User Guide XO Applications

Transcription

1 User Guide XO Applications One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the considerable contribution and guidance that OLPC Australia have made to this project. References User Guide XO Applications by T L Gillett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Page 1

2 Table of Contents The Sugar Desktop...3 Settings Menu...4 The Gnome Desktop...5 Switching to the Gnome Desktop...5 Sugar List Menu...7 Sugar Desktop Applications...8 Speak Activity...8 Clock Activity...9 Maze Activity...10 Ruler Activity...11 Record Activity...12 Browse Activity...13 Memorize Activity...14 Calculator Activity...15 Paint Activity...16 TimTamJam Activity...17 Page 2

3 The Sugar Desktop When the XO laptop is started, it will start by default in the Sugar desktop, and you will see the Sugar Home screen with a circular menu of applications, called the Ring. Clicking on an icon from the Ring will start the corresponding application. The screenshot below shows the Home page with the Frame activated, the Frame places a set of shortcut icons around the edge of the screen. The Frame may be activated or de-activated by pushing the Frame keyboard button (top right), or by moving the cursor to any of the screen corners. From left to right across the top of the Frame, the icons shown include: the four views, corresponding to the keyboard buttons (top left of keyboard) the Journal (shown highlighted) recently used applications Along the bottom, the icons shown include: USB memory device installed Wireless network connections Speech Sound volume Battery status Page 3

4 Settings Menu Clicking on the XO icon in the centre of the Ring will bring up a menu which includes items to Shutdown and Restart the laptop, and to access the Settings. Clicking on the Setting menu item will bring up the Settings page as shown, The items on this page allow you to access various laptop settings and information. These do not usually need to be used for normal operation. The 'Switch Desktop' icon is used to change from Sugar to the Gnome desktop. Page 4

5 The Gnome Desktop As well as the Sugar desktop, the XO laptop also has a Gnome desktop which works like most conventional laptops and personal computers, and has a range of applications that may be used in an office or school environment. It is based on the Fedora Linux distribution. Switching to the Gnome Desktop To switch to the Gnome desktop from Sugar, click on the Switch Desktop icon in the My Settings page to bring up the Switch to Gnome page below. Click on the Switch to Gnome button, then the Restart Now button. The laptop will restart and show the Gnome desktop screen. The top menu bar contains 'Applications' and 'Places' on the left, and on the right User menu for Shutdown and Logout, as well as icons for WiFi and Battery. The Applications menu contains the usual items for Office, Internet, Graphics, Sound & Video, Accessories, Programming, Education and Games. It also has a System Tools menu. To switch back to Sugar from the Gnome desktop, select the Applications menu (top left), then 'System Tools', and then the 'Switch to Sugar' menu item. Page 5

6 The Applications > Office menu includes a Word Processor (AbiWord) and a Spreadsheet (Gnumeric) as shown below. These operate in the same manner as other conventional PC office applications. The Education menu includes the Klavaro typing tutor programme. The Games menu includes the TuxType typing game. Page 6

7 Sugar List Menu The Sugar desktop has two ways of presenting the Activities menu Ring and List. The Ring menu shows only the Favorite Activities, whereas the List menu show all the Activities which are available to use on the XO laptop. The default display is the Ring menu. The List menu may be activated by clicking on the List View icon at the top left. In the List menu, Activities which are included on the Favorite menu are marked with a coloured star. To add or remove an Activity from the Favorite menu, just click on the star. To start an Activity from the List display, just click on the icon for Activity (second column from left). Page 7

8 Sugar Desktop Applications Speak Activity The Speak activity is used to have the XO laptop speak words and phrases that are typed in. To use the Speak activity, simply type in a word or phrase and press the enter key. The XO laptop will speak the words back to you. The pitch and rate of the speech may be adjusted by clicking on the 'waveform' icon (top, third from right). The speech sounds (phonemes) may also be changed to suit various languages using drop down menu list (top centre). The Speak activity also has a Robot mode where you may ask questions such as What is and the robot will attempt to provide a spoken answer. To activate the Robot mode, click on the 'lightbulb' icon (top, third from left). Page 8

9 Clock Activity The Clock activity is used to learn about the time and date from either analog or digital clocks. The icons along the top select different types of clock display, including a speaking clock. Page 9

10 Maze Activity Te Maze activity is graphical problem solving activity where the goal is to move the coloured ball along the maze path towards the goal which is a coloured square. At each intersection of the path, push one of the Arrow keys on the keyboard to select the next part of the path. Note that this activity does not use the touchpad or mouse to select the path. The icons at the top allow you to select the degree of difficulty of the maze. When you get to the end of the maze, the time taken will be displayed in the upper left of the screen. Page 10

11 Ruler Activity The Ruler activity is designed to help teach measurement of distance, shapes and angles. The display shows various rulers that can be used to measure everyday objects. The icons along the top change the measurement from linear to shapes and angles. Page 11

12 Record Activity The Record activity may be used to record pictures, sound or video from the microphone and camera on the XO laptop. When started, the Record activity is set to take still pictures. To take a picture, just click on the button in the centre under the picture. To change to video or sound recording, click on the camera or microphone icons on the top left of the screen. The Delay before the recording starts, the Duration of the recording, and the Quality (resolution) can be set with the controls on the menu bar above the picture. Pictures that have been taken will be displayed in the gallery strip below the main picture. To remove a picture, right click on it in the gallery strip and select Remove. To copy a picture to Clipboard, right click on it in the Gallery strip and select Copy to Clipboard. To copy a picture to USB, press the Frame key and select Journal to see the picture saved in the Journal. Right click on the picture icon in the Journal and select 'Save to USB'. Page 12

13 Browse Activity The Browse activity provides a Web Browser for viewing material stored on the XO laptop or avaialble from the Internet if the XO laptop is connected via WiFi. If the XO laptop is connected by WiFi to the Internet, you can enter a search in to the Google or OLPC search fields. To enter a URL for a Web site, position the cursor in the URL field (top, centre) On the right hand side there is a menu under OLPC Library that allows you to display material from the library stored on the XO laptop. This does not require a connection to the Internet. Across the top menu bar there are icons for: Address bar Edit (copy, paste) View Home URL field Forward and Back buttons Favorites Stop Page 13

14 Memorize Activity The Memorize activity is a memory training activity where questions and answers are hidden behind tiles that may be turned over, one at a time. The object is to match the questions with the respective answers. To use the Memorise activity, click on one of the Question tiles numbered '1', then click on one of the Answer tiles numbered '2'. If the correct Answer is selected, the two tiles will remain in place, otherwise they will turn over again. Keep selecting tile pairs until all the questions are answered. Icons along the top menu bar allow you to: Load Demo games Set the number of tiles Restart the game Edit the game The demo games which may be include numbers, letters and sounds. Editing the game allows you to make up your own questions and answers using text, sounds and pictures. Enter new questions and answers, then click on Add and Update to add them to the game. When editing is complete, return to the game by clicking on the Play icon (which replaces the Edit icon in Edit mode) Page 14

15 Calculator Activity The Calculator activity provides an on-screen calculator which may be set for simple and advanced modes of operation. To start using the calculator, simply place the cursor in the field above the on-screen number keys, and type an expression such as then Enter. You can type on the keyboard, or click on the keys on the screen, then click on the = key. The expression you enter and the result will be displayed on the right hand side of the screen. The icons along the top menu bar are: edit (copy and paste) Math functions such as 'X Squared' and 'Square Root of X' Trig functions such as Sin, Cos, Tan Logic functions such as 'and' and 'or' Constants such as Pi and e Plot functions Select degrees or radians Select Scientific or exponen notation Select the number base Decimal (10), Binary (2), Octal (8), or Hexadecimal (16) Stop Page 15

16 Paint Activity The paint activity provides a simple drawing tool. The icons along the top menu bar are for: Edit functions including as Undo, Redo, Copy, Paste and Clear. Brush Properties including Shape, Colour and Size. Tools, including Brush, Eraser, Bucket and Picker (for copying a colour). Stamp (for copying a selected area). Select Area for outlining an area to be copied, pasted or cleared. Shapes such as circle, square, lines and polygons. Text controls including font, size, bold and italics. Picture controls for insert, rotate, scale and colouring. Stop To start using the Paint activity, select a suitable brush colour and size, then click on the blank part of the screen and drag the cursor along to make a line. Select a shape, then click and drag to make a shape of the required size. Select Text, set the size and colour, position the cursor on the screen and begin typing. To save a drawing to the Journal, click on the Paint icon (top left) and enter the drawing name. Click on the Journal icon (to right of name field) and enter a description if required. When you look in the Journal later, you will see an icon for your drawing. Click on the icon to bring the drawing back up on the screen. You can save the drawingto USB memory stick from the Journal. Page 16

17 TimTamJam Activity The TimTamJam activity is a music application which allows compositions to be made up with a range of simulated instruments. The icons along the top menu bar are: Volume and speed Number of beats Saved desktops (arrangements) Stop Mute To start using this activity, click on an instrument (such as Keyboard) from the bottom menu, select an instrument from the pictures offered, and click on it and drag it to the desktop. Then click on Loops, and select one of the loops offered and drag it to the desktop, placing it against the right hand side of the instrument picture. Click on the loop to start the instrument playing. Repeat for other instruments to build up your band. To adjust individual instrument properties, right click on the instrument picture. Similarly, right click on a loop to adjust its properties. Page 17