Re: [kidsgames] Linux Letters and Numbers

[pkienzle@kienzle.powernet.co.uk (Paul Kienzle)]

>I FINALLY GOT SOMETHING TO WORK!!!!!!
>
>After installing ALL of Gnome for Potato (Debian Version 2.2), I found
>that I STILL could NOT compile either Linux Letters and Numbers or
>Stickers.  This was highly frustrating to say the least.
>
>I FINALLY discovered that my machine did not have the proper imlib stuff.
>After installing the gdk-imlib-dev debian package....
>
>apt-get install gdk-imlib-dev
>
>for those of you on debian,  they both compile and run fine....
>
>Ok, so now down to what I think.
>
>First, this thing is GREAT!   My son (Mercer 3.5) was enjoying it today...
>He was able to get the pictures on the screen and say "Hey Daddy! Look!  A
>giraffe!!!" and the like....  Thanks to Kirk Ismay for this kids game.
>
>He had some trouble with the keyboard in that he did not want to let go of
>the key he was pressing and the program just cycled through picture after
>picture and usually by the time he let go it had gone away....  He's not
>very proficient with the mouse yet, so that was not really an option for
>him....

See http://users.powernet.co.uk/lletters-0.1.7pak.tar.gz

>
>Things I wanted it to do, was to SAY the word along with the picture to
>reinforce the word.  One of the reason for this is because pictures have
>many aspects to them that can be focused on, that may make the child
>confused.  A case in point.  The Xray picture is understandable a
>skeleton, which is exactly what my son called it when it came up on the
>screen.  It was difficult to explain that yes that was a skeleton but that
>the symbol was an X for Xray....
>
>My daughter (Clare, 6) wanted it to make sounds associated with the
>picture, such as the trumpeting of an elephant, and the sound of an apple
>falling to the ground for the apple (not sure if that would really relate
>or not).  One could easily expand that notion to animated/real film clips
>of the object in action.
>
>If I knew the coding aspects of where to put it I would very much like to
>put sound support (even something as rudimentary as "cat Balloon.au >
>/dev/audio") in there....

See http://users.powernet.co.uk/lletters-0.1.7pak.tar.gz

>
>Things that I think would make this program even better:
>
>a) multi-language support so my children can easily hear
>and see foriegn language alphabets and vocabulary....

Unless you want a symlink forest, you will need to add a control
file which associates sounds, pictures and words.  Meanwhile you
can fake it by pointing foreign-named image to the existing english
named image.  Indeed, I do that already for things like 8Eight_Legs.png
pointing to Octopus.png, and having 8Eight_Legs.wav saying "Eight legs
on the octopus".

>
>b) bunches of pictures and sounds so that it has a myriad of
>words to learn.

I think the whole notion of pretending that computers can teach language
is bogus.  It is as bad as Sesame Street pretending to teach prepositions.
If the kid can't figure it out from the language environment himself, then
fat chance a non-human teacher (TV or computer) is going to be able to
help him.

>
>c) make the words it chooses from come from a user selected (or
>parent/teacher selectable) list.  

Again, it needs a resource file mapping words, letters and sounds.

>
>d) make it display words with the same beginning letter in alphabetical
>order cycling back to the first one when done.

Agreed!  Though maybe using a random permutation, but going through an
entire permutation before starting the next.

>
>e) give it a configuration panel, to allow choosing things like sound
>support, random vs. alphabetical display, where data is located, etc.

Suggestions for accessing the configuration panel?  The way I do it
in stickers is very shoddy.  Secret parent keys?

>
>f) have a program to gather the pictures and sounds together.  Gimp works
>to make pictures to a degree and perhaps maybe just a plugin to gimp for
>specifically manipulating the files for this game is in order.

It seems to me that limited efforts would best be directed elsewhere.

>
>g) instead of storing the files in the filesystem, and using their names
>to decide how to display them, I think it would be best if they came out
>of a database.  This would preferable be the database we've talked about
>before and that Brian Thompson has started working on and actually has a
>Starbase database started.  It hasn't made it to the list because it is
>too big :)  As soon as I can get it done I will start an area on
>sourceforge.net and place that database into the cvs there....

I'm a fan of separate but shareable.  As soon as you need many components
to get any component to work, you are asking for trouble.  The amount
of hassle I've encountered just for using Imlib is ridiculous.  BTW, my
understanding is that gdkrbg is now as fast or faster than imlib for
display, so it isn't strictly needed.  Of course, that doesn't solve
the image loading problem.  gdkpixbuf is supposed to do that, but it
is buried deep within gnome, and is therefore a pain to use unless you
already happen to have a development version of gnome kicking around.
As I was saying about separate but shareable...

>
>There are myriad advantages to using a database for this, including
>it can be both local and served from a main repository, this means that
>you can add personal lexicon information to your local database without
>publishing it to the world, and still have access to all the data that HAS
>been published to the world at large...the database can more easily keep
>track of what data goes with what... i.e. the program just requests the
>a picture of a word starting with X and it gets one, without having to
>look in the local share directory.  Publishing data that becomes
>quickly available to programs using this database without requiring
>modification to the programs is much easier.  It could even be done
>via a web form I think...  This same picture
>can be used by another program without having to know anything about the
>/usr/local/share/lletters/images directory....
>
>I'm sure there are drawbacks to using a database, but I'm not yet sure
>what they are....
>
>I hope this will spur some discussion and perhaps bring some more people
>to our project....
>
>Kirk, again, thank you for this wonderful program.
>
>Kirk PLEASE join us on the kidsgames mailing list (subscribe kidsgames in
>the body of a message to majordomo@smluc.org) to discuss this and other
>aspects of kidsgames.  You can review the mailing list archive at
>http://seul.org/archives/kidsgames and read a little more about the
>project at http://smluc.org/SIA/kidsgames/
>
>Thanks
>
>Jeff Waddell
>Kidsgames Project Coordinator
>
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