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trying to use Croquet for a new language learning project

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Scott S. Lawton

trying to use Croquet for a new language learning project

I run a small company that is in the middle of a new project to create
software tools to help kids age 6-9 learn a second language. I
realize that Croquet is pre-alpha, so problems are to be expected.
Still, I hope the base is solid enough that we can create some great
demos.

I hired a summer intern who has been learning Squeak and going through
all the Croquet tutorials, but we are stuck on several issues. Dan
has outlined them here: http://vcosm.com/croquet/

Some help would be greatly appreciated. In return, we're happy to
write up the details of what we learn, e.g. turning our questions into
mini tutorials and sharing general-purpose code.

Briefly:

- if we start from an existing world and make a few changes, how do we
save them? Here's the exact steps we tried; http://vcosm.com/croquet/ChangeExistingWorld.html

- what's the best way to create a new empty world? We tried invoking
BaseWorld from Squeak: http://vcosm.com/croquet/CreateEmptyWorld.html

- after we drag a JPG into a world, how can we turn it into a static
object (without the manipulation frame)? How can we save it in the
world? http://vcosm.com/croquet/AddAPicture.html

- TPainter is cool ... can we load an image (or edit a JPG that we
dragged into the world)? Where in the source code should we look to
try to enhance the 2D-to-3D conversion? (which is a nifty feature
BTW). http://vcosm.com/croquet/UseTPainter.html

Help on these issues would be a great start, though we have a few
misc. questions here: http://vcosm.com/croquet/OtherQuestions.html

Thanks in advance,

Scott

Peter Moore-5

Re: trying to use Croquet for a new language learning project

- TPainter is cool ... can we load an image (or edit a JPG that we dragged into the world)?

Is this a feature of David Faught's CCPainter? David?

Peter B. Moore

Academic Computing - Office of Information Technology

University of Minnesota

[hidden email]

RichWhite

Re: trying to use Croquet for a new language learning project

On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 1:19 PM, Peter Moore <[hidden email]> wrote:
> - TPainter is cool ... can we load an image (or edit a JPG that we dragged
> into the world)?
CCPainter actually does allow for the loading of existing images...
Here is what David Faught has sent me in the past for replacing
TPainter with CCPainter.
http://www.nabble.com/CCPainter-to13039374.html#a13039374 .. and
others that may help -
http://www.nabble.com/forum/Search.jtp?query=CCPainter&local=y&page=0&forum=14182

It works very nice.

rich
-

David Faught

Re: trying to use Croquet for a new language learning project

Yes, these references for CCPainter are a good starting place. Thanks
Rich! I think some of the comments/instructions are on the wiki part
of the Jabberwocky PublicContributions repository too. Thanks Howard!

CCPainter allows loading and saving of some image formats, then from
CCPainter the image can be copied into the Croquet island either as
the contents of a 2D window, inflated to a 3D figure, or height-mapped
to a terrain.

Well, kind of. Actually the image file is copied asyncronously and
just a placeholder gets put into the island, but that's a whole other
story. The most recent version of CCPainter that I recall was made
for the KAT demo. I remember trying it with Cobalt, but don't
remember the results offhand. There are some effects of resizing the
image(s) to be powers-of-two dimensions that are present in the KAT
texture manager.

I know that some of the earlier demos from the Qwaq'ers allowed direct
drag-and-drop from the OS desktop, but I'm not sure if those still
work in the latest versions of Croquet.

Let me know if you need help with CCPainter.

Dave

On 7/24/08, Rich White <[hidden email]> wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 1:19 PM, Peter Moore <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > - TPainter is cool ... can we load an image (or edit a JPG that we dragged
> > into the world)?
> CCPainter actually does allow for the loading of existing images...
> Here is what David Faught has sent me in the past for replacing
> TPainter with CCPainter.
> http://www.nabble.com/CCPainter-to13039374.html#a13039374 .. and
> others that may help -
> http://www.nabble.com/forum/Search.jtp?query=CCPainter&local=y&page=0&forum=14182
>
> It works very nice.
>
> rich
> -
>

SergeStinckwich

Re: trying to use Croquet for a new language learning project

In reply to this post by Scott S. Lawton

Scott S. Lawton a écrit :

> I run a small company that is in the middle of a new project to create
> software tools to help kids age 6-9 learn a second language. I realize
> that Croquet is pre-alpha, so problems are to be expected. Still, I
> hope the base is solid enough that we can create some great demos.
>
> I hired a summer intern who has been learning Squeak and going through
> all the Croquet tutorials, but we are stuck on several issues. Dan has
> outlined them here: http://vcosm.com/croquet/
>
> Some help would be greatly appreciated. In return, we're happy to write
> up the details of what we learn, e.g. turning our questions into mini
> tutorials and sharing general-purpose code.
>
> Briefly:
>
> - if we start from an existing world and make a few changes, how do we
> save them? Here's the exact steps we tried;
> http://vcosm.com/croquet/ChangeExistingWorld.html
>
> - what's the best way to create a new empty world? We tried invoking
> BaseWorld from Squeak: http://vcosm.com/croquet/CreateEmptyWorld.html
>
> - after we drag a JPG into a world, how can we turn it into a static
> object (without the manipulation frame)? How can we save it in the
> world? http://vcosm.com/croquet/AddAPicture.html
>
> - TPainter is cool ... can we load an image (or edit a JPG that we
> dragged into the world)? Where in the source code should we look to try
> to enhance the 2D-to-3D conversion? (which is a nifty feature BTW).
> http://vcosm.com/croquet/UseTPainter.html
>
> Help on these issues would be a great start, though we have a few misc.
> questions here: http://vcosm.com/croquet/OtherQuestions.html
>

Hi Scott,

I'm not an expert in Croquet, but what you explain leave me think that
first of all, you need to learn a bit more how to use Squeak and his
tools like the debugger. My suggestion is first to read a book about
Squeak, for example you can download freely the "Squeak By Example" book
here : http://www.squeakbyexample.org/
An another way to learn more how to use the development tools of Squeak
is to find someone in your area who can you the tricks.
Lastly, you can also join the squeak-beginners mailing list to have
answser to your questions. Look here :
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners

With the help of the tools (debugger, method finder and method
implementors), you will easily see that the openInWorld method is not
implemented in any of the subclasses of SimpleWorldDemo. Morph
subclasses implement openInWorld, but SimpleWorldDemo is not a subclass
of Morph ...

BTW, to open the tools you can use shortcut like ALT-B, to open the
class browser.

Best regards,

--
Serge Stinckwich
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]
http://blog.doesnotunderstand.org/