"Yay!, Bee, See" (ABC) software

Ben Wiley Sittler bsittler at gmail.com
Mon Jan 5 10:39:00 EST 2009 

Such a system sounds great to me! If it's similar to the widget
formats supported by the Mac OS X's Dashboard, Konfabulator, and/or
Opera that would be even better, since it would tie into an existing
library of useful software. Basically, those use ZIP files with
various custom layouts, content-types and HTML. I have constructed a
widget package which worked in both Opera and Mac OS X's Dashboard,
and it was not too difficult (only the Content-Type varied, which I
handled using  symbolic link on my Apache server.)

-Ben

On Sun, Jan 4, 2009 at 7:28 PM, Wade Brainerd <wadetb at gmail.com> wrote:
> BTW, this activity is a perfect example of what I was talking about with my
> 'web-activity' and sugar.activity.activity.WebActivity class proposals.  You
> want a way to install it to the home screen, give it an icon, and have it
> launch seamlessly just like any other activity.
>
> As it is, I spent some time last month and ported Yay! Bee See to PyGTK so
> it would behave as a normal activity, but if we had the system I described
> in Sugar already, I wouldn't have done so.
>
> My link is http://dev.laptop.org/~wadeb/Yay!BeeSee-2.xo
>
> Best,
> Wade
>
> On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 4:39 PM, Ben Wiley Sittler <bsittler at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've been playing around with this a bit, and I still can't figure out
>> the xol files. When I download
>>
>> http://wiki.laptop.org/images/2/28/Yay-Bee-See-9.xol
>>
>> In Browse, it does get saved to the Journal, and when I start the xol
>> file from the Journal it launches Browse with the main HTML file from
>> the collection, and a subsequently launched "vanilla" Browse includes
>> "yay-bee-see" in the "images" section of the Library.
>>
>> However, even after I "keep" both the .xol file and the Browse
>> session, rebooting the machine causes yay-bee-see to disappear from
>> the images section of the Library (and the kept Browse session to show
>> a "File Not Found" message) until I open the .xol file again. Is this
>> intended/expected behavior?
>>
>> Is there some way to keep user-installed Library Collections installed
>> across reboots?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> -Ben
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 9:08 PM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Yes, that's a fine baseline.   As you point out, I had a hard time
>> > with the license field; enter what you like but please do include a
>> > full LICENSE file in the bundle that provides specific licenses (and
>> > attribution where required), image by image.
>> >
>> > If you download an xol file onto your xo from a webserver that has
>> > mimetypes set properly (such as w.l.o) it should automatically install
>> > itself into your Library/ directory.
>> >
>> > I don't know about that page not rendering properly on an XO; what
>> > version of Browse are you running?
>> >
>> > SJ
>> >
>> > On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 11:55 PM, Ben Wiley Sittler <bsittler at gmail.com>
>> > wrote:
>> >> Thanks!
>> >>
>> >> A few questions, though:
>> >>
>> >> 1. Is there any reason I shouldn't start with your version 2 .xol as
>> >> my baseline? I'd like to update it to use the new lower-resolution,
>> >> lower-quality images (which still look just fine on the XO-1 even in
>> >> greyscale high-resolution mode zoomed out to the 1px = 1px scale.)
>> >>
>> >> 2. Is there some way to install the .xol more user-friendly than just
>> >> unzipping it into the ~/Library directory?
>> >>
>> >> 3. I notice that in the description on the wiki for the bundle you
>> >> wrote "fdl text, pd, cc-by and cc-sa images". Some of the images are
>> >> cc-by-sa and fdl, too. Also, the HTML text is actually pd (or at least
>> >> it was in the version I released — of course you are welcome to
>> >> license copyrighted derivative versions however you like.)
>> >>
>> >> 4. And finally, is there some reason the OLPC wiki does not work right
>> >> when viewed from an XO-1? I had to go through URL-hacking contortions
>> >> to open that page in Browse (it just said the page was empty
>> >> otherwise.)
>> >>
>> >> Thanks, (and please pardon my ignorance!)
>> >> -Ben
>> >>
>> >> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 8:43 PM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >>>  Ben --
>> >>>
>> >>> When you're zipping up the directory, if you add a metadata file in
>> >>> this subpath:
>> >>>  library/library.info
>> >>>
>> >>> and give the resulting zip file the extension .xol, you'll have an XO
>> >>> library bundle.
>> >>>
>> >>> Here is a sample info file, with all required fields :
>> >>> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Image:Yay-bee-see-library.info
>> >>> Note that the 'name' field in the info file should match the name of
>> >>> the root directory.
>> >>>
>> >>> Our standard is to increment the version # in the metadata every time
>> >>> you make a change; that allows tools like Sugar's software updater
>> >>> know when there are newer versions of packages available to install.
>> >>>
>> >>> SJ
>> >>>
>> >>> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 7:31 PM, Ben Wiley Sittler
>> >>> <bsittler at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>>> yeah, i added a 1200x900 version with more agressive JPEG compression
>> >>>> which looks good both in color mode and in monochrome mode and is
>> >>>> only
>> >>>> 4 MiB or so:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> http://xent.com/~bsittler/yay-bee-see-olpc.zip
>> >>>>
>> >>>> hosted version:
>> >>>>
>> >>>> http://xent.com/~bsittler/yay-bee-see-olpc/index.html
>> >>>>
>> >>>> does that seem any faster?
>> >>>>
>> >>>> On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 3:26 PM, Gary C Martin <gary at garycmartin.com>
>> >>>> wrote:
>> >>>>> On 24 Nov 2008, at 17:21, Ben Wiley Sittler wrote:
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>> Hi,
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> I have just joined this list and read through the archives, but
>> >>>>>> could
>> >>>>>> not find anything similar. I also didn't find mention of anything
>> >>>>>> similar on the OLPC Wiki.
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> I recently wrote some software for use by my daughter on her OLPC.
>> >>>>>> It
>> >>>>>> runs inside the Browse activity, either locally using a "file:" URI
>> >>>>>> or
>> >>>>>> over the network. I don't know whether it will be of interest to
>> >>>>>> anyone else, but I have released the software to the public domain
>> >>>>>> and
>> >>>>>> packaged it along with scaled-down (1600x1200 or less) copies of
>> >>>>>> some
>> >>>>>> public-domain images and some copyrighted-but-free-to-redistribute
>> >>>>>> images under GFDL, and various Creative Commons Attribution-Share
>> >>>>>> Alike, Attribution, and Share Alike licenses. Individual
>> >>>>>> attribution
>> >>>>>> for each image is included in the application source code.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> Seems a great addition for the younger age range :-)
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> I did notice that even on a high specced laptop (1.5Ghz, 2Gb ram,
>> >>>>> broadband
>> >>>>> connection) the background image was very slow to display (until it
>> >>>>> had been
>> >>>>> cached locally).
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> One suggestion, 1600x1200 seems a bit large (even as a max size).
>> >>>>> For the
>> >>>>> XO, 800x600 (max!) would seem to be a fair max image size to save
>> >>>>> nand space
>> >>>>> and keep image quality. The XO screen is capable of 1200x900 in
>> >>>>> black/white,
>> >>>>> and 800x600 seems a reasonable number for it's colour resolution
>> >>>>> abilities:
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>        http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Display
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>> --Gary
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>> overview:
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> I wrote some software using DHTML (JavaScript, HTML and CSS.) It's
>> >>>>>> to
>> >>>>>> help learn letters and numbers, and is intended to be used with
>> >>>>>> adult
>> >>>>>> supervision and involvement. It is fairly easy to customize it to
>> >>>>>> use
>> >>>>>> different images and support different alphabets simply by editing
>> >>>>>> the
>> >>>>>> contents of the <style> element in the HTML file.
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> The software is very, very, very simple — it just echoes typed
>> >>>>>> letters
>> >>>>>> and numbers in a large, colorful font and shows a somewhat-relevant
>> >>>>>> background image for each one. The images are various freely-usable
>> >>>>>> ones I found on Wikipedia or in the Wikimedia Commons. View source
>> >>>>>> code for full copyright information for the associated images.
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> online version of the "Yay!, Bee, See" application:
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> http://xent.com/~bsittler/yay-bee-see.html
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> an archive of the application (ZIP, ~15 MiB) including all images:
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> http://xent.com/~bsittler/yay-bee-see.zip
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> blog post about it:
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> http://bsittler.livejournal.com/15244.html
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> background:
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> My daughter (who turns two this week) has been enjoying her OLPC
>> >>>>>> from
>> >>>>>> last year's G1G1 program much more than I expected she would
>> >>>>>> (originally I intended to wait until she was older and literate to
>> >>>>>> introduce her to the OLPC, but she seemed to treat it as a favorite
>> >>>>>> toy starting around the age of 18 months.) She likes the Record
>> >>>>>> activity (she calls it "Waving hand" and uses it like a
>> >>>>>> mirror-image
>> >>>>>> mirror,) Skype (not bundled, but she uses it to talk to and see
>> >>>>>> far-away family,) and listening to music (theclassicalstation.org).
>> >>>>>> She also likes pressing buttons, rotating the "ears" and screen,
>> >>>>>> and
>> >>>>>> opening and closing the laptop. However, she seems somewhat
>> >>>>>> frustrated
>> >>>>>> by not being able to do things on it for herself (or as she puts
>> >>>>>> it,
>> >>>>>> "do it self!",) so I thought I might write a small program where
>> >>>>>> her
>> >>>>>> keypresses give some feedback, and help reinforce her interest in
>> >>>>>> the
>> >>>>>> digits and letters of the alphabet (she loves being read to and
>> >>>>>> recognizes many letters and digits, but does not seem to understand
>> >>>>>> reading yet.)
>> >>>>>>
>> >>>>>> -Ben
>> >>>>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>>>> Devel mailing list
>> >>>>>> Devel at lists.laptop.org
>> >>>>>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/devel
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>> _______________________________________________
>> >>>> Devel mailing list
>> >>>> Devel at lists.laptop.org
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>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >
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