hope I did not mess up your island.  Anyway I then navigated around a
bit, an then closed the cobalt window, and then croquet using the
menues.  I did NOT save, for fear of messing up your island.

Now, How can we clean up that text?  Is the blurriness a result of the
conversion from Blender, or a different problem.  Do you see blurred
text as well?  By the way, I am vision impaired.  I have Glaucoma.  The
dark screens in cobalt, and especially the dark background for text
entry in the place to type the URL makes it extremely difficult to use.
I really need high contrast to be successful.

Regards,

Les H

Americo Damasceno

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

Les wrote:

...
"HOORAY, I'm in!"

"OK, I got through the portal, and read the two signs there, one aboutwhere to
obtain blender, and one that explained the basic prims inBlender. Is that all
there is to the lesson?"
"I continued on, loading the blender2 by the same means... It, however,was a
not so good experience. Good news though, I can get into it, andI can navigate,
but not well. I had trouble reading the text (extremelyblurry and illegible at
least to me)."

It appears that "waufrepi" had discovered your problem. Like we have by now the
"blured bug" (a challenge for the Super Julian and the developer's guys to
resolve soon) you need to download/unzip first a little auxialiary file at the
Cache. This will not occur in the future.

Thanks, Les. And "waufrepi" - our video expert (soon we will have good news at
his area).

It's nice to see how someone tries and learn new things. Sometimes it's not
very easy. But, at the end all is OK.

Americo

By the way: sometimes the answer for the everybody's doubts will be not
imediate, because, by example : Stefan is in Sweeden, Salmeron in Spain,
Paul in USA etc. etc. I am in Brazil. We have different times... Be pacient...

Les Howell

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

In reply to this post by waufrepi III

HI, Waufrepi,
I Thought I had, but I had not unzipped blender2. By the way, it
replaced 4 files (blender 1 files I expect), as shown here:
replace 5PGJQQHEL94SJ1DDWFDY89PQFL75K8C? [y]es, [n]o, [A]ll, [N]one,
[r]ename: y
replace 687E7GO4OB5D89JL33TTDH7ATXX1L8D? [y]es, [n]o, [A]ll, [N]one,
[r]ename: y
replace A1BP8S8JKK3ZRT14Z18GY95KFBGL8DS? [y]es, [n]o, [A]ll, [N]one,
[r]ename: y
replace AA1OUX81VQ9P9E1QGECZI1WDPUGF930? [y]es, [n]o, [A]ll, [N]one,
[r]ename: y

And I am using Linux, so the copy and paste functions operate a bit
differently. This means I may have to use window options to access the
buffer rather than control-c control-v. The control functions work for
pure X apps, but not across shell apps.

Regards,
Les H

On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 22:14 -0400, waufrepi III wrote:

> hi Les,
>
> you need to extract to your 'cache' directory
>
>
> http://www.dmu.com/cobalt/blender1.zip
>
> and
>
> http://www.dmu.com/cobalt/blender2.zip
>
> found in the manual here
>
> http://www.opencroquet.org/index.php/Island_Creator/Blender_Basic_Lessons_TOC
>
> that should clear up the blurryness.
>
> copying and pasting the URL won't cause any problems with Croquet.
>
> also, you are using your own copy of the Island so don't worry about
> messing anything up.
>
> finally, if you you need to revisit the info....say you closed a
> window with text that you need to reference again you can always copy
> and paste the Isalnd URL back into your Cobalt "browser" and re-enter
> the island....well that's one way
>
> best,
>
> waufrepi
>
>
> On 4/12/08, Les <[hidden email]> wrote:
> On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 17:23 -0700, Les wrote:
> > On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 17:50 -0400, Americo Damasceno wrote:
> > > Les,
> > >
> > > The island you are presenting in the screen shot is the
> basic island of the
> > > Cobalt Browser. You need to select in the Menu: Place |
> Load New | Place
> > > template from URL.
> > >
> > > At the new little window, type the address of the
> island/lesson:
> > >
> > > www.dmu.com/cobalt/blender1.c3d
> > >
> > >
> > > and wait some time (depends of the velocity of your
> Internet conection.
> > >
> > > Will appear a "Portal". You (your avatar) needs to cross
> it to be in the 1st 3D
> > > lesson.
> > >
> > > Let me know if it works for you.
> > >
> > > Your feedback is very important for us. Maybe we are not
> being very clear at
> > > our instructions.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Americo
> > OK, I got through the portal, and read the two signs there,
> one about
> > where to obtain blender, and one that explained the basic
> prims in
> > Blender. Is that all there is to the lesson?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Les H
> >
>
> I continued on, loading the blender2 by the same means... It,
> however,
> was a not so good experience. Good news though, I can get
> into it, and
> I can navigate, but not well. I had trouble reading the text
> (extremely
> blurry and illegible at least to me). So I tried clicking on
> some of
> the portal controls. This succeeded in closing one of the
> portals. I
> hope I did not mess up your island. Anyway I then navigated
> around a
> bit, an then closed the cobalt window, and then croquet using
> the
> menues. I did NOT save, for fear of messing up your island.
>
> Now, How can we clean up that text? Is the blurriness a
> result of the
> conversion from Blender, or a different problem. Do you see
> blurred
> text as well? By the way, I am vision impaired. I have
> Glaucoma. The
> dark screens in cobalt, and especially the dark background for
> text
> entry in the place to type the URL makes it extremely
> difficult to use.
> I really need high contrast to be successful.
>
> Regards,
>
> Les H
>
>

Les Howell

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

In reply to this post by Americo Damasceno

I understand distributed teams. I followed Waufrepi's instructions as
well and sure enough, I had not unzipped the blender2 file. I must have
stumblefingered and unzipped blender1 two times. I don't see so well,
and the screen is often blurry unless I change the font to something
enormous. I have an eye appointment this month and will get new glasses
which will no doubt help some.

One complaing. The window for cobalt doesn't have the sizing enabled,
only full screen or not. When doing these lessons on Linux, I can have
Cobalt on one desktop, blender on another and email on a third, so
moving from one to another is as simple as clicking on the desktop icon
in the bottom toolbar. But when Croquet goes full screen it wipes out
the control bars and I no longer have mouse access to the desktop
selector nor the button which will recall the desktop. Could someone
please add the sizing controls to the cobalt window, or is this a result
of how I got Cobalt to run on the Linux system? If it is a result of my
method, what files are needed from the default Croquet install to make
Cobalt more useful?

Regards,
Les H

On Sun, 2008-04-13 at 06:59 -0400, Americo Damasceno wrote:

> Les wrote:
>
> ...
> "HOORAY, I'm in!"
>
> "OK, I got through the portal, and read the two signs there, one aboutwhere to
> obtain blender, and one that explained the basic prims inBlender. Is that all
> there is to the lesson?"
> "I continued on, loading the blender2 by the same means... It, however,was a
> not so good experience. Good news though, I can get into it, andI can navigate,
> but not well. I had trouble reading the text (extremelyblurry and illegible at
> least to me)."
>
> It appears that "waufrepi" had discovered your problem. Like we have by now the
> "blured bug" (a challenge for the Super Julian and the developer's guys to
> resolve soon) you need to download/unzip first a little auxialiary file at the
> Cache. This will not occur in the future.
>
> Thanks, Les. And "waufrepi" - our video expert (soon we will have good news at
> his area).
>
> It's nice to see how someone tries and learn new things. Sometimes it's not
> very easy. But, at the end all is OK.
>
> Americo
>
> By the way: sometimes the answer for the everybody's doubts will be not
> imediate, because, by example : Stefan is in Sweeden, Salmeron in Spain,
> Paul in USA etc. etc. I am in Brazil. We have different times... Be pacient...

Americo Damasceno

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

Les,

Every window in Cobalt has something that we call: "HALO".

You can use the "halo" of the "Cobalt Browser Viewer" to enlarge or move it.

I will write soon a lesson about this "halo", but you can learn now how it
works reading the lesson of our old tutorials at:

http://www.dmu.com/crb/crb4.html

Ric Moore

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

In reply to this post by waufrepi III

On Sat, 2008-04-12 at 22:14 -0400, waufrepi III wrote:

Ok, with Les's help, following his procedure, I now finally see Alice. I
have to ask, was it the original intent to place Cobalt into a working
Croquet directory?? Missing the working pieces when I installed cobalt
into it's own directory and expecting it to work as shipped, neither Les
nor I had a clue that we needed so much of Croquet slapped into the
Cobalt directory. Was Cobalt to be installed into the Croquet
directory?? Or was missing the Croquet images just a mistake?? Sure was
plenty confusing, and I didn't see reference that mentioned doing what
Les and I had to do anywhere in the install directions. Just
disappointed that it took over a month or so to resolve this, on Les's
dime. Please keep us Linux users in mind. I flat out refuse to pay
Microsoft network license fees and like it really Open Source. My two
cents, Ric

--
================================================
My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say:
"There are two Great Sins in the world...
..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity.
Only the former may be overcome." R.I.P. Dad.
Linux user# 44256 Sign up at: http://counter.li.org/
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/oar
http://www.wayward4now.net <---down4now too
================================================

Les Howell

Re: New lessons. In 3D !!!!

In reply to this post by Americo Damasceno

On Sun, 2008-04-13 at 14:17 -0400, Americo Damasceno wrote:

> Les,
>
> Every window in Cobalt has something that we call: "HALO".
>
> You can use the "halo" of the "Cobalt Browser Viewer" to enlarge or move it.
>
> I will write soon a lesson about this "halo", but you can learn now how it
> works reading the lesson of our old tutorials at:
>
> http://www.dmu.com/crb/crb4.html

I will check it again, but I knew that from Croquet, and it didn't seem
to work. However in tools->advanced, there is a menu item that toggles
the halo, and that did work and I was able to get around it. It was not
intuitive, i.e. it doesn't match ones expectations of putting the mouse
pointer at the edge of the window and seeing the change in the mouse
pointer or the appearance of the halo. Dare I suggest a change to this
to be added to the list of desired features? Matching common
expectations for main functions is always good. By the way, the tabs
for tools and developer stuff is great. It frees the window of clutter
and yet keeps those things available to the developer while not
impacting the normal user.

I still have to learn a lot more about the interface. I suppose the
camera icon will take a snapshot of what I see in a panel. I will try
that. I would like to be able to print the instructions that involve
restarting croquet to avoid loosing the text or having to write it down.
I will try that, but because Cobalt is still developing, I am trying to
avoid too much attempts at functions until I accomplish the task at
hand, using blender to create new environments. After this lesson, I
will begin to play a bit more. I still seem to be able to inadvertantly
obscure window contents, or apparently create panels without intending
to. I have had to quit the tutorial two times to remove odd panels. I
did discover that if I play a bit with the -/+ toggle, the text will
sometimes come back. But it doesn't seem reliable to me, yet. Is the
back side of the panel supposed to be blank rather than another copy of
the text?

Regards,
Les H