DrGeo
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Dr. Geo II is a complete rewrite of Dr. Geo 1.1 GTK for the Squeak/Smalltalk environment. Dr. Geo is a project of the OFSET, Organisation for Free Software in Education and Teaching. See DrGeo 1.1 GTK page to know more about it..
Currently, loading Dr. Geo II is slow because it is shipped in source code form and compiled at load time by the OLPC Squeak/Smalltalk. It is a limitation of the Squeak/Etoys environment provided with the XO machine, not from DrGeo II. In future we hope to provide pre-compiled version for shorter load time. The DrGeo II bundles for normal workstation does not suffer from this problem.
What's new?
As of 12 of August 2008, Hilaire implemented the following features:
- macro-construction, see Hilaire's article Macro-construction presented
- Smalltalk script, see Hilaire's articles Fun with Smalltalk script and More fin with Smalltalk script
You can also review the screencasts below to know more about these new features.
What is Dr. Geo? What is interactive geometry?
(From the Dr. Geo 1.1 website) Dr. Geo allows one to create geometric figure plus the interactive manipulation of such figure in respect with their geometric constraints. It is usable in teaching situation with students from primary or secondary level.
Dr. Geo integrates advanced features as an integrated Smalltalk programming language to define scripts within a figure. The language is also used to define functionally interactive figure.
DrGeoII is an interactive geometry framework, Morphic-based and Smalltalk programmed, which can be embedded and mixed with any existing Morph user interface element of the Squeak OLPC environment. It is a rewrite from scratch of Dr. Geo 1.1. However Dr. Geo II is capable to read and write to the Dr. Geo 1.1 XML file format. The examples included in the XO bundle are xml file.
As the confusion between interactive geometry and vector drawing is very common, Hilaire has produced many screencast demonstrating the use of the framework and its integration in the Morph UI.
How to use DrGeoII? (video screencast)
Hilaire has prepared more than 50 video screencasts about DrGeoII. These videos are encoded in the DVD PAL resolution on the free Ogg/Theora format, so it is perfectly viewable with the XO laptops. The screencasts demonstrate:
See the OFSET web site for the overall information page http://community.ofset.org/index.php/Screencast_DrGeo
Need some help?
To install DrGeoII, you just need to install from Browse the XO file from [2]. The bundle comes with a few examples ready to load (one-click-load)
How to install if it fails from Browse?
In the transition to the latest XO software release, some people have had trouble downloading and installing the Dr. Geo II bundle. If installation through Browse activity fails, try the following steps:
From the Terminal activity, remove any previous Dr. Geo II bundle:
rm -rf /home/olpc/Activities/DrGeoII.activity
Restart Sugar by pressing simultaneously Ctrl+Alt+Erase so Sugar takes notice of the removal. Then from the terminal activity do:
wget http://download.gna.org/istoa/drgeo/DrGeoII.xo sugar-install-bundle DrGeoII.xo
It will install the bundle in /home/olpc/Activities, if /home/olpc/Activities does not exist and Sugar complains about that, you can create it first:
mkdir /home/olpc/Activities
I don't have an XO, can I use Dr. Geo II?
Yes, and you are encouraged to do so.
For now I am offering a Linux, Windows and MacOSX ready to use version at http://download.gna.org/istoa/drgeo.
How to contact the authors?
We are hooked to the mailing lists below. Any mail to one of this mailing list about DrGeoII will reach us:
- In the general ofset's discussion list ofset@ofset.org, free subscription at http://lists.ofset.org/subscribe/ofset
- In the Squeakland mailing list http://www.squeakland.org/mailman/listinfo/squeakland
- In the Etoys mailing list at http://mailman.laptop.org/mailman/listinfo/etoys
Localisation
DrGeoII is internationalized (it requires joyride>=1620 for localisation to work). To provide more translation, download the DrGeoII.pot file at the DrGeoII forge, copy it as xx.po (with xx your locale), translate and send it to hilaire [AT] ofset.org.
What is not finished Dr. Geo II?
The DrGeo activity port need to be finished and improved in different areas.
Parts to be written
DrGeoII is now feature complete. It is now about improving the quality of the existing features.
Parts to improve
- improve the load time, the load time is now unacceptable for the user and make DrGeo unadapted for the OLPC.
- define a journal type entry to save/load.
- improve the user interface, particularly the access to the construction tools.
- improve the locus sampling, it is by now suboptimal.
Future plan
In the early day of DrGeoII development, I implemented shape recognition. It was very basic and the user could draw circle by handwriting, move/zoom in the whole geometric sketch with specific gestures. I would like to go further.
Other suggestions for improvements, see the DrGeo tracker.
Sponsorship
Dr. Geo II was partly sponsored by TOP, the Taiwan Open Source Project, with funding from the Ministry of Economy, Taiwan. TOP is a jointly managed project by Gjun Information Co.,Ltd., STEPS, and Software Liberty Association, Taiwan (SLAT).
If you are interested to provide support for additional and custom development, contact hilaire [AT] ofset.org.