[FM Discuss] I'd like to write a manual on Beginner's Guide To Creating Sugar Activities

[Anne Gentle]

Hi Jim -

Very helpful, thanks for the audience considerations and the outline.

I've created the manual here:
http://en.flossmanuals.net/bin/view/ActivitiesGuideSugar/WebHome

It includes the six starting chapters you list, though I did not go
into each chapter and include your sections you list, nor have I
arranged them in the correct order. We can do that after you get them
populated - just send another email to the group.

I hope that gives you a good start! Thanks for bringing it to FLOSS
Manuals, it's a great match.

Anne

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 5:14 PM, Jim Simmons <nicestep at gmail.com> wrote:
> Anne,
>
> I understand where you're coming from on this, but I think that the
> subject really deserves its own book.  The chapter in the Sugar book
> on creating Activities is kind of thin, and if you made it much
> thicker you might make the book less useful to its intended audience.
> I see this as an O'Reilly book for the pre-teen set and up, or better
> still like one of the Alfred P. Morgan books I loved in the sixth
> grade ("The Boy Electrician" and many others).
>
> There is already an Activity development book out there that is good
> as far as it goes, but the material is dated and in fact there are
> easier ways to create and test Activities than what they describe.  It
> also assumes more knowledge than a beginner would have.
>
> To give you some idea of the scope of this thing here is my table of
> contents from Open Office so far:
>
> Table of Contents
> 1 Introduction  3
> 2 What Is Sugar?        5
> 2.1 The Journal 6
> 2.2 Collaboration       7
> 2.3 Security    8
> 2.4 Summary     9
> 3 What Is A Sugar Activity?     11
> 4 What Do I Need To Know To Write A Sugar Activity?     12
> 4.1 Python      12
> 4.2 PyGTK       13
> 4.3 PyGame      13
> 5 Setting Up a Development Environment  15
> 5.1 Linux or Emulation? 15
> 5.2 Eric        17
> 5.3 Inkscape    17
> 5.4 The Sugar Environment       17
> 5.5 Should I Use sugar-jhbuild? 18
> 6 Creating Your First Activity  19
> 6.1 Make A Standalone Python Program First      19
> 6.2 Inherit From Activity       19
>
> There's a *lot* more where that came from.  It's a huge subject.
> Also, while the Sugar bok has a chapter titled "What is Sugar?"
> already mine will be much different.  Mine will be a programmer's view
> of Sugar that deals with things like the Journal and how you work with
> it, Security and how it affects what your Activity can do and how it
> does it, how Collaboration works and what you can do with it, etc.
>
> A book like this needs code samples too, which may scare off readers
> of the Sugar book.
>
> I'm counting on contributions and feedback from others, of course.
> There are topics that belong in a book like this that I'm not fully
> qualified to write.  For instance, I've never done an Activity using
> PyGame and I've never Sugarized an existing app written in a language
> other than Python.  I've used Pootle for internationalizing my
> Activities but I'm damned if I know if I'm doing it right.  I know a
> bit about making an Activity support multiple versions of Sugar but
> others know more.  And as you see above I'm going to recommend that
> for testing purposes an Activity developer make a first version as a
> program that can run outside of Sugar.  It sounds like Walter has
> taken this idea farther than I have.
>
> I am attracted to Floss Manuals because it seems to offer the
> collaboration advantages of a Wiki with the structure of a book.
> There are good articles in the OLPC and Sugar Wikis but if I was a kid
> learning all this stuff for the first time I'd want a book.
>
> In summary, I think what I'm proposing would not be a good fit in the
> Sugar book.  They are aimed at two different audiences.  I might go so
> far as to suggest that if this proposed book reaches a critical mass
> you might consider taking the small amount of Activity creating
> content out of the Sugar book and replacing it with a reference to
> this new book.
>
> Thanks for your consideration.
>
> James Simmons
>
>
>> Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:58:57 -0600
>> From: Anne Gentle <annegentle at justwriteclick.com>
>> To: discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
>> Subject: Re: [FM Discuss] I'd like to write a manual on Beginner's
>>        Guide To        Creating Sugar Activities
>> Message-ID:
>>        <1a4c3e670912181058w61efb30ds8819ecb4ae009429 at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>>
>> Wow, Jim, your proposed content sounds great. Would you consider
>> making those chapters within the Sugar book itself? There is a
>> Creating Activities chapter at
>> http://en.flossmanuals.net/Sugar/CreatingActivities, and I would
>> envision your experience and code examples would be a wonderful
>> additional chapter to the "Extending Sugar" section.
>>
>> With this method, you can create your own book  as a remix, say
>> "Beginner's Guide to Creating Sugar Activities" or "A Guide To
>> Creating Sugar Activities For Beginners", but also your content
>> becomes part of the bigger Sugar book. Then your content gets greater
>> distribution and the Sugar book gets more content... I think that
>> helps all around.
>>
>> Let me know what you think and I'll be happy to set up the chapter
>> idea I'm thinking of if that'll help you visualize it.
>>
>> Walter, it'd be great to include that sprite library chapter as well,
>> as another chapter within "Extending Sugar."
>>
>> Anne
>