[gcompris-devel] Feedback regarding music activities

[Beth Hadley]

Hi Peter,

I've had a bit of time to work on your thoughts, although not much due to
my busy week of orientation at college. Thanks again for the thorough
testing job though! Here is my progress and responses to your emails &
Bruno's comments:

> re: Explore Activities
yes, I did change these entirely from the version you tested. Please play
 my new versions again.

 4) Your bonus smily has no sound. Sounds are fun! :)
> > You could borrow:
> > "/boards/sounds/bonus.wav".
Good idea, I added sound.

> Feature "Are you sure you want to delete your notes?" :
I implemented it,  but need some assistance from Bruno before it's ready

> indication on piano keyboard while notes are being played:
Great idea, I don't have time to implement it now, but I'll add it to the
todo list after bugs are fixed

> > 1) "Attempt" is not visible:
> > The melody, the user plays on the piano, is recorded and the
> > user can erase it, if she/he thinks, she/he was wrong. But
> > this is somewhat invisible. The user has to imagine: "There
> > is something recorded in the computers RAM"
> > It would be easier to understand, if you would show the
> > attempt, which was entered by the user, on the screen.
> > Perhaps you print the current row of entered piano key
> > letters next to the piano keys. E.g.: C C F G
Yes, I know the user's entry is invisible but this is mostly by intention.
When you play the piano, nothing pops up to let you know what notes you've
already played. I'm trying to give kids a good understanding of what it
might be like to actually play piano, especially for those who don't have a
real one!


> > 2) GCompris: Repeat question:
> > The GCompris interface provides a way to the user, to
> > "repeat the current question". This is a button (two green
> > arrows bend to a circle) in the GCompris bar. You set it with:
> >  # gcompris.bar_set(gcompris.BAR_LEVEL|gcompris.BAR_REPEAT)
> >
> > Maybe you want to add this, to provide a user interface
> > homogeneous to other activities.
Perhaps, but I went through the activities and can't find any one in
particular that really needs that type of repeat. For those that have a
question, there's always an option to press a button to hear it again. Do
you have a specific suggestion for where you'd like to see a repeat
question button?

> > ** Play Rhythm! **
Yes, this is the most challenging for people not especially familiar with
making music. I'm hoping I've added enough helping aids to get the kids to
succeed after playing with it for a while. They have to be challenged,
after all. And yes, I did fix the auto level increase.
This activity is entirely changed and hopefully easier. You should play the
newest version. I (or Bruno) will publish a new bundle soon. I had
to re-base my github repo which caused some delay.

> The new zip file "beth2.tgz" has a size of 14 MByte, while
> the old one "beth_hadley_music_activities.tar.gz" has a size
> of 30 MByte.
> Comparing both file lists, showed, that there are some
> "*-old.wav" file missing. This would explain the dramatic
> size reduction. (I write this just for the case, anyone else
> is curious about this, too.)
Yes, you have found an error. I accidentally commited files that aren't
used. all -old aren't used and should be deleted. Bruno has fixed this.
Thanks Bruno ;-)

> But this comparison also showed, that
> "./python/note_names.py" is missing in "beth2.tgz". Was this
> intended?

>> This is intented, this file was not used.

> Putting the new "beth tgz" over the old "beth-installation"
> will fix this, I guess. ;)
>> This is not needed, my bundle should be fine by itself.

Actually, I'm confused why Bruno said note_names.py isn't used...it is
critical to the note_names-activity. I'll try to chat on IRC with Bruno
about this. You're welcome to join us on IRC too.!

> Another tiny bug: The "world" bonus in "Explore World Music"
> has transparent eyes. This looks strange.

Yes, I'll be changing all bonuses to official gcompris bonus.

> Minor Bug:
> The Z-Order for the bonus is wrong. The bonus note is
> beneath the letter A, G, ...
Yup, fixed. Thanks!

> GCompris froze at Level 11, playing the rythm " 1 + 1 + ".
> The scrolling vertical line is between "note 1" and "+".
> CPU usage is at almost 0%. So, no "running wild" endless loop.
> But GCompris does not make any sound nor does it react on
> any mouse clicks. It is also not impressed, by typing CTRL+C
> in the console window, from which I started GCompris.
> Typing "kill <process id>" in another console made GCompris
> disappear. But it wrote "Beendet" (German for "terminated")
> to STDOUT. So some higher level GCompris thread seemed to
> having been alive. ;)
Scary....this is a nasty error. It seems like Bruno is looking into this. I
have never encountered it (at least not yet!)


Again, I do appreciate your feedback and I'm sorry this process has been
crazy and I have unfortunately not been able to spend as much time this
week as I would have liked.

I committed my changes to my local github account (
https://github.com/bethmhadley)  then I'll try to chat with Bruno to figure
out what's up with the whole merging process and creating new bundles.

Once we've figured out a few more of these bugs, I'm looking forward to
more feedback. Your ideas and thoughts have really improved the quality of
these activities! Thanks,

~Beth