Projects/SqueaklandTesters

This is the site for Squeakland's Testing Team.

Below is the contributor's proposal for this project:

Name of Project: Squeakland Etoys Testing

Cherry Withers begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting (Team Representative) cwithers@ekindling.org

Number of Laptops (or other hardware) You Request to Borrow: 4

Loan Length—How Many Months: 3 months

Team Participants

Stephen Thomas: sthomas1@gosargon.com

Randy Caton: rcaton@cnu.edu

Kathleen Harness: kharness@illinois.edu

Developer guidance will come from Bert Freudenberg begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting : bert@freudenbergs.de

Employer and/or School: Squeakland Foundation

Past Experience/Qualifications:

The people above are members of Squeakland’s education team and have been teaching and creating content in Etoys for a significant amount of time. Some of their work is being (will be) used in deployments such as Haiti and Philippines. Short BIOS can be found on http://www.squeakland.org/about/people/

Objectives

Project Objectives: Note: Currently, there is no dedicated user testers/group for Squeakland. The education team, being the most active in the Squeakland community has been put to task to test the Etoys program prior to its release.

The main objective of this project is to do a rigorous test of the beta version of Etoys against the planned release of Sugar and XO 1.5.

Plan of Action

Plan and Procedure for Achieving the Stated Objectives:

Install beta versions of new Etoys release against planned production release of Sugar and XO 1.5. Test projects that were used in older versions of Etoys and run them in new release to make sure that they still work accordingly. Test new changes in Etoys and other GSOC additions on the program. Follow a test plan set forth by Squeakland's developer team.

Needs

Why is this project needed? There is currently no dedicated user testers for Etoys. Projects and content (some of which already used in Pilots in places such as Haiti) that were done using older versions of Etoys need to be tested against the new version. Historically, projects that were done on older versions of the program undergo some changes when run on newer versions. The Squeakland team would like to know of these problems to document them properly and to make the necessary changes prior to the new version’s release.

Locally? In the greater OLPC/Sugar community? Etoys is widely used globally. It is one of the major activities in Sugar and OLPC.

Outside the community? Etoys is also used in different systems and OS and is run on USB using its Etoys-To-Go format, which will also include the new changes.

Why can't this project be done in emulation using non-XO machines? While Etoys can run in different machines, there are inherent dependencies with Etoys and the hardware used to run it. There is a need to test Etoys with the new hardware particularly the user interface because it heavily relies on a child’s input (screen resolution, trackpad responsiveness, voice recording, etc.). Projects that were done using the older version may need to be adjusted and projects that will be created need to be done with the hardware’s constraints in mind.

Why are you requesting the number of machines you are asking for?

Will you consider (1) salvaged/rebuilt or (2) damaged XO Laptops?

We need full coverage testing of the tool to make sure we cover all the bases. Each member of this team has used Etoys in projects that they designed personally and each have utilized parts of the program that the other person may not have. The new version of Etoys is planned to be released at the same time as the Sugar release. We would prefer not to work with damaged hardware as we currently don’t have a whole lot of expertise to deal with the issues.

Sharing Deliverables

Project URL—where you'll Blog specific ongoing progress:

Please web-publish this entire completed proposal, removing any sections affecting your personal privacy. Ask if you want help -- communicating with our OLPC/Sugar global community is core!

Any progress/bugs found will be posted on Squeakland’s community list as well as its bug tracking page (which is also public)

Bug Tracking: http://tracker.squeakland.org/

How will you convey tentative ideas & results back to the OLPC/Sugar community, prior to completion? Yes, it will be posted on http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Development_Team/Release/Modules#etoys-activity

eToys-activity

Lead Maintainer: Bert Freudenberg

Co-maintainers: Squeakland developers

Code Repository: http://dev.laptop.org/git/projects/etoys/

Release tarballs: http://download.sugarlabs.org/sources/sucrose/fructose/Etoys/

Bug Tracking: http://tracker.squeakland.org/

Home page: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Etoys, Activities/Etoys

How will the final fruits of your labor be distributed to children or community members worldwide? Etoys release follows the Sugar release roadmap. The tested version of Etoys will be released along with the new Sugar release.

Will your work have any possible application or use outside our community?

Yes

Have you investigated working with nearby XO Lending Libraries or Project Groups?

No.

Quality/Mentoring

Would your Project benefit from Support, Documentation and/or Testing people?

Teachers' input into Usability?

How will you promote your work?

Can we help you with an experienced mentor from the OLPC/Sugar community? (WEB-PUBLISHED)

If YES: specify the kind of Ongoing Mentoring that will benefit you most.

If NO: specify who will help you share your progress, creations & results.

No. We will document our progress on an Etoys user manual as we go along, which is also open source and freely available to the community. Promotion of the work will be done on Squeakland’s site as well as various OLPC/Sugar related mailing list.

Timeline (Start to Finish)

Please include a Proposed timeline for your Project life-cycle: (this can be in the form of Month 1, Month 2, etc rather than specific dates)

Please see the Etoys development team’s site above. After the 3 months the XOs will be used to create content using Etoys. There has been on-going requests for Health, Science and Math content development. Both Randy and Stephen are involved with OLPC-health and Cherry for eKindling’s content development.

Specify how you prefer to communicate your ongoing progress and obstacles! Along with this wiki: Bug Tracking: http://tracker.squeakland.org/ Home page: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Etoys, Activities/Etoys

Getting Started

Make sure that you have the latest firmware (at least Q3E44) and the latest release of Sugar.

Instructions on getting the latest release of the Firmware http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Firmware

Instructions on upgrading to the latest release of Sugar http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Release_notes/10.1.2

Instructions from Bert on upgrading Etoys:

To get the latest version, follow the instructions below. This version is not released. This should install version 4.1.2382 which I made today (August 19, 2010), and which is the reason for my delayed response.

http://etoys.laptop.org/

You need to be connected to the internet. In the Terminal activity type:

wget etoys.laptop.org/etoys-beta.repo  
su 
cp etoys-beta.repo /etc/yum.repos.d/
yum upgrade etoys

then follow the directions.

Test Plan

This is the initial test plan. Changes will be made as testing commences.

Part A - This part is a sanity check to make sure that loading of Etoys, opening, saving in the Journal, and running from the Journal work.

Part B - This is to check that all projects in the Projects Gallery work. This test entail just running the projects and check that they behave accordingly.

Part C - Checks to see the limits of Sugar and XO 1.5 in running Etoys along side multiple Sugar activities.

Part D - Tests Etoys against the hardware.

Part E - Test Etoys sharing mode. Make sure that two or more XOs share the same Sugar versions.

Part F - Tests what the limitations are of Etoys and XO 1.5 processing

Part G - Mainly to test parallel process of Etoys and its limits using Kedama/Particles

Part H - GSOC additions. Need to be expanded.

Part I - Dr. Geo

Part J - Known Idiosyncrasies with Etoys

Procedures

a) At least two tester's initials are needed to check-off an item on the list.
b) If the test went well, please put "good(Initial)" on the comments box.
c) If you're unsure if an issue is a bug. Please check: http://wiki.squeakland.org/display/sq/Bug+Tracking for existing bugs.
If you don't have time to check please put "Pending tracker check" on the bugs column. Another tester can verify for you and make the changes to comments on that line item.
d) For any potential issues, please put your text in a different color. RED of you want to get it noticed right away. Please always put your initial first and then the comment or issue.
e) If you can, please put in some updates on the "Notes" section of this wiki.

f) Have fun and thank you for your support!

Notes

August 18, 2010

- Got the XO 1.5 by mail. Downloaded the latest release of Sugar. Very fast and the trackpad is very responsive. Now comes the confusing part. Where/How do I download the latest Etoys version and where do I untar it?

1st Week (August 18-22)

- "Smoke" test of Etoys 4.0.2339 on the stock build that came with XO 1.5 proved troublesome(The build is 201 Customized.) Exhibited: http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/9527#comment:7

- Comments from ST & RC (before build 851): Camera freezes and no audio and video record when Etoys is running.

- Comments from RC (after Sugar was updated to the 851 build):"I updated my firmware and build. Record works fine now as an application for video and audio. The mouse pad is flakey for me - the cursor suddenly jumps half a page away - is it my big fingers? Does anyone else have that problem? I didn't have it as bad on my G1G1. I use a USB mouse. Regarding Etoys:

1. When I use Sound Recorder with Voice Compression, I am cut off after 1.5 seconds. It is okay with the other compressions. It isn't a problem on my Mac. It isn't in the bug tracker with a search for Sound Recorder. Does anyone else have this problem?

2. When I try to pull out a Camera object from the catalog, Etoys freezes (3 for 3)."

- RC: "I have been working with sharing between my grandson's XO-1.0 and the XO-1.5. It works fine in English, but get messed up if you change languages." Response from Bert: http://tracker.squeakland.org/browse/SQ-126 we know about it. It should work if the language is changed before sharing (which is the normal case).
- RC: I tried changing the language to German first. Chat worked fine, but when I dropped an object onto the badge, the language changed to English.

2nd Week (August 23-29)
- CW: Added more items on the Test Plan. Includes separating XO 1.0/851 builds vs. XO 1.5/851 builds. Tested basic functionality of older Etoys 4.0.2339. Will attempt to install new build after all of "smoke" tests A-C are done.

User Interface Feedback for Gallery of Projects:

1) BetterMovieUI.pr: The symbols on the controls are very hard to see on the XO screen. Maybe make these controls bigger and have them color coded along with the universal symbols. "Press the red button" is less of a mouthful than "Press the button that has two parallel lines for pause" (especially if this is being translated in a second language).

2) BallDropAnalysis.pr: The blue ball doesn't have a reset button. For people who are seeing these projects and Etoys for the first time it creates some confusion on how to get that blue ball back.

3) FishAndPlankton.pr: The buttons could be color coded as well (please see explanation on comment 1).

POSSIBLE Bug on Etoys: The Sound Recorder object records only a fraction of a second of audio. This is not the case for the Record Activity in Sugar. Will check out the problem in Etoys 4.1

3rd Week (August 29 - September 3)
- CW, AS: Sound Recorder in Etoys only records Audio for a maximum of 1.63 seconds. CW changed compression and found that Speex is the only setting that doesn't work.

- RC: Still experiencing freezes with Etoys when Record is running. He has the 4.1.2384, Sugar 852, Firmware(??). CW & AS do not see the same results so far.

- CW: Tested sharing between XO 1.0 and XO 1.5 today. Forgot to update my XO 1.0 to 4.1.2384. Sharing still worked when the XO 1.5(with 4.1.2384) was the source.

- CW: Errors on playing Demon Castle game:
This message appears during the part of the game where you resize the key to fit the keyhole. When you try to click the door, the following error pops up:
"MessageNotUnderstood:AnObsoletePlayer6979106170120156>>next" "An error has occurred; you should probably just hit "abandon". Sorry!"

Hitting abandon just results on the same window popping up. Same results happen when clicking the door on the bottom. You then can't progress on the game any more.
- CW: Getting this error when clicking on TurtleGeometry:

"Reading an instance of TimesRepeatMorph. Which modern class should it translate to?" - CW: Can't update Etoys to 4.1.2384 on an XO 1.0 machine. This message appears:

"Error Downloading Packages: etoys-4.1.2384-1.noarch: Insufficient space in download directory /var/cache/yum/olpc-etoys/packages. Needed 52M".

4th Week (September 4-10)
- RC: Often when I go to use the automatic software update under My Settings in Sugar, I get the message "Could not access the network to check for updates." But I an connected according when I look in the Neighborhood. Also I was connected before trying the check. I try many times and still get the same message. The only way to fix it is reboot. It seems like a bug to me.