[Etoys] The Event Roll

[Scott Wallace]

Hi, Alan, and all,

The first alpha release of a new event-tape-editing tool, called the  
"Event Roll", has now been published to the etoys/olpc2.0 update stream.

Click on the magenta "?" buttons on the Event-Theatre and the Event- 
Roll to obtain instructions and hints.  The text of these help  
messages could still stand improvement, but may be adequate for  
getting started.

A few important things to know and watch out for in this initial  
release:

(1)  To get the halo on any token in an Event Roll, hold down the  
SHIFT key as you halo-click on it.

(2)  Do *NOT* overlap mouse-event-sequence tokens in an Event Roll.   
It's fine to move them or resize them, just don't let any two of them  
overlap, since once the time-stamps of unrelated mouse event get  
mixed together, it is impossible to separate the individual sequences  
again.   I'll bulletproof against this in January.

(3)  The event-theatre work at present does not play nicely with  
event-recordings that span multiple projects, nor even with nested  
invocations of event-theatre-based playbacks.  These loose ends will  
also be addressed in January.  For multi-project event-tapes, please  
continue to use the "traditional" event-recorder (rather than an  
"event theatre,") and, for now, in such event recordings do not mix  
event-theatre-based sequences with other event recordings.  Sorry  
about this limitation -- hopefully it can be sorted out in the new year.

(4)  To *move* an event-roll, alt-drag it.  Or, to drag it without  
using a modifier key, pick it up by clicking on the area near the  
left edge where you see the "mouse", "keyboard", and "media" words

(5)  The "keyboard" track at present only deals with *keystrokes* --  
not with individual key-down and key-up events.  This is because the  
underlying event-recorder mechanism for capturing key-down and key-up  
information seems quite inconsistent and unreliable.

(6)  After you've made an event-recording, if you want to add  
voiceovers you can do it in either of two ways:

   [a]  Play back the recording with the "sound" panel open (triangle  
control at bottom-right of event-theatre); once you start playback, a  
button will appear in the sound panel offering the opportunity to  
record voiceover.  Hit it when you wish, and record your voiceover;  
hit "stop recording voiceover" when you're done.  You can do this  
multiple times per pass through the event tape if desired, and you  
can can make multiple passes through the tape.  Every voiceover you  
record will appear in the Media track of the Event Roll at the  
appropriate place.  You can remove an unwanted voiceover by just  
picking up its token in the event roll and dragging it out.

   [b]  Alternatively, use a separate, traditional, Squeak "Sound  
Recorder" to record a snippet of voiceover.  It may help to play back  
the event tape as you do this.  When done with a sound snippet, use  
the "Morph" button on the sound-recorder to get a little rectangular  
"sound morph" that represents the sound; drop that little rectangle  
where you want the voiceover to appear in the event roll.


I will be out of town, and probably mostly (or entirely) away from  
internet connectivity, until the first weekend in January.  I invite  
my colleagues Takashi and Yoshiki to support and improve these tools  
in any way they wish, if they have time and inclination; in any case,  
once I am back I will pick up the pieces of this work, and will try  
to deal quickly with bugs and other issues that have arisen in the  
meantime.

Cheers,

   -- Scott