[Grassroots-l] [Olpc-open] First week at Nepal's Test Schools

[Tomeu Vizoso]

Big thanks to the community from Nepal, this information is
invaluable. I hope we'll get this kind of reports more and more often
from everywhere where the XOs are deployed. Some comment follow below.

On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 11:27 PM, Bryan Berry <bryan.berry at gmail.com> wrote:
[...]
> Wish List
>
>     1. Cursor, Cursor, Cursor. This is the main problem we have faced
>        so far. It is so disheartening to watch the kids trying to
>        navigate the cursor only to have it jump to a corner. If we
>        cannot find a solution to this problem, we may not be able to
>        get a meaningful outcome from this project. Having an external
>        USB mouse is not practical due to lack of desk space. OLPC
>        should consider adding pointing stick as an option for
>        navigation.

Regardless of what can be fixed in software or hardware regarding the
cursor, perhaps is there something that can be done in Sugar about it?
One idea may be improving keyboard navigation. Should this be improved
for the next release so the touchpad is not needed so much?

Kim, do you think this should be added to the roadmap for the august
release? We already have code for adding accelerators, we just need to
start using it everywhere in the UI.

>     2. On-screen volume indicator that shows what level the volume is
>        at when the volume buttons are pressed.

Martin Dengler has been kindly offering patches to add something
similar to the Frame. Eben, can you comment on this?

>     3. The frame should not automatically appear when the cursor is
>        moved to the sides or corners. This is quite unnecessary
>        especially since there already is the key on upper right hand
>        side of the keyboard to do get the frame to appear. I read that
>        this auto-frame feature can be disabled, but we have yet to test
>        it out here.

Yes, we realize this is a big usability problem everywhere, not just
in Nepal. It is as well something that could mitigate the jumpy cursor
problem. Kim, should this be added to the roadmap?

[...]

Thanks,

Tomeu