IdeasAndSuggestions

Draft

Ideas and suggestions
(French) Propositions faites en français

Grammar checker could be a port of Languagetool from java to native
At http://www.languagetool.org/development/ JLanguageTool in the cvs is the current java form. Grammar checker is an important tool. My form of dyslexia I don't just do letter swapping in words that spell checkers detect. I do full spelling correct word swapping. Basically wrong word. Or worse all words in sentence spelling right but words order wrong. Grammar checks will show me more errors. Ok not 100 percent but it give better chance at a perfect document. These problems appeared in me after treatment to reduce dyslexia.

Fonts for dyslexia. I am sorry to say. There is no ideal font for all dyslexia people. http://scripts.sil.org/Andika I am sorry to say for me is worse than Times New Roman. Reason when rendered Times New Roman has more perfectly straight edges and renders without as much edge blurring. The blurring is a detraction that draws the my eyes away from what it should be doing. I would suggest old style terminal fonts. I never had font issue on old dos machines. But they might be too ugly for this day an age. Lexia has the same kinds of issues with me not quite as bad as Andika. Basically with my form of vision less curves the better. Reason why old terminal fonts suited me better.

You might be able to get maybe 2 or 3 fonts that cover most dyslexia people. One for sure has to be a very old school dos/terminal font style. Least number of curves as able. The lowest amount of blurring. Blurring also can cause eye strain the longer you use screen.

One feature I would love is the means to swap font in document without changing it. Person sends me a document using a font I visually cannot use. I can swap it to what I can use edit it remove the font. Current day I have to note down font and change the document and remember to change it back. One option might be fonts with the same font metrics but different looks. So they react the same in layout. That way user could choose the best font for their eyes and brain processing.

--oiaohm (Peter Dolding)--

Suggestion (Risto I.J.)
Allowing using of control objects in OOo4Kids may considered again? There is no need for allowing editing of them, I still think? There can be some teaching/learning aids which can be implemented by control objects in Calc easily, but without them it may be much harder*. Basic idea here is that OpenOffice.org works as development environment and OOo4Kids as userenvironment. Of course need of the memory must be considered and how much of the memory can be released taking control object out of use. Now I think control objects almost work so I suppose there is some more memory needed if control object are used or some more memory is released if all features are cleared.

--Risto Jääskeläinen 13:11, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * ) I have some examples but I don't know where it is good to attach files.

So here is now one example OOo4Kids Calc miniapplication. It is aimed visualize elementary calculation expecially negative numbers.



Even though file has extension .zip you can load and save it on a disk and then open it with OOo4Kids and save afterward with name väinö1.ods or some other name if you like. But with passwords you need to know original name of file when standard OOo4Kids password is not enough (only for changes in th parameter sheet).

Short help: In VÄINÖ1 you first write needed terms and you get some help by visualization of numbers. Then you calculate (maybe in mind) answer and write it. In most cases you can see visualization of your answer and some hint of correct answer. In multiplication it is a bit different situation. If you answer is right you see "correct" symbol. VÄINÖ1 is expandable multilingual. Selection of language is on (+) front page of spreadsheet. Users can select many different figures for visualization.

--Risto Jääskeläinen 09:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

OOoKids - Base: is this going to be included ? I saw references saying that it's not included in the package.However when I installed the suite there is a section in the Help which is dedicated to "OOoKids-Base". I teach ICT to children (8-11yrs) and we have Modules in database. I was hoping that Base was going to be included in the suite. Am I missing something?

--Djd776 09:12, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

OOo4Kids does not handle Java, nor Basic (but Python macros work). So Base is not in our scope. If you need Base, please use OpenOffice.org instead.

Eric Bachard 18:10, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Language

I see there are some comprehensive entries under Ideas and Suggestions in french. I think fragmenting the discussion into multiple languages is more dangerous than asking people to keep everything in one language. I assume almost everyone is able to read english, and at least make them self understood in that language. I do not understand french at all even if I can read both German and Spanish quite well. I am far from the only one so using french for discussions will close those discussions off from everyone else.

I know it can be difficult to write in a second or third language. English is actually my third, but it must be better for the submitter to do the work than to expect most of the readers to go through the pain of google translating it and then try to understand what google comes up with. The original submitter has a much better chance of writing understandable english (possibly with help from google). Make it a part of the wiki rules to show respect for the language barriers.

birger 08:56, 12 December 2011 (MET)

Questions
I see there are some suggestions for a 'save' icon. Shouldn't a package for kids these days learn a lot from the phone/tablet style guides that will be what they know, and get rid of the idea of saving a document?

Instead, I propose automatic version control built in along with a possibility to add version names (manual versions) and a copy button to create a new copy or branch. The user should know that the version on the screen is what will come up next time. Also, it would be nice if there were automatic hourly snapshots of the document for the past few hours of editing time (not wall clock) as well as daily/weekly of older edits. If there are big edits in some version there could be a pop-up asking the user if it's ok to remove that old history.

Also, I think it's time to think fresh about the 'open document' icon proposals. they are all centered around a folder. 7-12 year olds don't have any concept of folders, do they? Their documents are usually in a stack on the desk.

birger 09:08, 12 December 2011 (MET)

Answers
Hi,

Shouldn't a package for kids these days learn a lot from the phone/tablet style guides that will be what they know, and get rid of the idea of saving a document?

Looks like a good idea, but we need a complete analysis : implement such feature will need a lot of work, and we'll have to make it work on all OS's (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux). To be frank with you, there is nobody working at such feature, but you are welcome to contribute, and any patch is welcome.

Eric Bachard 10:14, 12 December 2011 (CET)

Also, I think it's time to think fresh about the 'open document' icon proposals. they are all centered around a folder. 7-12 year olds don't have any concept of folders,do they? Their documents are usually in a stack on the desk.

Good idea too. BTW, are you designer? If you want to propose something you are warmly welcome, and if you know a designer, you are welcome too. The most simple is to use your personal wiki page, and I'll follow everything.

FYI, we use to provide commit rights to the people once they seriously contributed several times, making things more easy for all ;-)

Eric Bachard 10:14, 12 December 2011 (CET)