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[school-discuss] Tux Paint for computer programming students



I wanted to make a short pre-release announcement about the next version
of Tux Paint (my OSS drawing app for young kids).  Note: This is directed to
folks here who are teaching _older_ kids computer programming.  (Versus my
typical audience: people using Tux Paint with younger kids for art and other
subjects.)

The next version of Tux Paint (0.9.18), due out {I'm not sure when}, will
include a plugin feature, similar to what more professional graphics
programs like The GIMP have.

For those of you familiar with Tux Paint, it's "Magic" tools (blur, smudge,
rainbow brush, etc.) are no longer part of the Tux Paint application.
They are now shared objects (on Linux, ".so" files) that are loaded at
runtime.  This means that new Magic tools can be developed and tested
quickly, and an intimate familiarity with the internals of Tux Paint
("tuxpaint.c", specifically) is no longer necessary.

Along with making it easier on _myself_ (I've already created over a half
dozen new Magic tools for v.0.9.18), my fantasy is that older students who
want to play around with graphics programming (specifically, the bit twiddling
kind of stuff that a Magic tool does) will now be able to use Tux Paint as
a sort of 'development platform.' :)

What do people think?  Am I crazy?  Or have I sparked anyone's curiosity?

In the meantime, I've been working on whipping together documentation on the
Tux Paint Magic tool plugin API, which you can read directly via CVS at the
following link (sorry, it's long):

  http://tuxpaint.cvs.sourceforge.net/*checkout*/tuxpaint/tuxpaint/magic/docs/html/README.html

I'd love some suggestions on how to make this more usable by high school
students (or possibly create a separate 'Tutorial', and let the current docs
remain as a more general 'Reference').

Thanks in advance!

-- 
-bill!
bill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/