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Release Notes - Etoys -September 2008

These notes accompany the download of Etoys available via www.squeakland.org as of September 11, 2008.   In the past, the system has often been referred to as "Squeak", but to help distinguish it from other versions of Squeak, we will refer to the version now available on the website simply as "Etoys."

The team at Viewpoints Research Institute (VPRI) has been working on the "Etoys" activity for the OLPC (One Laptop per Child) "XO" platform.  We started from the previous version of "Squeakland Squeak", then added new features and made many bug fixes, performance improvements, and visual tweaks.

VPRI has decided to release the Etoys activity for the XO as the "universal" Etoys version for all platforms.  Advantages include:
1) Two years of work have gone into improving Etoys overall;
2) Etoys will be identical on the XO, Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems;
3) The new features, enhancements, and fixes will be beneficial to everyone.

In this way, all users of the XO and other platforms will be "compatible" and be able to share their projects and documentation.

Below is a list of "New Features", "New UI Changes", and "Notes on Compatibility".

"New Features"

 -- Functions.
   There are now over a dozen mathematical functions available for
   use in arithmetic expressions in scripts, in addition to the arithmetic
   operators.  (Click on the golden treasure box of a script editor, drag
   out an "abs" tile, drop it on any numeric-valued tile or phrase in a
   script, and then (unless you actually want "abs") choose the actual
   function name you desire from the  menu that shows up when you click on
   it.  There is also a choice called "parenthesis", which serves to put a
   subexpression within parentheses, in order to influence order of evaluation.
   (There is also a way to "wrap" an existing numeric tile expression in a
   function, by holding down the "shift" key as you click on an "extension
   arrow" -- this will make the expression governed by the extension arrow
   become the argument of a function call.)

 -- Arithmetic Operator Precedence.
   The arithmetic operators (+ - * / // \\ and min and max) now have
   more conventional precedence; i.e., multiplication and
   division are now "stronger" than addition and
   subtraction.  (See below under "Notes on Compatibility" for more details.)

 -- "RepeatTimes" tile.
   A tile to write a simple loop is provided.

-- Display Scaling.
   We think it useful to offer a "standard", normalized screen size for users
   on non-XO platforms, so that a project made on one computer can have a
   consistent appearance across a broad range of computers with varying display
   sizes and screen resolutions.   Because the XO has a screen with 1200 x 900
   pixels, this was chosen as the "standard" size.  On a computer with a
   different display resolution, 1200 x 900 pixels are scaled to fit in the
   display.  If the actual display size is vastly different from 1200 x 900, the
   scaling may not look very nice; in such cases, scaling can be
   turned off from the menu bar.

 -- The Online Help System ("Quick Guides")
   There are now over 60 help guides included in the system.   Click on the
   question mark button in the menu bar to see them. They can also be
   printed as a single PDF file found on the Squeakland and Etoys/olpc websites.

 -- Polygon Vertices.
   In a Polygon, the vertices are accessible from tile scripting.
   Visit the polygon category in the viewer of a Polygon.

 -- World Stethoscope.
   World Stethoscope, a tool to use the input from external sensor devices
   is included.

 -- Event Theatre.
   A tool that provides a better way to record and play back a
   user's actions.  This can be used to create small snippets of tutorials;
   voice-over can be added later, and there is also an "Event-Roll" tool for modest
   after-the-fact editing of such recordings.

 -- A New Generation of the Particle System (aka "Kedama").
   Kedama has been entirely rewritten for this release.  The new version is faster
   in most cases, and there are semantic changes as well -- see more details in the
   compatibility section below.)

 -- All Players Tool.
   The tools labeled "Players" in the Supplies provides a list of all players
   in the current project.

 -- Book Page Reverting.
   Book pages can be made revertable.  Book pages can be marked as
   revertable, and such pages can be reverted to the state when the
   book was last saved into a project.

 -- More Sound Compression Options.
   In the Sound Recorder, there are choices for Sound Compression.

"New UI Changes"

 -- Bigger and More Consistent Fonts and Buttons.
   In general, the tools have been redesigned for screens with a higher
   resolution.  Larger fonts are used, and buttons in viewers, scriptors, and other
   tools have now been made more uniform.

 -- Stationary Navigator Menu Bar at the Top.
   Instead of having an orange pop-in/pop-out navigator bar at the bottom of the
   screen, the navigator bar is now located at the top of screen, and is stationary.
   Type alt-RETURN at any time to show or hide it.  The new Navigator follows the
   design of the OLPC's UI specification, but we took the liberty to make it narrow,
   and change its color.

 -- New Supplies.
   Click on the "treasure box" in the navigator menu bar at the top of the screen to
   open or close the new "Supplies" flap.  You can resize the flap by dragging its
   bottom gray edge.

 -- Script Editor ("scriptor") Redesign.
   Layout, colors, proportions, menus, and fonts have all been changed.
   A "Gold Box" has been added -- click on it to get a palette of useful tiles; click
   on any item in the palette to get a copy of it for use in your script.

 -- Better Drop Zone Feedback in Scriptors.
   The green drop zone that shows when dragging over a script is
   greatly improved.

 -- Right Click for Halo.
   On Windows, the default is changed so that right mouse button
   brings up the halo.

 -- Opening Screen.
   The start-up screen now provides links to tutorials and example projects.

"Notes on Compatibility"

Most projects created in an older "Squeakland" version should load and work fine in the new system.  (However, projects created in the new etoys system will *not* be
usable in any older Squeakland version.)

A few old projects may exhibit different behavior when loaded into the new system.  Here are some things to watch out for:

- Because of the arithmetic operator precedence change, a script
  that contains a long chain of arithmetic may produce different
  results; e.g., "3 * 4 + 5" used to be interpreted as "3 * (4 + 5)"
  and the result was 27, but now it is "(3 * 4) + 5" and the result is
  17.  Such a script should be editted (perhaps adding the
  "parenthesis" described above) to be properly interpreted.

- The size and look of scriptors and viewers will change upon
  loading.  The new shapes may hide other carefully located
  objects, and if the project depends on the specific sizes of these
  tools, it may not work in the same way.

-   The changes to Kedama are great enough that, although an old project with Kedama
   may load and may even run acceptably, it is guaranteed that editing an old
   project in the new release does not work.  For proper migration of any Kedama
   project, the project should be built afresh in the new system; additionally,
   the semantics change may require some changes to the project's scripts.  This
   only applies to projects that have the small window where one script controls
   hundreds of tiny turtles and patches.

All in all, we hope this version will be seen as a great opportunity to redo existing interesting projects, if needed.  Such projects can be shared among the millions of of Etoys users including XO users.

We hope that by using Etoys,  you, or your children will learn more about how our world works and have fun in the process!


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Some of the new features on etoys are great and / or look really interesting.

Here are some comments and questions about the new etoys (running on Windows) based on a preliminary look:

1) Default saving goes to a non existent folder C:\My Pictures\My Squeak and so saving fails. Solve this problem by holding down the mouse button on the Keep icon and then an option to navigate to a desired folder becomes available. This is not explained on the balloon help of the Keep icon, although it is explained on the balloon help of the Find icon.

2) Help: When you load the paint tools the Help fades out. You can click the arrow to the next page but can't Jump to a different Help sequence for the Paint tools. You have to close the Paint tools then Jump to a different Help page and then reopen the Paint tools

3) Can't find a timer? The clock on a script has a tick rate, the default is 8 ticks per second, but how can I program that to display a timer?

4) Show code textually is a nice feature - would be even better if you could open the code window to reveal all the code at once - good for learning by copying and pasting to other media

5) How do you set the "preserve trash" preference mentioned in the trash can help balloon?

6) There doesn't appear to be a version number?