Help Activity refresh

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A place to collect ideas, info & resources for the refresh of Help Activity and associated web/paper manual. Bookmark http://j.mp/xomanual to help!

April 2012 Sprint Schedule / Goals

Initial planning occurred Friday October 21st, 2011 from 10AM to 4 PM at the Kleider home in Bolinas, California.

While draft & final cuts were desired for 2011, 2012 became more realistic.

An actual community doc sprint in Boston/Cambridge is likely for the 5 days of Apr 6-10 to tighten/wrap this up, to be held at the OLPC Foundation's headquarters in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. Please join us to celebrate giving back, and meet OLPC engineers if you do, over a most unique Passover and Easter!

Our aim is to freshen up (1) http://laptop.org/manual (2) http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Activities/Help and ideally (3) a paper book too!

Our work will center on Release 11.3.1 especially, expected early in 2012, running on the XO-1, XO-1.5 and XO-1.75. Claudia Urrea suggests we avoid complex activities like Etoys, Scratch etc -- instead mixing up 2008's Activity list beyond the classic 4 {Record, Browse, Write, Turtle Art} to consider newly popular ones like FotoToon.

Our English screenshots will of course complicate translation, but Pablo Flores/Walter Bender have hope, using SVG (eg. during an Uruguayan translation jam @ eduJAM! May 7-12, 2012?) George Hunt has great ideas to automate screenshots, possibly using gtk-gnome regression tools.

We will have an absolute blast. Active contribution will be required, as we are already approaching capacity. All logistics/housing/travel must be self-organized and self-paid.

holt@laptop.org and other locals will provide Cambridge-area discount lodging tips where they can, if you're a genuine contributor.

Documentation design will be centered around the library@lists.laptop.org mailing list.

Activity Central may provide a small amount of sponsorship to the effort, strictly at their discretion.

Huge thanks to Caryl Bigenho, Christoph Derndorfer, Pablo Flores & others continuing to push us steadily forward!

Current Help Activity Contents

You will notice some sections below with (???) after them. We are still looking for volunteers to work on those sections. If you would like to join with one of the other volunteers who is already working on one of the sections, please add your name and contact the person so you can coordinate your work!

  • Introduction (Introduction, About OLPC, What is Sugar, How to Volunteer) (Christoph Derndorfer & Adam Holt)
  • Getting Started (Getting Started, Opening the XO, Ports, Battery Charging, Starting the XO, Keyboard) (Tony Anderson Mark Battley)
  • Interface (About the User Interface, Home View, Activity View, Neighborhood View, Group View, The Frame, The Journal) (Tony Anderson and Mark Battley)
  • Activities (What is an Activity, Launching Activities, Switching Views, Collaborating, Exiting Activities, Installing Activities, Activity Sampler) (Tony Anderson and Mark Battley)
  • Network (Give Me The Internet, Connecting, Ad-Hoc Networking, Wireless Devices, Networking Hardware, Troubleshooting) (Tony Anderson and Mark Battley))
  • Record Activity (Introduction, Starting Record, Photos, Video, Audio, Starting Media, Things to Try, Wikimedia Commons) (Bill Stelzer)
  • Browse Activity (Introduction, What Is the Web, Starting Browse, Browse Web, Bookmarks, Changing the View, Sharing Links, Country Quiz, Search the Web, Using Wikipedia, Contribute to Wikipedia, Using Email) Cherry Withers
  • Write Activity (Introduction, Starting Write, Collaborating, Peer Editing, The Basics, Group Story Telling, Letter to the Editor, Emailing a Document (Caryl Bigenho)
  • Turtle Art (Introduction, Getting Started, Starter Commands, Pen Colors, Pen Commands, Try Turtle Art, Turtle Art Letters, Repeating Commands, Numbers and Commands, Shapes and Spectrum)
  • Support (How to Reflash, Powering of Your Laptop, Replacing, Backing Up, Getting Support)( ??? )
  • Appendices (Keyboard Shortcuts, Personalizing Sugar, Glossary, Getting Support, Credits) (???)

Revised Manual Contents

This section lists the sections and chapters we are working on. It will be changed from time to time as we revise and add. If you add a section or chapter, be sure you have someone to work on it! Also, please add it and the name of the person (or persons) who will be working on it to the section below called "Suggestions for Additional Chapters."

  • Introduction (To include: Unpacking, Battery, and Support)
  • Get Started (To include: Get Started, Interface, Activities (using), and Network)
  • Activities (To include introductions to assorted Activities including, but not limited to: Record, Browse, Write, Turtle Art, Etoys, Tam Tam, Labyrinth, Scratch, and others... see Activity sampler)
  • Appendices (Keyboard Shortcuts, Personalizing Sugar, Glossary, Getting Support, Credits)

Copy of Current User Manual

A copy of the current User Manual as it appears in the Help Activity can be found at: http://laptop.org/manual ( currently resolves to http://laptop.org/8.2.0/manual/ )

A more up-to-date/Sugarized edition is Version 13, as included in Release 11.3.0 RC3 / Build 882, downloadable to your XO right here: http://activities.sugarlabs.org//en-US/sugar/addon/4051

If you are working in Windows or Mac OSX you will find instructions for downloading, viewing and editing this in the "Special For..... " notes below. Instructions for Linux users are coming.

Suggestions for Additional Chapters

  • Localization (Registering, Forking, Translating, Adding and Deleting Chapters, Changing Graphics and Images)
  • Tam Tam (What are the Tam Tam Activities, How to Use Each, Where to find lessons, songs, and other resources) Caryl will welcome help!
  • Gnome (What is Gnome? Switching to Gnome and Back to Sugar, Using Gnome, Gnome Applications, Resources for More About Gnome and Its Applications) (Caryl Bigenho)
  • Etoys (Cherry Withers and Rita Freudenberg)
  • About This Floss Manual (Mark Batley)
  • Add a FAQ at the end of each chapter to deal with miscellaneous issues (Mark Battley)
  • Add pedagogical rationale and 'tips and tricks' to each chapter (Mark Battley)
  • Special for the XO-1 (Using the three-section trackpad with Sugar 11.3.0)

Resources

List of manuals and chapters:

The above chapters were originally in one larger Manual that is currently the Help Activity. Other early manual versions:


Existing manuals that are incomplete or not added to Help Activity:

Procedures on Porting/Assembling the Manual into Help Activity

Information still needed for this section

How to Participate in the Work of Revising the XO Users Manual

If you plan to participate in the XO Users Manual refresh, either at the mini book sprint on the 21st or remotely before or after that, there are some things you should do ahead of time...

  • Register an account on FLOSS Manuals' "Booki" site:

http://booki.flossmanuals.net

Click REGISTER near the top-left!

Note this is separate from the older FLOSSmanuals.net registration from 2007-2009. (Make a note of the name you choose as your username. While your password is recoverable, the username is not.)

  • Sign Up for The OLPC/Sugar Labs Group on Floss Manuals

After you have signed in, choose "All Groups" from the little menu on the top left of the page, or go to this link:

http://booki.flossmanuals.net/groups/one-laptop-per-childsugar-labs/

A long list of groups will appear. Choose "One Laptop Per Child/Sugar Labs." Then choose "Join This Group." You will know you were successful when you see the number of group members go up by one.

A click on the "Manuals" tab will show a list of all the manuals members of the group are working on. You can click on each one and see what is there. Some are very complete, others are only skeletons. Our manual is currently at the bottom of the list: "XO Users Manual (Rev 2011)." Currently, all of the chapters are "hidden" and waiting to be written, revised, and/or edited. If you click on "Edit" you will be able to see them at the bottom of the page. Please do not do any writing or editing until you have read and understand everything in the Booki Users Manual: http://en.flossmanuals.net/Booki-User-Guide/

The members tab will give you a list of the people who have signed up for the group. If you would like to add a photo and a little blurb about yourself to the your listing, the place to do that is the "My Settings" section (find it listed on the second menu on the top left).

Start editing here:

http://booki.flossmanuals.net/xo-users-manual-rev-2011/_edit/

Note: this is a corrected link. Sign in first, then go to "WRITE." The CHAPTERS are at the bottom of the page as works-in-progress. The SECTIONS, above the CHAPTERS are currently empty. READ does not allow public access to the unfinished/unpublished chapters. You must sign in and go to WRITE to see what we are working on and to participate in writing and editing. Eventually, when the CHAPTERS are completed, they will be moved up into the SECTIONS. At that time they will be viewable by the general public.

You can also find this link at: http://booki.flossmanuals.net/groups/one-laptop-per-childsugar-labs/ It is the last (newest) manual... at the bottom of the list.

Special for Windows Users

(Contributed byTony Forster in Melbourne Australia)

To edit the Help Activity in Windows

  • download the help sugar bundle

use this link - http://activities.sugarlabs.org//en-US/sugar/downloads/latest/4051/addon-4051-latest.xo

  • unpack the sugar bundle
  • rename help-13.xo to help-13.zip
  • open help-13.zip
  • copy the directory Help.activity to somewhere else
  • go to its help directory

The images can be edited with Paint The htm files can be viewed in a browser The htm files are best edited with something like Frontpage but you can use Notepad or Wordpad if you like working with html

Special for Mac OS-X Users

(Contributed by Caryl Bigenho with help from Tony Forster)

  • Control-click on :

http://activities.sugarlabs.org//en-US/sugar/downloads/latest/4051/addon-4051-latest.xo

  • Choose "Download Linked File As..." (click on it)
  • In the "Save As:" box type " help-13.zip "
  • Choose something for "Where" (desktop is OK)
  • Click the "Save" button

Wait a few minutes for the download. If will give you a 12.6 MB zip file.

Click on it to unzip. It will give you a folder called "Help.activity" full of lots of resources from the activity.

The folder has another folder inside called, "help." Open it.

Find the Activity you are working on. The Chapters and resources for that Section in the Version 13 Help Activity will be there. The Activities are arranged in alphabetical order.

Some of these are html files. Click to highlight the file. You will be in the finder. Click on "File" -> "Open With" -> "Safari". The file will open in Safari and look exactly as it currently appears in the Help Activity on the XO (don't use Firefox for this).

If you have a capable text editor such as TextWrangler ( http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/download.html ) you will be able to see and edit the file in html.

Screenshots

  • Alt + 1 key combination (on XO keyboards) or PrnScn with attached keyboards
  • post-processing with standard laptops and your tools of choice (Paint.Net (Windows) for me)
  • bring your XOs loaded with the latest 11.3.0 development builds since that's the easiest way to get Sugar 0.94
  • investigate whether using the advanced screenshot hack is a viable alternative

Ideas

  • keep localization in mind (see the corresponding thread from early October on Sugar-Devel, etc.
  • retain the current chapter format in terms of length and general content. Use links to refer to more in depth resources.

People

Please add your name if you're planning to contribute to the Help Activity Refresh.

  • Adam Holt
  • Cherry Withers (Addition of Etoys Chapter -- will work online)
  • Christoph Derndorfer
  • Caryl Bigenho (Will add a Tam Tam Chapter, but may need to complete after the summit)
  • Edward Bigenho (Editing)
  • Tony Anderson
  • Ana Cichero ( spanish translation - images editing - screenshots )
  • Mark Roy Battley
  • Sandra Thaxter

To-Be Done

Tasks

  • Cherry Withers: eToys, Browse
  • Rita Freudenberg: eToys
  • Caryl Bigenho:
  • Mark Battley: Get started, Network, Interface, Speak, Maze, Memorize, Implode, Simplification of language, Pedagogical rationales, Tips and Tricks, FAQ's
  • Sandra Thaxter: Turtle Art AND I'll help Mark on Memorize and Maze...as I have his cell number and can communicate with him
  • Tony Anderson: Get started, Network, Interface
  • Adam Holt: How to volunteer
  • Christoph Derndorfer: Introduction, Acknowledgements, Hardware specifications

Notes

Brainstorming during the Meeting on 21 October 2011

  • decide on audience: basics for all -> teachers, pupils, parents
  • what to include
  • needed: manual not just for Haiti, making it more accessible, how to do that
  • slideshow approach -> make different language audio tracks, also needs different language screenshots
  • add four-finger salute
  • collecting existing documentation: including for example the latest Peruvian manual
  • chat as an example of collaboration
  • Memorize documentation
  • Maze -> include "why to teach this thing"
  • recommended approach
  • basics: learn the interface
  • Speak
  • progression levels
  • ...more specific & comprehensive Activity manuals
  • juggling / hammer on head / metaphors
  • content / how to do it / rationale (3 levels for teachers)
  • stylus feature: how to tell when you can use it, what you can use it for
  • Acknowledgement: depends on XO version, software build -> "about this manual" section (incl. limitations)
  • including FAQs for each section & each chapter (at the end)
  • contact information (depending on country)
  • how-to add something to Flossmanuals
  • presentation, structure, orders, labels -> organization needed
  • add glossary chapter (see Glossary)
  • documentation styleguide: consistency is important (!)
  • importance of simple + clear language
  • potential todo: simply language + presentation
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