Promethean for Linux

[mantone]

I am testing out an Eee PC (one of those mini-laptops that all the kids will have in a year's time).

My school use Promethean boards and I would very much like to use my Eee in the classroom; but it's Linux, not Windows.

Does anyone know whether and how I can install ACTIVstudio etc on my Eee?

[Dug]

Hi, Mantone and welcome.

This continues to be source of considerable frustration.

http://www.prometheanplanet.com/common/html/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=3400&highlight=linux

:mad:

[mantone]

Thanks for letting me know, Dug.

Never simple, is it?? :confused:

Does this mean that you can't even install the board as an input device?

[markrobinson]

Please do keep watching this space... Promethean are aware of the Linux marketplace and developments are ongoing.

A windows version of the ASUS is coming in the next few weeks and there are a couple of other low cost laptops on the way.

Even the OLPC has bowed to pressure to run Windows.

[mantone]

It is possible to run a windows emulator on the Asus already, but I don't want do have to install an inferior OS purely for the purpose of using an interactive whiteboard...

I can live without ACTIVboard, but I would like to use the board as an input device.

[markrobinson]

I have sent you a private message...

Although the kids may all want an ASUS now - they may all want the new XOXO by next year!

Two screen, tactile... 1 Watt consumption. I can't get more than 90 mins life out of my ASUS.

http://www.olpcnews.com/laptops/xo2/

[Stuart Collins]

I have sent you a private message...

Although the kids may all want an ASUS now - they may all want the new XOXO by next year!

Two screen, tactile... 1 Watt consumption. I can't get more than 90 mins life out of my ASUS.

http://www.olpcnews.com/laptops/xo2/

you have an eee, work or pleasure?

dammit, I've been trying to get one. Had a play with a 900 (linux 20G) in selfridges trafford center last week and now I REALLY want one.

[Dug]

I have one, running XP.

Couldn't be happier with it, although the new OLPC does look very tasty.

[bleucanard]

I have two, running, XP, Debian and Xandros, and sometimes Mark Robinson lets me borrow his :)

Pierre

[mantone]

I've only just got hold of it. Linux is new to me and so far I am finding it simple and easy to use. The interface is more logical but, the most important thing for a teacher is that it's STABLE!!

This is why I want to use it in lessons - I am fed up with the glitches and problems (using MS) that suddenly rear their heads half way through a lesson with a particularly challenging year 9 class of 32!!

[MrFelixU]

The guy who came to do our Promethean training in school assured me that ActivStudio was available for Linux. Was he talking rubbish? We were also told we would be able to import SMART Notebook files across to ActivStudio - does anyone know if this is possible?

Ta, Felix.

[LisaD]

I don't think Activstudio for Linux has been released yet. Last thing I heard was first of next calendar year.

As far as importing Smart Notebook files, my version of Activstudio does allow for this (PC and Mac).

On Mac, go to Menu/Flipchart/Import/From SMART Notebook. PC should say something similar.

What version of Activstudio do you have?

Lisa

[markrobinson]

And which "flavour" of Linux are you using?

[MrFelixU]

Debian - does it matter?

Oh, and another thing :-D

The Linux thing is only one af a big list of annoyances I've got about us moving to Promethean. So far, the plusses I can see are: more precise boards, a couple of "cool" maths features, e.g. a working compass and the ability to set the centre of rotation.

On the aaargh side:

- Keyboard shortcuts not obvious.
- Shapes can't have a fill and a pen colour - you "fill" them with the tool, but then you either have to group the filling and the border or they come apart.
- Once I''ve got some text, it's a pain to change size - takes several clicks instead of one drag.
- I can't change the colour of several pieces of text at once.
- When I select lots of things with CTRL, there's no visual feedback to show what's selected
- BIGGIE: it's far less intuitive for the students (IMHO)
- lots more.....

I'm hoping these are just because I'm a newbie or that they'll be addressed in the next release, but v. grumpy at the moment.

Oh, and the version we've got installed at school is Professional Edition v 3.6.

Rant over, will go back to write some reports or something.

Felix.

[markrobinson]

Thanks for the feedback....

re, flavours - there is a core/kernal of Linux - but each variant needs fully testing against before we can release it as a "standard" product.

The alternative would be to prescribe a few and then ignore everyone else. It has been our experience that most distributions of Linux used are customised extensively for the education project when Linux is used strategically. That is why it is useful to know the variants/flavours so we can ensure we know what the market is looking at.


Filling shapes:

AS does have a fill tool - other SW may not. This works on text objects as well as a range of other objects which means it is slightly different to a painting application. The point you make about needing to group when used with an annotation is something we are looking at.

Note: - If you go to the object properties for a shape (i.e. a shape from the shape library) you can set custom borders and fill setting, including solid colours as well various lines and cross hatched fills that should do what you expect.
Object Edit > Properties > Appearance


Alter Text size...

Double click to Edit Text object > then you can increase/decrease using the +/- options. This prevents dragging of text accidently resizing. We may look at enhancing that in future release so thanks for the feedback on it.


Can't change the colour of many pieces of text at same time.

The fill tool targets individual words since we saw that teachers needed that to assist in making teaching points in a dynamic way and we did not want to compromise that in favour of a presentational look and feel need.

There is a "format painter" option that allows you to copy and paste styles from text box to text box as you can with Word. etc.

With the Colour Picker Tool press ALT and click the Colour Picker Tool over the text with the correct format. Go to the text you wish to change and with the Fill Tool, press ALT and click over the text.

When I select lots of things with CTRL, there's no visual feedback to show what's selected

You should see a dashed border around all the objects you have selected.That is a standard feature. In settings you can choose to hide/show the dashed border to the selection box. Are you suggesting each object should additonally be highlighted?


Keyboard shortcuts (PC examples)


F1 - Shows help.
F2 - Switches between Design Mode and Presentation Mode.
F4- Shows the Properties and Actions box.
F7 - Spellchecker
Ctrl+A - If editing text, selects all text in the current text box.
Otherwise, selects all objects on the Flipchart.
Note: locked objects will not be included in the selection.
Ctrl+B - Makes selected text bold.
Ctrl+C - Copies selected objects to the Clipboard.
Ctrl+G - Groups selected objects together.
Ctrl+I - Makes selected text italic.
Ctrl+N - Starts a new Flipchart.
Ctrl+O - Opens My Flipcharts.
Ctrl+P- Opens the Flipchart Printing box.
Ctrl+U - Underlines selected text.
Ctrl+G - Groups/Ungroups a selected group.
Ctrl+V - Pastes selected objects.
Ctrl+X - Cuts selected objects.
Ctrl+Z/Y - Undo/redo action.
Page Up / Page Down - move through flipchart

You can also use the arrow keys to move objects around the page.

If you use only the arrow key it will move the object 1 pixel.
If you use shift + the arrow key it will move the object 5 pixels.
If you use ctrl + the arrow key it will move the object 10 pixels.

Hope that helps.

You can search the forums on most questions and see what answers are there already.

[jepatton]

- Shapes can't have a fill and a pen colour - you "fill" them with the tool, but then you either have to group the filling and the border or they come apart.
.

I can help you with this one at least. ;)

1. After you fill the shape, delete the border entirely.
2. Double click on the shape and select Properties (the white pad with the red check mark on it.)
3. Click on appearance. One of the options is "Outline," which is probably already checked, with a width of 1 and it's probably the same color as the shape. You can change both the color and the width.

I hope this helps!

[MrFelixU]

Thank you for the in-depth replies :-/.

[MrFelixU]

re, flavours - there is a core/kernal of Linux - but each variant needs fully testing against before we can release it as a "standard" product.

Chalk me up as a beta-testing volunteer :-)

Filling shapes:

Note: - If you go to the object properties for a shape (i.e. a shape from the shape library) you can set custom borders and fill setting, including solid colours as well various lines and cross hatched fills that should do what you expect.
Object Edit > Properties > Appearance

Ok, I think I just tried this, but I still had to 1. draw a rectangle, 2. fill it, 3. edit the "filling", 4. get rid of the original rectangle. This strikes me as crazy! Is it possible to just create a filled shape in the first place?


Can't change the colour of many pieces of text at same time.

The fill tool targets individual words since we saw that teachers needed that to assist in making teaching points in a dynamic way and we did not want to compromise that in favour of a presentational look and feel need.

There is a "format painter" option that allows you to copy and paste styles from text box to text box as you can with Word. etc.

With the Colour Picker Tool press ALT and click the Colour Picker Tool over the text with the correct format. Go to the text you wish to change and with the Fill Tool, press ALT and click over the text.

hmm, it's still a pain that you can't seem to change properties en masse, e.g. if I want to make 4 text objects bold or underlined or green, I can't seem to.

When I select lots of things with CTRL, there's no visual feedback to show what's selected

You should see a dashed border around all the objects you have selected.That is a standard feature. In settings you can choose to hide/show the dashed border to the selection box. Are you suggesting each object should additonally be highlighted?

Yep, exactly - I often prepare a dozen separate text (or other)objects and then want to select some of them to do something with, e.g. put on a lower layer, or change colour or whatever. If the shapes are not all together, but scattered around the page, I don't get any feedback as to what i've actually selected, only the extremities.

Keyboard shortcuts (PC examples)


F1 - Shows help.
F2 - Switches between Design Mode and Presentation Mode.
F4- Shows the Properties and Actions box.
F7 - Spellchecker
Ctrl+A - If editing text, selects all text in the current text box.
Otherwise, selects all objects on the Flipchart.
Note: locked objects will not be included in the selection.
Ctrl+B - Makes selected text bold.
Ctrl+C - Copies selected objects to the Clipboard.
Ctrl+G - Groups selected objects together.
Ctrl+I - Makes selected text italic.
Ctrl+N - Starts a new Flipchart.
Ctrl+O - Opens My Flipcharts.
Ctrl+P- Opens the Flipchart Printing box.
Ctrl+U - Underlines selected text.
Ctrl+G - Groups/Ungroups a selected group.
Ctrl+V - Pastes selected objects.
Ctrl+X - Cuts selected objects.
Ctrl+Z/Y - Undo/redo action.
Page Up / Page Down - move through flipchart

You can also use the arrow keys to move objects around the page.

If you use only the arrow key it will move the object 1 pixel.
If you use shift + the arrow key it will move the object 5 pixels.
If you use ctrl + the arrow key it will move the object 10 pixels.

These will come in handy, thanks. Shame they're not displayed in the menus like most applications.

Hope that helps.

You can search the forums on most questions and see what answers are there already.

Again, don't want to be all negative, just trying my head around how to get things done efficiently.

Ta,

Felix.

[markrobinson]

I am sure Promethean are looking into your requests....

>>> Is it possible to just create a filled shape in the first place?

Yes. Of course... This comes down to the differerence between "objects" and annotations and the way they can be utilised in a lesson.

There are many prebuilt "shapes" in the shape library... Open the resource library and you will see the icon for shapes... There are many in there - drag any out and they can be filled with the fill tool.

Shapes you draw using the pen or the pen modifier (which lets you make rectangles etc) are classed as "annotations" and can be deleted along with your handwritten notes - which is not what you may want to happen when teaching and keeping notes in a lesson.

In the current design of the software you can delete just annotations or all objects when you click the Clear tool and this is important. This means you can use "shape objects" as counters, layout help, etc. and then write freely over them. You can then delete any 'annotations' you make without destroying the underlying page or activity that uses the shapes.

Generally when it comes to features there is great debate about what is a "teaching and learning feature" and what is a presentational feature - and sometimes they conflict.


I'd suggest a search in the forum on templates may help. There is a large library of editable pages templates that you can use as is or customise. Many of these have activities built into them which can make lesson creation/planning easier.

[htemske]

Can't change the colour of many pieces of text at same time.

The fill tool targets individual words since we saw that teachers needed that to assist in making teaching points in a dynamic way and we did not want to compromise that in favour of a presentational look and feel need.

There is a "format painter" option that allows you to copy and paste styles from text box to text box as you can with Word. etc.

With the Colour Picker Tool press ALT and click the Colour Picker Tool over the text with the correct format. Go to the text you wish to change and with the Fill Tool, press ALT and click over the text.

hmm, it's still a pain that you can't seem to change properties en masse, e.g. if I want to make 4 text objects bold or underlined or green, I can't seem to.

Ta,

Felix.

(In the case of 4 text boxes that should match) What about typing your text for one box and setting the color, size, etc. (you can click the all button to select evrything) The next boxes you type will remember the size and color and make them match (I don't think it will remember an underline). I have to say I use the format painter trick and it is very quick though for a few boxes. Copy one (ctrl picker) and then spread it around (ctrl fill)

I do have to defend the current set up for the fill setting of one word at a time. As an elementary teacher I use that frequently to highlight and/or hide a single word. I like that there are pretty simple methods to accomplish both tasks.

Good luck with working out your efficient methods. The people on the forum are incredibly helpful. I think you will find the Planet and Forum are some of the best features of Promethean. Once you get used to the changes I doubt you would want to go back. (At least that seems to be the what I have heard from users of both)