UI feedback

Hi gang,
I held another Squeak/eToys workshop a couple weekends back in my hometown's
children's museum (kidscommons.org) and just wanted to provide some more
user feedback (where the users were 4-6 graders).
Without a doubt, the most common problem/frustration they had was inserting
a new tile into (at the end of) a script.  For whatever reason, performing
this action was much more problematic than in other workshops I've conducted
- although it often shows up to some degree in every workshop.  The students
felt compelled to exactly line up the new tile with the last tile in the
script and would inevitably "drop it" just outside the script, causing it to
auto-create a new script.  I wonder, is it possible to modify the
insert-tile-into-script logic/code to allow for a delta-offset along both
the left-hand and bottom boundaries of a script?  If so, I could see this UI
frustration essentially disappearing.  It would seem to be the logical thing
to do since, if a user was trying to create a new script, they would keep it
a safe distance from any other script when dropping it into the world.

Another frustration involved the creation of a frame-based animation and the
auto-centering of the "rotation center" crosshairs.  An example which many
are probably already familiar with is BJ's flower pot with the growing
flowers.  For this type of project, it would be extremely useful to provide
a menu item which locks the rotation center.  This would allow for a smooth
animation, rather than having to manually re-center the crosshairs on each
frame.  (This is also somewhat related to a question I posted a few weeks
back about programmatically setting the location of the rotation center, to
which Scott replied that it was not possible).

Fwiw, Randy

_______________________________________________
Squeakland mailing list
[hidden email]
http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland

... (This is also somewhat related to a question I posted a few weeks

back about programmatically setting the location of the rotation center, to

which Scott replied that it was not possible).

At 3:24 PM -0800 12/6/05, Scott Wallace wrote:

However, programmatically setting an object's rotation center is

easily accomplished via a *textual* script.  Send #rotationCenter: to

the player's costume's renderedMorph.

_______________________________________________
Squeakland mailing list
[hidden email]
http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland

Scott,
Apologies for being ignorant in Squeak (textual) pgming, but *exactly* what would I type into a script?  E.g., I create a rectangle 'Sketch', open its Viewer, drag out an emptyScript tile, and toggle it to show textual code -- then what?  By default, of course, the "rotation center" crosshairs is in the center of the rectangle.  Let's say I'd like to program it to be at the lower-left corner - how could I do that?

--Randy (feel free to reply to the list; didn't know if we should keep this offline)

On Jan 23, 2006, at 4:52 PM, Scott Wallace wrote:

At 2:33 PM -0500 1/23/06, Randy Heiland wrote:

... (This is also somewhat related to a question I posted a few weeks
back about programmatically setting the location of the rotation center, to
which Scott replied that it was not possible).

Just to clarify, my reply was that it (i.e. programmatically setting an object's rotation center) could not done with tiles alone, but that it was "easily accomplished" if the user were willing to resort to using a single line of *textual* script...

At 3:24 PM -0800 12/6/05, Scott Wallace wrote:

However, programmatically setting an object's rotation center is

easily accomplished via a *textual* script.  Send #rotationCenter: to

the player's costume's renderedMorph.


Cheers,

  -- Scott
_______________________________________________
Squeakland mailing list
[hidden email]
http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland

_______________________________________________
Squeakland mailing list
[hidden email]
http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland

_______________________________________________
Squeakland mailing list
[hidden email]
http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland

Thanks Scott.  Is it the case that this only works when Sketch's heading=0 ?  I figured out how the 2 arguments affected placement of the rotationCenter (rC) and created 4 scripts - each one placing it in a different corner.  However, when I did a 'turn by' (or simply changed the value of its heading) on the sketch, the rC scripts then had no effect.

 

--Randy

 

---

From: Scott Wallace [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 6:48 AM
To: Randy Heiland
Cc: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Squeakland] UI feedback

 

Hi, Randy,

 

 

Cheers,

 

  -- Scott

 

 

At 4:53 AM -0500 1/24/06, Randy Heiland wrote:

Scott,
Apologies for being ignorant in Squeak (textual) pgming, but *exactly* what would I type into a script?  E.g., I create a rectangle 'Sketch', open its Viewer, drag out an emptyScript tile, and toggle it to show textual code -- then what?  By default, of course, the "rotation center" crosshairs is in the center of the rectangle.  Let's say I'd like to program it to be at the lower-left corner - how could I do that?

--Randy (feel free to reply to the list; didn't know if we should keep this offline)

On Jan 23, 2006, at 4:52 PM, Scott Wallace wrote:

At 2:33 PM -0500 1/23/06, Randy Heiland wrote:

... (This is also somewhat related to a question I posted a few weeks
back about programmatically setting the location of the rotation center, to
which Scott replied that it was not possible).

Just to clarify, my reply was that it (i.e. programmatically setting an object's rotation center) could not done with tiles alone, but that it was "easily accomplished" if the user were willing to resort to using a single line of *textual* script...

At 3:24 PM -0800 12/6/05, Scott Wallace wrote:

 

However, programmatically setting an object's rotation center is

easily accomplished via a *textual* script.  Send #rotationCenter: to

the player's costume's renderedMorph.


Cheers,

  -- Scott
_______________________________________________
Squeakland mailing list

[hidden email]

http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland

 

_______________________________________________
Squeakland mailing list
[hidden email]
http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland

Hi, Randy,

It's a bug, certainly not an intended feature, that a painting's old
rotation center was getting forgotten when you repainted it.

An update fixing this is currently going through internal field-test
and soon to go public.

Thank you, as ever!

Cheers,

   -- Scott


At 2:33 PM -0500 1/23/06, Randy Heiland wrote:
>
>Another frustration involved the creation of a frame-based animation and the
>auto-centering of the "rotation center" crosshairs.  An example which many
>are probably already familiar with is BJ's flower pot with the growing
>flowers.  For this type of project, it would be extremely useful to provide
>a menu item which locks the rotation center.  This would allow for a smooth
>animation, rather than having to manually re-center the crosshairs on each
>frame....

_______________________________________________
Squeakland mailing list
[hidden email]
http://squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland