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Windows 8 effect on Etoys

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Harness, Kathleen

Windows 8 effect on Etoys

Hi,
My guess is that you already know this but, I saw an article that says Windows 8 doesn't support plug-ins. What will this mean for Etoys?
Kathleen

http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/09/Metro-Plug-ins

"Microsoft has Abandoned Silverlight and All Other Plugins

Posted by Jonathan Allen on Sep 15, 2011

Sections: Development
Topics: Web 2.0 ,; Javascript ,; .NET ,; Silverlight ,; HTML5
Tags: Metro ,; Flash ,; Windows 8

Though it as hard, we have been avoiding reporting on rumors about the death of Silverlight for quite some time. As in all things, rumors then to be exaggerated or out-right false. A good example of this is the idea that Web Forms has entered maintenance mode and would never be updated to HTML5. Unfortunately the end of Silverlight is no rumor, if Microsoft doesn’t change course it, as well as Flash and other plugin technologies, will be effectively unusable when Windows 8 is released.

On September 14th just before 6 pm Steven Sinofsky and Dean Hachamovitch announced that the Metro-style browser in Windows 8 does not support plugins. The Metro-style browser is the full screen, chromeless implementation of Internet Explorer that most people are expected to use with Windows 8. While the Metro user interface has extensive touch functionality, it is designed to be the primary UI for all devices with a screen of 1024x768 or larger even when using a mouse and keyboard. The “desktop” mode is still available, but it is being positioned as something that is only to be used by legacy programs and a few complex applications such as Photoshop and Visual Studio.

According to Steven Sinofsky,

This post is about a big change in Metro style IE, which is the plug-in free experience. In Windows 8, IE 10 is available as a Metro style app and as a desktop app. The desktop app continues to fully support all plug-ins and extensions."

more........

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Bert Freudenberg

Re: Windows 8 effect on Etoys

On 15.09.2011, at 04:03, Harness, Kathleen wrote:

> Hi,
> My guess is that you already know this but, I saw an article that says Windows 8 doesn't support plug-ins. What will this mean for Etoys?
> Kathleen
>
> http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/09/Metro-Plug-ins

Apparently Windows 8 will have two different user interfaces, the old windowed mouse-based UI and the new "Metro" touch-centric UI. The article you linked to says that in the touch UI there will be no plugins. If I understand correctly, you should still be able to switch to the "old" UI which hopefully would still support the plugin (Microsoft does have a history of trying hard to keep old software working).

But it is increasingly hard to support the Etoys plugin on all platforms. The OLPC XO does not have the plugin, and it is our largest user base. On recent Macs it does not work in Safari anymore. Some platforms (e.g. iPad) do not support plugins at all.

I think the best we can do in browsers that do not have the plugin is to offer the Etoys project for download. And that's what the current Squeakland launcher does. Better ideas welcome :)

- Bert -

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Harness, Kathleen

Re: Windows 8 effect on Etoys

Hi Bert,
I thought you would already know about Windows 8, I just wanted to make sure.

Two other topics:

Etoys-to-Go
This year at the elementary school where I teach part time my 4th and 5th grade students are using Etoys-to-Go to teach Etoys in K, 1st and 2nd grade classrooms where they will be able to just open the software from their flash drive and teach. It is a great convenience and time saver to have it since otherwise I would have to ask our district technology team to install Etoys on classroom computers. And, of course, to do that they expect the computer to be identified with the secret, secret code number for each machine. As you can imagine this is hugely time consuming and acts as a barrier for requests rather than facilitate new ideas and innovative programs.

iPad
I have enjoyed experimenting with Etoys on the iPad. Projects look great on that screen. I make projects on my Toshiba and move finished projects to the iPad. It is harder to compose projects on the iPad since the arrows are so small and even with a stylus, I am not accurate enough. Adding text is also messy with the on-screen keyboard. I found using the little box in the top left corner of the screen/click felt like a natural way to get halo. Seeing the cursor + is harder than I wish. Can it be offset from being directly under the fingertip so that is is higher and to the left of the real finger? On a click face I am picturing the cursor at 11 and my finger tip at the center of a small clock face.
Regards,
Kathleen

________________________________________
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] on behalf of Bert Freudenberg [[hidden email]]
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2011 11:55 AM
To: "etoys-dev ‎[[hidden email]]‎"
Subject: Re: [etoys-dev] Windows 8 effect on Etoys

On 15.09.2011, at 04:03, Harness, Kathleen wrote:

> Hi,
> My guess is that you already know this but, I saw an article that says Windows 8 doesn't support plug-ins. What will this mean for Etoys?
> Kathleen
>
> http://www.infoq.com/news/2011/09/Metro-Plug-ins

Apparently Windows 8 will have two different user interfaces, the old windowed mouse-based UI and the new "Metro" touch-centric UI. The article you linked to says that in the touch UI there will be no plugins. If I understand correctly, you should still be able to switch to the "old" UI which hopefully would still support the plugin (Microsoft does have a history of trying hard to keep old software working).

But it is increasingly hard to support the Etoys plugin on all platforms. The OLPC XO does not have the plugin, and it is our largest user base. On recent Macs it does not work in Safari anymore. Some platforms (e.g. iPad) do not support plugins at all.

I think the best we can do in browsers that do not have the plugin is to offer the Etoys project for download. And that's what the current Squeakland launcher does. Better ideas welcome :)

- Bert -

_______________________________________________
etoys-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/etoys-dev
_______________________________________________
etoys-dev mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/etoys-dev