About time I did some reporting. I visited the preschool yesterday, and had a good sit down and chat with the team of testers there. Theyre very excited to be a "testing station" for a free kids distro (and to get their computing so cheap!). They really have had a really good look at HanSamBen, and their childrens use of it. Overall theyre VERY impressed indeed, and have asked me to send you their heartfelt thanks Sidders/LJFR and everyone involved on a job well done.
......they were just a little confused I didint know your real life names!
They especially commented on all the new sounds/stamps noises on paint, which they have missed with ecopup.
Now being the pernicious Virgo software tester I am, who nothing is ever good enough for me (even when its free), I really pressed them for ways that it could be improved, as only by being (constructively) critical can things become even better (sorry Im still a little sore about the official puppy 4.2 testing program I was on!). I will do my best to improve too.
Heres what they said....Since Im a bit formal I will list them under "Feature requests", "Change Requests" and "Bug Reports".
Feature requests
I hope Sidders your research into freeDOS games is coming on well, perhaps this will help you in your choices.
-They have requested some more games of a "drag and drop" or "mouse control" variety. Part of their job is to teach them "motor control" skills...how to pick things up an manipulate them.
-Also any more games that will help them learn the recognition of shapes and colours, and matching/sorting of these.
-Apparently the little darlings have been practicing their newfound dragging and dropping skills on the desktop icons too! They have asked for a way of locking these down so wont get moved about.
-They have also requested a way of Locking the keyboard too (at the moment they put the the keyboards around the back of the computers....I dont know how this could be accomplished because many of the games require the use of the keyboard too (especially the DOS ones I would think).
-They have also requested that a Playleaders Manual be provided, preferably including screenshots, with a list of things in "Playleaders terminology" that each game provides. Im happy to help with this if needed...hopefully someone else will volunteer who has a better understanding of this.
Change Requests
-They have suggested that a brighter Wallpaper would be more attractive to the children (although they like the icons). Apparently strong primary colours is the key here. The computer we have testing HanSamBen is next to an
ecopup one (a general purpose puplet I made for windows refugees...who also have children) and apparently the children use that one first in the morning simply for this reason (despite it has a lot less for children on it). This is also really disturbing as Ecopup looks like Windows!
- I purposefully asked if a puppy on the wallpaper would be appropriate...they said that would be fine as long as it was a primary coloured puppy, and it was "smiling"
-May I suggest IceWM as a change of window manager, as jwm isnt as capable of the big bold types of graphics children like. May I also suggest
this theme which I have used before for kids computers in homes.
- Theyve also requested that a larger, more colourful mouse pointer would be helpful, to give the children more feedback when they use the mouse (like the one in gCompris itself).
Bug Reports
- Apparently Gcompris has a bug where, when the "Home" icon in the bottom right is clicked, the icons for the game menu on the left and bottom disappear (I wish I had took a pic as it happened while I was there). I set the gCompris going again from the command line with "gcompris > error.txt", but the bug failed to manifest again in the time I was there. I will try and get a more detailed report. Apparently it happens several times a day. They have been applying the "switch it off and back on again" workaround for now, though Ive did give training on the more convenient but less obvious "ctrl+alt+bkspace...xwin" method.
Im sorry Im not able to supply more information. Ive done a quick google for this bug but havnt found anything. Hopefully someone will be able to recreate it and post some more detailed information.
-Apparently also, there is a problem with the gcompris mouse pointer (the big red one they like) not showing if gcompris is started from the desktop icon...but apparently it works if started from the start menu entry.
@ Sidders
Thanks loads for the work you have put in already, and Im sorry to provide you with yet more of it! Im looking forward to an updated version with FreeDOS, let me know which areas you would particularly like me to direct testing at from a technical point of view.
Woof Woof and Doggie biccies all round