After some times debugging, I found what was not working, and now we have a new feature in Impress, in annotations mode:
- in eraser mode, or when you change the eraser size, the cursor is an eraser - in pen mode, the cursor is a pen - when changing the color, the cursor is an arrow
Verified on Linux and Mac OS X (remains Windows, never like the other ...)
This work is a follow up of the big project we have with Ecole Centrale Nantes, more precisely : improve Impress adding a canvas in overlay.
Other changes for 0.9.5 :
- added Arabic (yet some missing strings, and needs more attention, due to RTL behavior, and a second translator needed) - added Norwegian (Bokmal) - added Traditional Chinese - added some important fixes from the coming OOO_321
Todo before to release 0.9.5 :
- verify the cursor is ok on Windows too (check the hotspot e.g.) - cleanup in menus, toolbars (removing useless entrie) - cleanup in prefs (remove tabs) - change version number for 0.9.5 and create the new .DS_Store on Mac OS X
This is the last step before 1.0beta :)
FRENCH version : Apres quelques temps passes a debuguer Impress, j'ai trouve ce qui ne marchait pas et maintenant nous avons une nouvelle fonctionnalité dans Impress, en mode annotations :
- en mode "gomme", ou lorsqu'on change la taille de la gomme, le curseur devient une gomme - en mode stylo, le curseur est un stylo - lorsqu'on change la couleur du stylo, le curseur est une fleche (plus grosse sous Mac OS X)
Fonctionnement verifie sous Linux et Mac OS X (reste Windows, ou rien n'est comme ailleurs ...)
Ce travail est la suite du grand projet que nous avons avec l' Ecole Centrale Nantes, en particulier, ameliorer Impress avec un canvas en overlay, en mode presentation.
Autres changements pour la future version 0.9.5 :
- ajoute l'Arabe (encore quelques chaines manquantes, demande de l'attention, a cause de la prise en charge de droite a gauche de l'ecriture, et du fait qu'il manque un second traducteur) - ajoute le Norvegien (Bokmal) - ajoute le Chinois Traditionnel - ajoute quelques correctifs importants de la version 3.2.1 a venir
A faire avant la release 0.9.5 :
- verifier que le curseur est ok sous Windows (verifier le hotspot par exemple) - continuer a nettoyer les menus, et barres d'outils (en otant les entrees inutiles) - nettoyage dans les preferences (supprimer d'autres onglets) - modifier le numero de version pour 0.9.5 et creer le nouveau .DS_Store sous Mac OS X
C'est la derniere etape avant la version 1.0beta !!
One of the OOo4Kids 0.9 new feature is the password protected preferences.
Principles :
Children love experiment. Most of them have good skills for that, but this is not what the teacher expects :-) So, the goal of this feature, is to implement, intelligently, a protection for the preferences, who : * avoids the children to modify something * but allow them to click, and see whatever they want (in read only mode)
Important : this feature is only a protection to avoid children hacking the OOo4Kids, but not a security (the password is readable in Common.xcu)
The Rules :
* The default password, if enabled, is : prof * By default, the preferences are unlocked * To activate the protection, one just need to click on the "Click to avoid modifications" Image button (the green padlock).
=> Be carefull : the protection will be validated once the dialog box will be closed, and this change is not reversible Means once activated, you'll need the password to disable that.
The views :
* A green padlock displayed on the bottom of the view, means : unlocked preferences
* A red padlock displayed on the bottom of the view, means : locked preferences
Disable the protection :
Change the password
Attention : the toolbars will stay customizable.
The feature was made on behalf of teachers, and in collaboration with them. Th code will be fully documented (I started already) at the Password protected preferences wiki page, and of course, if ever something can be reused in Openoffice.org, I'd be glad to provide patches (no idea whether it will interest anybody though)
---------------------
If you want to help us, to find resource and contribute back to improve OpenOffice.org, via the OpenOffice.org Education Project, donations are welcome
OOo4Kids is made for Educational purpose, has been thought to work with students, making them discover OpenOffice.org source code, without constraints, but just code, and having Fun. The promise is, when the code is good enough, it will be proposed for integration into OpenOffice.org.
Un grand merci à Jean-Marie Lafon pour son super boulot.
Le contenu, qui concerne la future version 0.9 d'OOo4Kids est, comme vous pouvez le remarquer, en Français, mais si vous souhaitez traduire ces vidéos dans une autre langue, n'hésitez pas à nous contacter.
Note: this is french only
Thanks to Jean-Marie Lafon for his great work !!
The content is in French but easy to understand. Feel free to contact us is you want to translate.
After several days of tests, it's time to release OOo4Kids 0.9.
Stay tuned :-)
One of the next steps will be: document the changes, and start ClassRooms with the Education Project, describe about what has been done, and improve. The point is to demystify OpenOffice.org source code, and answer the questions, e.g. in discussions with student, explain what's inside an so on.
Yesterday, I finally figured out what was wrong with the upstream packaging, and the .deb we build install fine and can be deinstalled fine too. Just follow the instructions
The problem is, the upstream way of .deb is not the right one, and Jose Luis Redrejo who kindly helped me, suggested to return to the right Debian way.
One big issue, e.g., is that if you want to install Writer only, this is unclear with the current dependencies scheme, and needs to be seriously improved. Other issue, is there are not "Section" and "Priority" sections in the existing control file.
So, this must be changed, and we agreed to use the upstream way until 1.0 output, and then change for the real Debianization just after 1.0 is out (current milestone in progress is 0.9)
Experimental packages can be provided on demand. Either ask us the info by email, or (better) ask on IRC.
Last but not least : .rpm will follow soon if we find a volunteer.
Channel : #education.openoffice.org Server : irc.freenode.net
OOo4Kids is made for Educational purpose, has been thought to work with students, making them discover OpenOfice.org source code, without constraints, but just code, and having Fun. The promise is, when the code is good enough, it is proposed for integration into OpenOffice.org.
OOo4Kids is a 7-12 years children Office suite, based on OpenOffice.org source code. This means OpenOffice.org has some features OOo4Kids has not(like Base and Java). And if you need those features, please use OpenOffice.org, that you can download at : download OpenOffice.org
Please do not forget that the software is provided as it, and that you will use it at your own risks. Do not forget to do a backup either.
The latest essential changes since 0.6 are
- New Start center (new design by Ben Bois) - Ooo4Kids is now based on OOO320_m11 OpenOffice.org source code (m12 for trunk) - default user interface scale is now 115% by default (better adaptated for children) - modified toolbar with 3 new buttons added (Writer, expert mode)
The latest biggest bugfixes since 0.6 are :
- several crashes when launching Ooo4Kids in command line are fixed - Windows : directly launch any application is now supported (no more crash) - Fixed the crash, when clicking on the icon, while OOo4Kids is already launched - mismatch with color/security tabs in preferences issue is fixed - Mac OS X : the new Apple remote (metallic, 2009 model) works
One more time, thanks to Ben Bois who created a new great background for the future version (0.8) of OOo4Kids :
The shapes of the buttons are no longer apparent, and when you roll over one of them, a help balloon explains you which application will open. Of course, things are not perfect, and we still have some bugs to fix, but this is very promising !! (and my children love it ;-)
IMPORTANT : the version proposed for download (0.6) below does NOT have the feature yet. The new splashscreen should be integrated in the version : 0.8, not before.
If you want to help us, to find resource and contribute back to improve OpenOffice.org, via the OpenOffice.org Education Project, donations are welcome
OOo4Kids is made for Educational purpose, has been thought to work with students, making them discover OpenOffice.org source code, without constraints, but just code, and having Fun. The promise is, when the code is good enough, it will be proposed for integration into OpenOffice.org.
OOo4Kids is a 7-12 years children Office suite, based on OpenOffice.org ( http://www.openoffice.org ) source code. This means OpenOffice.org has some features OOo4Kids has not (like Base and Java). And if you need those features, please use OpenOffice.org, that you can download at : Download OpenOffice.org. Please do not forget that the software is provided as it, and that you will use it at your own risks. Do not forget to do a backup either.
Welcome to new students joining the OpenOffice.org Education Project
Morgan Magnin just advertised me today : two students from Ecole Centrale Nantes(aka ECN) will continue the effort this semester (january to june 2010) :-)
Welcome to Cyril le Mat and Arthur Bonnet!
It is planned to continue to improve the HP Tablet PC use with Impress.
Are you student in computing, and want to learn code (mostly C++), fight with well defined and mentored projects ? or simply contribute to OpenOffice.org, instead of doing dumb internal projects ? Just find a teacher, as correspondant, and join the OpenOffice.org Education Project :-)
Contact : IRC Channel : #education.openoffice.org Server : irc.freenode.net
EducOOo reversing money to the OpenOffice.org Project
The EducOOo non profit association is not really rich ( see : the Donations Thermometer for example ), but after I proposed the idea to the EducOOo Administration Council,it has been accepted.
The exact level is being discussed, and can be revised, but it should be between 10% and 15% of the money we receive (donations or partners).
As example : imagine we receive 3000 euros from some partner, or as donation : 450 euros will be directly reserved for direct help, like fund a developer (student prefered, but other cases will be studied) who cannot attend an event, or participate to buy hardware or whatever other action.
If you want to help us, to find resource and contribute back to improve OpenOffice.org, via the OpenOffice.org Education Project, donations are welcome
OOo4Kids is made for Educational purpose, has been thought to work with students, making them discover OpenOfice.org source code, without constraints, but just code, and having Fun. The promise is, when the code is good enough, it will be proposed for integration into OpenOffice.org.
OOo4Kids is a 7-12 years children Office suite, based on OpenOffice.org ( http://www.openoffice.org ) source code. This means OpenOffice.org has some features OOo4Kids has not (like Base and Java). And if you need those features, please use OpenOffice.org, that you can download at : Download OpenOffice.org. Please do not forget that the software is provided as it, and that you will use it at your own risks. Do not forget to do a backup either.
The latest changes since 0.5.1 are:
* (experimental) Portable OOo4Kids for Windows the following locales are provided : - en-US, fr, de, es, nl, it, pt - zh-CN is provided too - thanks to Julien Forgeat for the translation - but not tested (can be unusable) Please use them with caution, and report us any bug you found.
* New layout ( thanks to Ben Bois for the icons, and Vincent Ruffiot for the screenshot) : - fixed the white effect on right - fixed the look
* New toolbars behavior : now, the toolbars content depend on the User's Level ( can be changed in the prefs). See : Toolbars and User Level for further information.
* New locales are provided : - Italian, - Chinese (simplified), - Dutch (previous existing locales : English-US, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish)
* New XO port : OOo4Kids has been "Sugarized", means it does respect Sugar tree, and the .xo archive installs like any other activity.
* More OOo4Kids icons
* Linux : .deb and .rpm buildable (yet some bugs) * Linux : language packs buildable (will be used for XO port)
* Experimental : modified the UI in the prefs, adding the "password" feature, to protect the prefs (avoiding children doing wrong actions). * Will be implemented in 0.7. It is scheduled that the password will be enabled by default.
* Next step : - choose the definitive toolbars content, per level, and following the teachers recommandations - fix more issues with .deb and .rpm - more bugfixes - implement the password feature
After two years of an intense activity of the french part of the education.openoffice.org project, we are ready to reactivate this international list : this is one of our objectives for 2010 !!
To subscribe, just send a mail at : users-subscribe@education.openoffice.org confirm, and that's all : you can start contributing to the Education Project !!
To become a member, please follow the instructions provided there : http://education.openoffice.org/servlets/ProjectMemberList
Education Project aims to create a bridge between Educational World and OpenOffice.org Project, following 3 axes :
- create a network of teachers, using OpenOffice.org - provide a sharing area - provide new developers, and spread OpenOffice.org source code (teach OOo source code and coding guidelines, UNO, an so on)
Currently, this project counts around 110 members, but everybody is welcome, and there is so much to do, that any contribution is wamrly welcome too !!
Everybody is welcome : teachers, students, just curious :)
For the one willing to help us, we need people able to help us for the website, translate, manage the wiki, but not only (the list is not limited).
Other need is to compare, work together (collaborative work), and concatenate informations providing from several educational systems, and of course, share our knowledge.
Be welcome, and Seasonal Greatings to all of you !!
Eric Bachard Lead, OpenOffice.org Education Project
Last year, was Pierre Pasteau, who contributed to the moz2seamonkey migration. Thanks to Frank Schonheit who helped us a lot btw.
This year, we had two other students, Thomas Fontenay and Abelkader Belabbes, who did a great work too. The work they did, was to port OOo4Kids to the XO
Note: port OpenOffice.org directly is not an option, because an XO machine does only have 1GB of Hard disk, and 256 MB or RAM only, while OOo set is already 400MB :-)
Some will say this is not a directly visible result, but in fact, this is an extremely important result : Realize this XO port connected OpenOffice.org Community directly with XO / OLPC Community !! (like provide gdium suppport connected us to the OLPH community too)
Indeed, from one side, the .odf is essential, and from another, it must be considered that the students learned a lot of OpenOffice.org source code, in a short time. Learn the code first, is essential to my eyes. If they had to dive into QA, specs (what basically does mostly concern Sun employees), six month would have been too short. The other good effect, is that the OpenOffice.org Project yet built a strong link with an engineer school.
The difficulty is that create such bridges with schools is extremely long, needs a lot of energy, but, in return, creates a very positive image of the project, and can really help to find developers (remember, the code is the blood of a free software, not "politics ").
Just a bit of patience, and the future will be better !
Last but not least, we received several machines, exactly 3 XO-1.5 for the next coming students. The plan is to profile and try to improve Impress performances (the request is very high for the netbooks), and propose a backport in OpenOffice.org, if the code desserves it.
Those machines are reserved to the two first students (from France prefered), able to find a prof (mandatory) to make the link with the school.
How was it this year ? Well, change from svn to hg was a bit tricky (headhache caused by the rebase), but at the end, we did it. Jonathan Winandy, mercurial expert created its own repository, and we used it until the end. At the end, I pushed, with Thorsten Behrens and Rene Engelhard precious advices, all the changes into eraser01 cws.
Another part of the work is at issue 97972, but not only. The wiki too does contain a lot of information.
The students who contributed this year, are :
* Nelle Varoquaux * Jonathan Winandy * Leo Collet * Remy Dumas * Christian Jacques
And the professor who followed that is Morgan Magnin.
The feature is really great (specifications have been proposed last year) and we are preparing the cws, for the QA. It will be proposed for integration. There will not be a big change, because the option will not be active by defaut. The plan is to add other features in the next semesters.
I'll retain, like the previous time, it was a pleasure to work online with students, and to help them, to discover the OpenOffice.org source code, and more. Other important thing, is that you can work on the core, when you are enough close to the students, to mentor them, and hear carefully their problems. IRC ( channel : #education.openoffice.org , server : irc.freenode.net ) is really great for that.
Last but not least, I got a movie presenting the feature, made by Nelle Varoquaux, but I can't propose a link from there at the moment. Please click again later ;)
Since I finally figured out what was wrong, we have Portable OOo4Kids on Windows XP (SP3 mini). To understand more, I started from the version Pierre-Yves Gosset a friend of mine from Framasoft did, but I had to do a lot of modifications, I did some cleanup, and created new files, to obtain something clean.
As a beginning, I started with a french version, but that's very easy to create other locales.
All versions: * Fixed the silly Start Center bug with the white rectangle on right. * Did more code cleanup in backingwindow.cxx (removed useless entries, and so on) * The new Writer Assistant skeleton is in place. Missing: final implementation. * Fixed a crash with Calc. Was due to the missing addins functions. * Fixed a silly bug with addins : now, the Calc functions wizard no longer displays all the addins in "beginner" or "average" mode
Windows only: * Fixed the sound issues in Impress: build are now made using the DirectX 9 SDK. Need feedback for the videos : usable ? * Fixed the crash when the computer comes back from sleep. Added Thorsten Behrens patch from the [http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=103464 issue 103464].
Linux only: * new customizable look for the User Interface (generic plugin is now used, for performance reasons)
Since two days, I was working hard to implement a simple request: add a menu entry, to be able to check for the license content. The idea is to provide soon a public version. of OOo4Kids
For the one interested, I started to document everything I did in the code on an OOo4Kids wiki page. See License dialog page . This is work in progress, and currently, 25% of the changes is written, but I'll update asap.
Below, some screenshots :
The first screenshot is the new background for themounted image disk. We respected Christian Lohmaier (aka cloph) request, and Ben Bois did a great work (I really like this new one)
The second screenshot is the frame you see when installing :
The third screenshot is the implementation of the menu entry "License ...". This way, no need to ask the user to read or do whatever at install, but the license will be abailable from everywhere. Simple and efficient.
The fourth screenshot is what you see when you click on "Licence ...". This is simply the about box I reused for the new feature. As you can see, there is still a bug, because the title is not correct, but I expect to solve that soon (please contact me if you have an idea).
... last but not least, the last one is what you can read when you hit CTRL SDT (or CMD+SDT on Mac OS X : the list of the people who contributed or helped to the OOo4Kids code (partial list there, in alphabetical order). As you can see, some formating is mandatory (sentence too long). But that's the beginning :-)
All the recent changes are given on our wiki. Just see the changelogs)
In the list, there is a new background icon, for the mounted image disk, on Mac OS X. As Christian Lohmaier suggested, the butterflies showing where drop the application, are bigger than the application itself, and Ben Bois, who designed this background, will have a look asap.
But what is important to me, what that Abdelkader Bellabes and Thomas Fontenay (both from Epitech Paris) are now able to build (both OpenOffice.org and OOo4Kids), AND debug on both Windows and Linux, and (in the air) on Sugar now. For example, we traced with Thomas, and finally found a solution (not completely solved yet), together a possible crash with copy-paste.
So, now, we'll be able to start with profiling : Thomas on Linux, Abdelkader on Windows, and me an all possible OS's.
Our first plan, will be to play with the famous generic.ppt (does not work well, good stress for Impress), and analyze everything: first, to learn how Impress works, during presentations, and second, to search what happens, and what can cause slow downs, in some situations. Means pedagogical purpose first, but not only.
Work in progress: with Thorsten Behrens, we are making a point on the project with people from Ecole Centrale Nantes, to see what can be or not integrated. (to be continued)
- create a dedicated branch in the OOo source code repository (means hosted by OOo Project) for a 7-12 years software, derivated from OpenOffice.org, and made and maintained by OpenOffice.org project. Formally : create a new branch, completely independent of , including milestones, like OOo does - work with schools and students to improve the software - innovate about performances and cooperate with the performance project in this area - (add your idea)
Resources : to be defined, but the non profit association EducOOo) is already candidate to manage that (e.g.receive sponsoring for the software, machines for students, and so on).
Facts that brought us to work on this plan:
- OpenOffice.org is not well adapted to Educational world, nor to children (7-12 there) - OpenOffice.org has too much of features for children, and is too complicated for them - Performance issues : OpenOffice.org is slow on a lot of machines (mainly the one who have 512MB of ram or less, and procs 1,5GHZ or less we can find in most of schools) - Lot of schools, all around the world, are poor, and will have to wait several years before to buy new hardware - to fit the new emergent market (netbooks, eeepc like, gdium, future tablets (including the probable Apple one) .. and so on), OpenOffice.org needs to provide a light version, adapted to such machines ( poor in ram and powerless)
The ideas :
- simplify OOo and propose a light version of OOo, for example removing Base and providing a simplified Writer and Calc versions - experiment new features, new UI and so on, including experiment whatever - work with students to write the code, with the goal to integrate only the best features in OOo, - prepare children to use OpenOffice.org - adapt OOo for children will help to work on performance issues - use a name adapted to children : OOo4Kids, trademarked by one or several non profit association, to keep the project out of companies control - there is no risk for OOo, and avoids to disturb the OOo process
Thanks in advance for your opinion
Eric Bachard Lead, OpenOffice.org Education Project
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Below, the link of the announcement ( dev@openoffice.org mailing list) : archived proposal
Back from RMLL 2009 . In fact I was 4 days in Paris with my family, and I'm just back at home, until ... tomorrow for 2 weeks.
What a fest :) Thanks to Mathieu Lalanne, Pierre Pasteau for their great work, and their presence. Thanks to Remi Boulle for the super tshirts we have. We were surprised to sale most of them (next time, we'll take more). Thanks to all the people who made this event what it was.
Nice to have seen OOo4Kids running correctly on a Celeron 500 + 128MB or RAM. Really impressive :)
Thanks to the Nantais, Morgan Magnin, Olivier Girardot, Aude Quintana, Jonathan Winandy who contributed to the presentations we did. Nice to see we'll continue to work together :)
Nice to meet Cédric Mathieu and Isabelle too !
Last but not least, all the slides we did are available there.
1) Watch them all. They mostly are located in default_images/svx default_images/framework, setup_native/source/win32/nsis , default_images/res, and in sysui/source/desktop/icons and some other place I could have missed there.
2) localize them exactly, e.g. using The Gimp on Linux, Apercu on Mac , don't remember what tool I used on Windows, maybe it was automatic.
3) rename all the one who can cause issue with what you want to achieve
4) build OOo. e.g. trunk can be a good choice, if you want to test the new localization scheme
Note: trunk means the current milestone, means the to-be-DEV300_m51
5) Missing icons (i.e. renamed icons) will make the build break. This is normal, and every time the build breaks, you'll have to modify all the code calling the missing icons at buildtime (e.g. using ifdef YOUR_VARIABLE or whatever other hack), and to add your icon(s) with their new own icon names (the one you introduced in the code instead), all at the original place.
6) verify both old icons and the new one can live together at builtime, and that you can build both on all OS's
7) continue with all modules until the build ends. Think to take some coffee, this might be a long process.
And if you are serious, you'll have something correct at the end :-)
Nothing is perfect and you probably missed some at the begining. So, if you forgot some, repeat the process until you no longer see old application icons.
Be carefull, the image formats are different on every platform, and all builds are mandatory
Simple, isn't it ?
[Upgrade] : looks like we have lot of unused icons in OOo. Will remove them per see :)
The screenshot below is the most recent version of the start center we created for OOo4Kids (all ports).
As you can see, there are some remaining issues, like the white stripes on right, due to the length of the frames used for hte texts. e.g. , we could use COL_TRANSPARENT + some other hack, but anyway, this part will need more love. The other issue is the background: could be seriously improved too.
Thanks to Ben Bois, doing most of the new Design for the OOo4Kids StartCenter
Use a .png for the SplashScreen (i.e. no longer use .bmp)
A bit less than two month ago, I modified OOo source code, to be able to load a .png splashscreen (same story for the about too). I received a nice help from Thorsten Behrens, Philipp Lohmann and Herbert Duerr, who explained me what do (the most clean way to do), how to remove the transparent places and more.
After fixing a bug on Linux (the renderer not correctly initialized), it works nicely on both Mac OS X and Windows since end of April, and on Linux (all ports) since early May (because of the bug).
Design of the OOo4Kids logo : Ben Bois
As you can see, I added the possibility to play with transparency. One other reason to choose .png was that the .png are lighter than .bmp. Finally the gain was around 360 kB, compared to the .bmp
This is not perfect (some little white pixels due to rounding in the corners ), but gives IMHO a better User Experience, and opens the door to Funky Splashscreens :)
Of course, if one ask me, I'd be glad to backport that into OpenOffice.org source code (not sure because one told me there was something else in progress ... so, I don't know).
Important: we do not distribute anything publically, and will replace the OpenOffice.org application icon in the dock (and provide our own) asap .
Salon des Ressources Educatives Besancon (France, 10th of June 2009)
After Geneva and Maubeuge (I'll announce soon), Frederic Diaz, Nicolas Jeudy, Francois Beuraud and myself will be glad to meet you at the Salon des Ressources Educatives de Besancon.
Many thanks to Nadine Rayssac who invited us for the second time.
Like last year, we expect to meet a lot of teachers and professors, who do constitute our "local network". Of course, we'll show them the 7-12 version of OOo we're working on, and we'll notice carefully every remark and suggestion to improve this "Education" version of OOo.
I'll be present myself on thursday 4th of June, and I hope to meet Raphael Bircher , who already told me he'll attend the event.
One important part of the presentation will be about the 7-12 years adaptation of OpenOffice.org I'll present, already ported on Windows (XP and Seven), Mac OS X (Intel and PowerPC, Tiger and superior), Linux (Intel MIPS and PowerPC).
Frédéric Diaz, Nicolas Jeudy and myself will be glad to meet you. See you !!
Next week, I'll attend Les Rencontres de l'Orme , Marseille, France, 24th to 26th March, where we will work with Sesamath, and I'll present EducOOo, the current actions in progress, and how to join and contribute to the Education Project, or another OpenOffice.org Project, of course.
By the 25th evening, there will be a second event in Marseille, since I'm invited at the Equitable Cafe. I'm impatient to meet all these guys, who mostly work for non profit associations (like EducOOo), and silently contribute to Free software use.
Yet the same week, the 27th March exactly, I'll travel until Nantes to meet the students and the professor from Ecole Centrale Nantes, for the final presentation of the tasks the students did with us. Thanks to Morgan Magnin, their professor who has invited me.
In the list of the feature the students worked for, we have : - colored pen - change the pen size, shape and so on - eraser - keep the changes
Once I'll have found more time, I'll say some words about the next events I'll attend. Will be InterTice and Solutions Linux, both in Paris, France
The bad thing in all of that, is I'll miss Sonny Piers, who is invited to present the Mozilla Project in my own school, means at UTBM. Too bad :-/ (I hope I'll meet him soon though)
But that's not all : more than 10 students recently applied for projects. The first one was Pierre Pasteau( from Epitech Paris), and since some times, there is an intensive work in progress. Recently 4 students from Seneca College applied for subjects we proposed. In particular, they will for on:
- imagine, and why not implement new 3D OpenGL transition(s) ( Jerry Tak-Wah-Pau); - python26 migration in OOo sources ( Ladan Zahiroleslam; - make Impress Master copyable (Bartosz Barcicki ) - Understand the Impress Application ( Wang Frederick)
Other students in the class may choose other projects through the one we propose (see the lists below).
As you can see, we have oriented several projects we proposed on Impress Improvement
Thorsten Behrens, Graphics and Impress expert, and whom I publically say one more time a big thank you, was so kind to be present very often on the #education.openoffice.org channel. His skills are extremely helpfull for us, and the students appreciate him a lot.
It would be great to see other devs, from e.g. other OOo applications (Calc e.g. ) join the channel, and answer/help the students.
Here is the Fun with Open Source: everybody learns form each other, and all progress. I must admit, since I'm helping students, I did a lot of progress with OOo source code understanding.
Was not that easy, but with several french non profit associations ( April, EducOOo, Aful, Adulact, and Scideralle ), we made a poster, originally created by Christian Driga, to present OpenOffice.org to the people working inside french Educational institutions ( but not only).
How did this happen ? Firstly, some students ( Olivier Girardot and some other) joined the IRC channel, explained their idea (I'll tell more another time). They asked questions about Impress, and Thorsten Behrens and me tried to help them.
Looks like they appreciated, because I officialy received a mail from Morgan Magnin ( Lecturer, Ecole Centrale Nantes), explaining me that Mr Guillaume Moreau, Director Information System, of the school, authorized us to add it in the list of the schools working with us :-)
It means we will have to organize us better now, e.g. , we'll have to create a dedicated page on the website, think how they can contribute positively for the project and so on ...
Nevertheless, this is always an honnor for us to welcome students and their professors / lecturers. I expect other will join (some people I recently met in Paris during Open World Forum let me think we can expect other ... )
The OpenOffice.org Education Project will be represented at EducaTice (Paris, France), by the 28th and 29th of November. This event is one of the most important event of the year for Education, in France, and we're glad to be present there !!
Many thanks to Jean-Pierre Archambault, from the SCEREN, who invited us (and other).
If you want to visit us, please come :
Friday 28th, morning : The CRDP of Aix-Marseille, Lyon and Paris "Ecole et Nature", OpenOffice.org Education, Lycée Léonard de Vinci of Melun
Friday 28th, afternoon : The CRDP of Aix-Marseille, Lyon and Paris "Ecole et Nature", OpenOffice.org Education, Lycée Léonard de Vinci of Melun, Wikimédia
Saturday 29th morning : The CRDP of Aix-Marseille, Lyon and Paris "Ecole et Nature", OpenOffice.org Education, Wikimédia
Saturday 29th afternoon : The CRDP of Aix-Marseille, Lyon and Paris "Ecole et Nature", OpenOffice.org Education, Lycée Léonard de Vinci of Melun, Wikimédia
Many thanks to Ben Bois, who created yet other pieces for the Education Project
Ben was so kind to create new stickers, images and logos (for goodies in the future) to bring resources to the Education Project, here the FOSS.in is concerned (I still expect we'll receive donations to attend)
This is just a link at the moment, because we'll have to adapt and do some cleanup the proposed projects to the need.
From our side, we propose , with an -as precise as possible- frame, and well defined goals, little Projects for one or two students working as a binom. If you want to compare, Seneca introduces the projects to students the potential projects way.
How things happened ?
Seneca College has students, and has so close relationship with Mozilla. Recently, it was decided to join other Communities, to make the Seneca College participation in it grow.
From our side the OpenOffice.org needs volunteers, and developers
The idea is to propose the students, e.g. fixing a little bug, or writing a little feature for OpenOffice.org. At the end, if everything is successfull, validate the content.
The actors now :
Fardad Souleimanloo, Chris Tyler, and David Humphrey, all Professors at Seneca College, were presented to me.
Louis Suarez Potts, the OOo Community manager was invited too, and during an IRC meeting, where , we completed the presentations, discussed and explained more about our respective expectations.
Fardad will join our Team, and we'll work together.
To continue the Effort, I am preparing new subjects ( ~10 ) for students, and I'll add them to the existing list.
Waiting, volunteers are welcome to help us to prepare as much as possible of projects, and have Fun writing code (this is what I prefer to be honest :))
Call for donation for Education and Mac OS X porting projects
Several OpenOffice.org Projects have no or very limited resources. e.g. Mac OS X Aqua port and Education Project (still incubator project). But to continue the effort, like mentor students writing code for OpenOffice.org project, help developers attending conferences, or pay them expensive memberships for development (like Apple ADC, or iPhone SDK ), or even pay one skilled developer to write some new feature, they need a bit of money.
This association is there to receive legally money from donators, for a lot of reasons, like help the developers to write missing features, attend conferences, or buy machines and even more.
If you want to support both Mac OS X and Education Project, you can simply donate.
Pour ceux qui souhaitent aider le projet OpenOffice.org Education, nous avons cree une association de type "loi 1901". Le site est en cours de construction, soyez indulgents ;-)
Professor at University of Technology of Belfort Montbéliard, France (http://www.utbm.fr)
Education project Lead, OpenOffice.org Domain Developer, Mac OS X porting project contributor and main OOo4Kids developer
