[gcompris-devel] More music activity comments, based on git commit 672eb8eecd 12.09.2012

[Beth Hadley]

Grr...git is still not my friend. I'm trying to merge and update my
current repo but I'm getting tons of merge errors, etc. Until I have
some time to really dig in and fix that, I just pulled Bruno's master
and ran the current code to investigate your latest comments. Here are
my thoughts (although brief! sorry!)

On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 7:39 PM, Bruno Coudoin
<bruno.coudoin at gcompris.net> wrote:
>
> Le mercredi 12 septembre 2012 à 22:31 +0200, Peter Albrecht a écrit :
> > Hi!
> >
> > If I post too much or too fast, just tell me. Until I hear
> > something else, I keep testing every now and then and report
> > the things I notice. ;)
>
> This is perfect for me. You may hit some problems I identified on my
> todo list but its better to have some feedbacks than no feedbacks at
> all.
>
 Many thanks to Bruno for keeping up with this! I'll do what I
can...Thanks for your comments, always helping to improve GCompris =)
>
> > Level 2:
> >
> > Guessing an animal sound correctly, will display a bonus.
> > But the bonus sound is only played ~200 milliseconds before
> > the next animal sound is played.
> > Looking at the code, in checkAnswer() there is:
> > > gcompris.bonus.display(gcompris.bonus.WIN, gcompris.bonus.SMILEY)
> > > self.playRandom()
>
> Hum, I made a fix in this spirit but I have not tested with the bonus
> sound.
>
I noticed this is a problem as well. With the new version of explore
activity, the bonus is displayed, and simultaneously a new sound is
played. I suggest adding back in the delay that waited to play the new
sound until after the bonus disappears.
> > Have a look the hexagon-activity at the function pause().
> > This one is called once when the bonus starts to be
> > displayed and another time when the bonus disappears again.
> > Evaluate the pause parameter to identify the state (bonus
> > start or bonus end). And play the next animal sound after
> > the bonus has disappeared.
>
> I used this trick.
>
> > In all three levels there is no final bonus, showing "level
> > complete".
>
> There is now a bonus on the last level. But it is the same as the
> others.
>
> > For expample in level, having visited the last animal and
> > going back to the farm screen, the activity just switches to
> > level 2. Maybe there should be a bonus being displayed. Just
> > to help the user understand: "you have completed level one,
> > lets go to level two".
>
> There is one now.
>
> > ** Play Piano
> >
> > The rubber showing only if notes have been played, works
> > well. And the new note bonus is very nice. ;)
I agree. Excellent improvements Bruno!
> I reworked this one again even more. Now I removed the need to have an
> OK button. I mark the notes as passed or failed in real time.

> Sadly, Beth did the staff too small and scale it it thus the image
> quality of my status mark are ugly.
Bruno, I really like your idea here but the check status pictures are
way too ugly. I made the piano staff small then scaled it so that I
could reuse the same code for multiple activities, each requiring a
different size musical staff. So I'm wondering if you can just load in
larger images and scale these accordingly.
> > ** Play Rhythm
> >
> > Works also very well! :)
> > One little bug: The rubber is being displayed after some
> > rhythm has been entered. Clicking the rubber will delete the
> > entered rhythm, but the rubber is still visible. It should
> > disappear after been clicked (and the entered rhythm
> > is erased).
>
> I plan to rework it in the same spirit to remove the need for the ok
> button and provide a better feedback of your mistakes. Are you too slow
> or too fast, you need to know...
>
> > ** Piano Composition
> >
> > Listen to "Frere Jacques", I can't hear a sound for the note
> > "D'" (the top most one in this song). This note also is not
> > on the keyboard on the left side. Maybe this is the problem.
> > Same problem for "Baa, Baa, Blacksheep" or "Fuchs du hast
> > die Gans gestohlen".
>
> Beth, do you have an idea there?
I fixed this a few weeks ago. "D", "E", and I think even "F" is
supported above treble clef high C. I just pulled Bruno's latest code
and the D plays fine. Try it again and see....
> > Listening to the music of the world makes much fun!
>
> Yes, we all have to thanks Beth for that.
>
> > ** Name that note
> >
> > When playing at level 2 (3, 5, 6 ... 12), clicking at the
> > solutions in the middle plays that tone. So clicking
> > different letters plays different tone. But if the question
> > is for an "upper C" (the C at the upper end of the scale),
> > every alternative note in the middle plays the same tone:
> > the "upper C".
> > This problem does not accur, if asked for a "C" or any other
> > note.
>
> Beth again, I don't understand the problem here.
Sorry, nor do I. Peter, could you explain the steps to replicate the
bug. I do know that I put in some code so that when the answer is low
C, only that low C is an option. And when the answer is high C, only
the high C is an option. I didn't feel it was important to test the
children on the difference between high C and low C, just as long as
they know it's a C.
> > I also have some error output on console for this activity:
>
> I fixed it and improved the look and feel.
>
> >
> > ** Final words
> >
> > After pointing to bugs (bad things), I also want to say some
> > nice words to honor your effort, Beth, Bruno and everyone
> > else, who helped:
> >
> > All in all the music activities are very mature! And I
> > think, the are a very good addition to gcompris. Thank you all!
>
> I think so. Still some work to make it perfect, we have never been tha
> close.
Well, really it's thanks to you and Bruno for making some great
improvements. I'll chip in where I can, and of course I'll follow all
the email threads.

Also, another thing I noticed: the lyrics for the activity extend on
top of the music staff. Not good. Bruno, I think you went in and
changed some formatting,  so you'll want to look at that and make sure
it all fits nicely in the space provided. It's not a huge space, but
it's plenty of room for  a couple lines of lyrics.

Thanks to both of you!
> Bruno.
>
>
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--
Beth Hadley