[gcompris-devel] Feedback regarding music activities

[Peter Albrecht]

Hi!

On 30.08.2012 01:59, Beth Hadley wrote:
> 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 for your time and working on my suggestions! Spare
time is rare again for me, too, since vacations are over.

I just compiled Git HEAD of
> https://github.com/bdoin/GCompris
(at git commit 76cf56be9796ba41341eeebde1abc940da021771, Wed
Sep 5 2012)


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

At level one, there is no way, to automatically switch to
level two. The icon of explored animals should change from
(?) (= red circle with questionmark) to (v) (= green circle
with check). After all animals have been visited, the bonus
should be displayed and level should increase to two.

Otherwise maybe someone does not realize that there are
levels two and three.


>>> 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!

Ok, that's a good point.


>>> 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?

Example: "Explore farm animals", level 2:
Animal sound is played once, but the user can click on the
play button, to play this sound again. In my opinion, this
would be a typical case for "repeat the current question" as
described above.

Same for the "play" button in "Play Piano!".

With "Play Rhythm", there is a play button, too. But it
appears under certain circumstances. So I'm not shure, if
"gcompris.BAR_REPEAT" would be flexible enough.


> 
>>> ** Play Rhythm! **
> This activity is entirely changed and hopefully easier. You should play the
> newest version.

The new version is a lot better! Easier to play and make
more fun. I played all 12 levels! :)


> 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.!

See my other email from today, as reply on Bruno's email.


>> 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.

The "world" is also used as icon for "Explore World Music"
in the GCompris main menu. The transparent eyes can be seen,
when you hover over the icon.


> 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.

No problem for me. This is a project of free contributors
and spare time often is rare.


> 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.

I can't decide, whether to take your fork or Bruno's fork as
"upstream". ;)


> 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

It's very nice, to read a "thank you"! (Don't get this on my
daily job very often.) That's why I love open source
projects and contributing to them.

Regards,
	Peter