[gcompris-devel] Re: GCompris

[Bruno Coudoin]

Le lun 08/04/2002 à 15:48, jm a écrit :
> Le 08 Avril, Bruno Coudoin a écrit:
> 
> > Le lun 08/04/2002 à 14:26, jm a écrit :
> > > Le 08 Avril, Bruno Coudoin <bruno.coudoin at free.fr> a écrit:
> > > > Today, C knowledge and the gnome canvas is all you need to
> > > > know to create a new board in gcompris.
> > > Any plan to add some scripting language support (python, javascript or php) ?
> > > 
> > > --
> > >  jm
> > No, we have though about it but do not found good reason to do so. 
> > Do you have one in mind ?
> yes, teachers I know can't code C!
> But some of them can do a few lines of php or javascript or python.
> So to increase the size of your potential producers, 
> decrease the entry barrier!
> 
> Since I haven't taken the time to dl and test GCompris,
> I don't know how hard is it to work with GCompris to do new board,
> 
> but if, in order to do a board, I have to
>  + manipulate strings
>  + do memory allocation /deallocation and deal with pointers
> then any scripting language will allow a much easier creation process than C.
> 
> I just quickly scanned http://cvs.gnome.org/lxr/source/gcompris/src/boards/algebra.c
> and  the few lines 
>   static void set_level (guint level) {
>    if(gcomprisBoard!=NULL){
>        gcomprisBoard->level=level;
>        gcomprisBoard->sublevel=1;
>        algebra_next_level();
>     }
> }
> make me think that indeed you need to be a C coder, and you can't just write a simple
> logic in simple C, to add a new board that isn't a clone of an existing one.
> 
> To echo a previous seul-edu thread (about Hypercard), one of the reason Hypercard was successful with non computer-aware people, is that, in addition to the graphical builder, HyperTalk was a really really really easy language to use.
> (for an english-speaking person anyways, I don't think there were localizations of HT)
> 
OK, so we should check the technical viability of this. We could create
a board plugin that would act as a wrapper to a scripting language.
The script will get the canvas to display its game into.
Any scripting manguage with the gnome bindings (needed for the gnome
canvas dependency of gcompris) would do the job.
Hum. I'll look at this.

> 
> > What V2 will include instead is the board editor. It will be possible to
> > create new boards use what most people can use and understand, just the
> > mouse and the click (in french clikouclikou ;)
> But I guess the logic won't  be "clickodromic", just plain old C, right?

In this case, the idea is to propose a list of generic boards and create
graphically their data. For exemple you could create a quizz using
different model already implemented and selecting a background image,
decorations, content and so on.
The teacher does not need to program at all here.

> 
> --
>  jm
>