Re: EDUML, small footprints, and Kid's UIs (was Re: intranets)

[Malonowa <malonowa@wanadoo.fr>]

Doug Loss wrote:

> On Mon, 05 Jul 1999 13:33:55 +0200, Malonowa <malonowa@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> >
>
> I was thinking about At Ease, big icons, big cursors, and a Kid's UI.

What's At Ease?

> I
> recently set up a system for my parents (in their mid-70s) using Linux and
> WindowMaker.  The WM Dock has room for ~8-12 fairly large buttons along the
> right side of the screen (it depends on the screen resolution).  With proper
> selection of icons and a suitable lockdown of config files, this might be just
> the UI for kids.  I know it was simple enough for even someone not
> computer-literate or interested like my father to use (my mother is
> considerably more interested in these things).  Or we could consider AfterStep,
> which looks similar but has configurable roll-out submenus on various buttons
> on the Wharf (the Dock under a different name).  Both of these are generally
> enough used that support is easy to find, and may obviate the need to develop a
> special Kid's UI.  I don't know what the foot-print of either of them is,
> although I've heard WindowMaker called "slim."  If the big cursor in X can be
> used with either they'd probably be my first choice for a window manager.

I think my first choice on new computers would be Enlightenment because it's
possible to configure it extensively. I will be looking into this. I don't know
what it runs like on older computers though.

I think one big problem with the older machines is that if a window manager like
Enlightenment doesn't offer good performance then software in general may not
either - a lot of the software will probably use the same libraries.

Incidentally, I never hear anyone mentioning QT here. This is an excellent library
and developers of KDE seem very productive. Getting a few of them on-board wouldn't
do us any harm.

A parent mailed me last week. He's got a TK app. launcher and was looking at ways
of modifying window managers to make them suitable for his 3 and 6 year olds. I'll
be following this up.

I think we could do with easy file managers as well for teachers and slightly older
pupils.

Here's a little story:

In England there's a company called Acorn Computers they have an Arm Risc computer
running an OS they call RiscOS. It's cool. Now Acorn always had its roots in
education since the BBC Model B in 1981. So when they developed RiscOS it was
concieved to be powerful but easy enough for teachers and students to work with.

The file manager is very easy to use. Microsoft was known to have some Acorn's at
their offices in England. Why? Who knows. But the simple file manager in Windows is
much like the Acorn one but not as good. Now I'm not saying that Microsoft copied
RiscOS in any way....

I also very much like the way RiscOS wraps it's applications into directories. I'll
be doing this with my apps. It makes installation and removal very easy. I very
rarely have installation problems with the RiscOS stuff  but windows - my god.

Roman.