Re: [kidsgames] the webpage

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

>stickers Paul this thing is GREAT!!!!!!  It needs work, but WOW.... I like
>it and my daughter does too :)
>
>	things to do with it (besides what Paul already has on his todo
>		list :).
>
>		From Clare: the barn scene needs a feed trough as well as
>			a water trough.  (optional) Sounds to go with the
>			stickers, and sound help to activate when hovering
>			over a button.

Tanya and I had arguments about this.  She figured sounds would be
distracting.  I think sounds can make up for a design deficiency (you
can't actually tell when a sticker has been stuck).  In the end, it was
more work to add sound than not, and my weekend hack turned into a two
week hack so I opted to leave sound out.  I have written a routine which
reads in .wav files and plays them on the /dev/dsp.  It is very easy
to drop into a program.  However, sound is best handled through a sound
server, preferably the same one for all other applications on your system,
and prefereably one that is network aware.  I tried running esound 0.2.8,
but couldn't get it to compile.  I don't know if it is network aware.
Any idea which sound server is "winning"?  I.e., which one we should
standardize on?

>			The fish need to have an ocean background instead
>			of the grass one they have now :)

Maternity leave is coming up soon.  You can expect more artistic
development then.

>		From me:  needs a way to save the drawing (seems to do
>				this sort of automatically but segfaults if
>				I pick what it seems to have
>				saved, perhaps an oversite on my part?)
>			  needs a way to print, I don't like wasting
>				trees, but showing off their work it important
>				to kids, perhaps a virtual
>				fridge to pin it to.... ;)  we mentioned
>				the online gallery before it would be good
>				to integrate that capability in
>				now I think.

The drawings are saved in your directory in a file name and format
controlled by the configuration window.  You can use image magic or
the gimp to print them.  As for integrating printing into stickers,
it would be easy enough to add a control button underneath the other
scene control buttons to print the scene that you are working on, 
but short of saving it to a temporary file and piping it through some
image printing program (which one?) I don't know how to get it to a
printer (or into an e-mail to grandma).

>
>			  would be nice if the objects in panels were more
>				obvious (i.e. I didn't know there were
>				multiple stickers on one tab for a while)

Feel free to send more intuitive icons.  Particularly for "restore sticker
properties" since nobody recognizes the boomerang.

>			  needs to have shapes scene where the images are
>				just simple square, circle, rectangle,
>				triangle, etc. (i'm working on it,
>				I think I can do that...)

And various brush shapes.

>			barnyard needs horses and goats, and the chicken
>				default size should be smaller ;)
>
>			It would be wonderful to have a scene builder
>			application where it would be easy to add the
>			base scene and the png
>			sticker's to go with it, would a gimp plugin
>			be a way to go here, or
>			should it be a stand alone type thing?
>			I intend to try some real pictures as stickers and
>			see how it works.

I really need to add alpha support for photos to work well. Otherwise, the
edges will be too harsh.  They will work better than the 16 colour images
I liberated from Sesame Street Art Workshop however.

>
>			Anyway, a big round of applause and thank you to
>			Paul and Tanya and their son have made an EXCELLENT
>			start.  Get this and start adding to the scenery
>				;) or just use what's already there....

Now as soon as life stops interfering I can do some more work on stickers
(and an animated story book and a voice trainer and a foreign accent 
trainer and so on...).

Paul Kienzle
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