tuxpaint-users

[Tuxpaint-users] New to list, but not to TuxPaint

[Anat & A. <ana...@gm...>]

Hi!

We're new to the user list, but have been using (and recommending) TuxPaint
for a while. We use TuxPaint with an eye-tracker and all painting takes
place with the eyes! It's pretty awesome and TuxPaint is pretty much the
only mechanism by which we can input continuous inputs (as opposed to
clicking buttons) in a 2D interface, so we like TuxPaint A LOT.

That said, we have a few limitations that if you can help us get past,
would make our use even better.

First, we would love to import backgrounds more easily. Presently, to
import a background (for example, a PNG or JPG of a worksheet for school
that we want to mark up), we have to:
1) save an image in TuxPaint (let's call it 20200820_1831img.jpg) and note
its location on the file system along with the thumbnail location
2) Take the worksheet image. Resize it to the TuxPaint size, and also save
a separate file as a thumbnail.
3) replace that earlier TuxPaint saved file by renaming the worksheet
images to 20200820_1831img.jpg and the associated thumbnail
20200820_1831Thumbnailimg.jpg
4) reopen TuxPaint and we have basically "faked" tuxpaint to open an older
saved file while in fact we opened the worksheet.

Let me tell you-- this is tedious to do on a regular basis for worksheets.
It's hard enough to get our instructional assistant at school to get the
pdf's of worksheets saved as png's and jpgs. And certainly with COVID, it's
all my job now... so how can I get around this arduous process and just
open background images of our choice?

Second issue is that no matter how hard I've looked into the configuration
options, I've been unable to find a way to resize the teeny tiny keyboard
that comes up when we want to use text. I'm sure it's obvious and there,
but I've not been able to locate it.

Third issue is just a question about stamps and how we might be able to add
stamps of our own?

Those are pretty much it for now. All of these would make our lives so much
easier with Tux Paint and facilitate my kiddo to do so much more school
work and fun painting!

Looking forward to hearing from developers or users.

Thanks!!

anatandaviv.

Re: [Tuxpaint-users] New to list, but not to TuxPaint

[Pere P. i C. <per...@gm...>]

El dj. 20 de 08 de 2020 a les 18:38 -0700, en/na Anat & Aviv va
escriure:
> Hi!
> 
> We're new to the user list, but have been using (and recommending) 
> TuxPaint for a while. We use TuxPaint with an eye-tracker and all
> painting takes place with the eyes! It's pretty awesome and TuxPaint 
> is pretty much the only mechanism by which we can input continuous
> inputs (as opposed to clicking buttons) in a 2D interface, so we like TuxPaint A LOT.
> 
> That said, we have a few limitations that if you can help us get past, 
> would make our use even better.
> 
> First, we would love to import backgrounds more easily. Presently, to import a background (for example, a PNG or JPG of a worksheet for school that we want to mark up), we have to:
> 1) save an image in TuxPaint (let's call it 20200820_1831img.jpg) and note its location on the file system along with the thumbnail location
> 2) Take the worksheet image. Resize it to the TuxPaint size, and also save a separate file as a thumbnail. 
> 3) replace that earlier TuxPaint saved file by renaming the worksheet images to 20200820_1831img.jpg and the associated thumbnail 20200820_1831Thumbnailimg.jpg
> 4) reopen TuxPaint and we have basically "faked" tuxpaint to open an older saved file while in fact we opened the worksheet.
> 
> Let me tell you-- this is tedious to do on a regular basis for worksheets. 
> It's hard enough to get our instructional assistant at school to get the pdf's 
> of worksheets saved as png's and jpgs. And certainly with COVID, it's all my job now... 
> so how can I get around this arduous process and just open background images of our choice?
> 

There are alternatives:
The first one that comes to my mind is "tuxpaint-import", it is a shell
script that runs on Linux and other *nixes. If you are not on Linux,
you could try to run it in a Linux/Unix emulator, it's usage is
described in the README.html

A second alternative is to add your image to the Tux Paint's "starters"
folder, either in the global Tux Paint's installation folder or in the
user's saving folder and rename it to imagename-back.png .

The third alternative are Templates, basically you put your image in
the Tux Paint's "templates" folder, either in the global Tux Paint's
installation folder or in the user's saving folder.

Starters and templates appears in the "New" dialog, their thumbnail is
created automatically by Tux Paint, instead images imported with
tuxpaint-import appears in the Open dialog
Starters are more powerful than templates in the sense that you can do
more creative things with them, yet templates are more simple to setup.

I suggest reading
http://www.tuxpaint.org/docs/en/html/EXTENDING.html
http://www.tuxpaint.org/docs/en/html/README.html



> Second issue is that no matter how hard I've looked into the configuration options, 
> I've been unable to find a way to resize the teeny tiny keyboard that comes up 
> when we want to use text. I'm sure it's obvious and there, but I've not been able 
> to locate it.
> 
This is an overdue feature that is not implemented yet, sorry :(



> Third issue is just a question about stamps and how we might 
> be able to add stamps of our own?

This is covered too in the EXTENDING.html I pointed above, basically
put your stamp in the "stamps/|category|" folder, either in the global
Tux Paint installation folder or in the user's Tux Paint saving folder.

Note that in the saving user's folder maybe will not exist the folders
I mentioned and you may have to create them.

Also is worth to note that there is documentation in case you want to
improve the quality of the stamps
http://www.tuxpaint.org/docs/en/html/ADVANCED-STAMPS-HOWTO.html

> 
> Those are pretty much it for now. All of these would make our lives 
> so much easier with Tux Paint and facilitate my kiddo to do so much 
> more school work and fun painting!
> 
> Looking forward to hearing from developers or users.
> 
> Thanks!!
> 
> anatandaviv.


Hope this helps
Pere

Re: [Tuxpaint-users] New to list, but not to TuxPaint

[Bill K. <nb...@so...>]

On Sat, Aug 22, 2020 at 08:30:19AM +0200, Pere Pujal i Carabantes wrote:
> El dj. 20 de 08 de 2020 a les 18:38 -0700, en/na Anat & Aviv va
> escriure:
> > Hi!
> > 
> > We're new to the user list, but have been using (and recommending) 
> > TuxPaint for a while. We use TuxPaint with an eye-tracker and all
> > painting takes place with the eyes! It's pretty awesome and TuxPaint 
> > is pretty much the only mechanism by which we can input continuous
> > inputs (as opposed to clicking buttons) in a 2D interface, so we like TuxPaint A LOT.

Hi!  I'm so glad to hear it!


> > That said, we have a few limitations that if you can help us get past, 
> > would make our use even better.
> > 
> > First, we would love to import backgrounds more easily. Presently, to import a background (for example, a PNG or JPG of a worksheet for school that we want to mark up), we have to:
> > 1) save an image in TuxPaint (let's call it 20200820_1831img.jpg) and note its location on the file system along with the thumbnail location
> > 2) Take the worksheet image. Resize it to the TuxPaint size, and also save a separate file as a thumbnail. 
> > 3) replace that earlier TuxPaint saved file by renaming the worksheet images to 20200820_1831img.jpg and the associated thumbnail 20200820_1831Thumbnailimg.jpg
> > 4) reopen TuxPaint and we have basically "faked" tuxpaint to open an older saved file while in fact we opened the worksheet.
> > 
> > Let me tell you-- this is tedious to do on a regular basis for worksheets. 
> > It's hard enough to get our instructional assistant at school to get the pdf's 
> > of worksheets saved as png's and jpgs. And certainly with COVID, it's all my job now... 
> > so how can I get around this arduous process and just open background images of our choice?

I wonder if it'd be worth supporting PDFs for Starters and Templates...?

Right now, we support PNG, JPEG, SVG, and KPX (KidPix -- a wrapper
around JPEG).

Note that PNGs with solid white backgrounds are supported,
allowing for a plain black-and-white image to be used as a
starter (with the white being interpreted as 'transparent').
(Prior to 0.9.21, Starter PNGs _had_ to be "black & transparent".)


> There are alternatives:
> The first one that comes to my mind is "tuxpaint-import", it is a shell
> script that runs on Linux and other *nixes. If you are not on Linux,
> you could try to run it in a Linux/Unix emulator, it's usage is
> described in the README.html
> 
> A second alternative is to add your image to the Tux Paint's "starters"
> folder, either in the global Tux Paint's installation folder or in the
> user's saving folder and rename it to imagename-back.png .
> 
> The third alternative are Templates, basically you put your image in
> the Tux Paint's "templates" folder, either in the global Tux Paint's
> installation folder or in the user's saving folder.
> 
> Starters and templates appears in the "New" dialog, their thumbnail is
> created automatically by Tux Paint, instead images imported with
> tuxpaint-import appears in the Open dialog
> Starters are more powerful than templates in the sense that you can do
> more creative things with them, yet templates are more simple to setup.
> 
> I suggest reading
> http://www.tuxpaint.org/docs/en/html/EXTENDING.html
> http://www.tuxpaint.org/docs/en/html/README.html
> 
> 
> 
> > Second issue is that no matter how hard I've looked into the configuration options, 
> > I've been unable to find a way to resize the teeny tiny keyboard that comes up 
> > when we want to use text. I'm sure it's obvious and there, but I've not been able 
> > to locate it.
> > 
> This is an overdue feature that is not implemented yet, sorry :(

Pere, I'm going to try to take a stab at this, right now...
I may give up, because I didn't work on the OSK feature, and
it may be too hairy for me. :)


> > Third issue is just a question about stamps and how we might 
> > be able to add stamps of our own?
> 
> This is covered too in the EXTENDING.html I pointed above, basically
> put your stamp in the "stamps/|category|" folder, either in the global
> Tux Paint installation folder or in the user's Tux Paint saving folder.
> 
> Note that in the saving user's folder maybe will not exist the folders
> I mentioned and you may have to create them.
> 
> Also is worth to note that there is documentation in case you want to
> improve the quality of the stamps
> http://www.tuxpaint.org/docs/en/html/ADVANCED-STAMPS-HOWTO.html
> 
> > Those are pretty much it for now. All of these would make our lives 
> > so much easier with Tux Paint and facilitate my kiddo to do so much 
> > more school work and fun painting!
> > 
> > Looking forward to hearing from developers or users.
> > 
> > Thanks!!
> > 
> > anatandaviv.
> 
> 
> Hope this helps
> Pere

Thanks, all!

-- 
-bill!
Sent from my computer

Re: [Tuxpaint-users] New to list, but not to TuxPaint

[Bill K. <nb...@so...>]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 08:00:14PM -0700, Bill Kendrick wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 22, 2020 at 08:30:19AM +0200, Pere Pujal i Carabantes wrote:
> > El dj. 20 de 08 de 2020 a les 18:38 -0700, en/na Anat & Aviv va
> > escriure:
<snip>
> > > Second issue is that no matter how hard I've looked into the configuration options, 
> > > I've been unable to find a way to resize the teeny tiny keyboard that comes up 
> > > when we want to use text. I'm sure it's obvious and there, but I've not been able 
> > > to locate it.
> > > 
> > This is an overdue feature that is not implemented yet, sorry :(
> 
> Pere, I'm going to try to take a stab at this, right now...
> I may give up, because I didn't work on the OSK feature, and
> it may be too hairy for me. :)

Okay, I made a very quick-and-dirty change.  If there is enough
room to fit a keyboard with larger, 48x48 buttons, on the
current canvas, with the chosen layout, Tux Paint will do so.
Otherwise, it will fall back to the smaller, 24x24 buttons.

You can see examples here in this tweet:
https://twitter.com/TuxPaintTweets/status/1298484446216089600

While I was at it, I made the font size used for the buttons
slightly larger.  It was 12pt before (24x24 buttons).
It is now 16pt on the small keyboard, and 32bpt on the larger
keyboard (48x48 buttons).

I hope this proves useful!  Any further improvements would probably
require a bit of rewriting how things work in there.

The commit, for anyone curious:
https://sourceforge.net/p/tuxpaint/tuxpaint/ci/61998e4d00c849a5787a1c6b10ded1ef67d14cf0/

-bill!

Re: [Tuxpaint-users] New to list, but not to TuxPaint

[Pere P. i C. <per...@gm...>]

El dt. 25 de 08 de 2020 a les 22:04 -0700, en/na Bill Kendrick va
escriure:
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 08:00:14PM -0700, Bill Kendrick wrote:
> > On Sat, Aug 22, 2020 at 08:30:19AM +0200, Pere Pujal i Carabantes wrote:
> > > El dj. 20 de 08 de 2020 a les 18:38 -0700, en/na Anat & Aviv va
> > > escriure:
> <snip>
> > > > Second issue is that no matter how hard I've looked into the configuration options, 
> > > > I've been unable to find a way to resize the teeny tiny keyboard that comes up 
> > > > when we want to use text. I'm sure it's obvious and there, but I've not been able 
> > > > to locate it.
> > > > 
> > > This is an overdue feature that is not implemented yet, sorry :(
> > 
> > Pere, I'm going to try to take a stab at this, right now...
> > I may give up, because I didn't work on the OSK feature, and
> > it may be too hairy for me. :)
> 
> Okay, I made a very quick-and-dirty change.  If there is enough
> room to fit a keyboard with larger, 48x48 buttons, on the
> current canvas, with the chosen layout, Tux Paint will do so.
> Otherwise, it will fall back to the smaller, 24x24 buttons.
> 
> You can see examples here in this tweet:
> https://twitter.com/TuxPaintTweets/status/1298484446216089600
> 
> While I was at it, I made the font size used for the buttons
> slightly larger.  It was 12pt before (24x24 buttons).
> It is now 16pt on the small keyboard, and 32bpt on the larger
> keyboard (48x48 buttons).
> 
> I hope this proves useful!  Any further improvements would probably
> require a bit of rewriting how things work in there.
> 
> The commit, for anyone curious:
> https://sourceforge.net/p/tuxpaint/tuxpaint/ci/61998e4d00c849a5787a1c6b10ded1ef67d14cf0/
> 
> -bill!

Hi Bill,

Nice, Thanks :)

These days I am currently too tired after day work to do something
useful.
I've take a look at the code and noticed a partial workaround that
could be helpful for the current 0.9.23 version:

scaling up the 5 btnsm_***.png images should render the onscreen
kerboard bigger, however the font size will not be altered by this
change.
So if the problem is to identify the letters this will not prove
useful, instead if the problem is precision of the eye tracker to point
to a small button, then it could help.

HTH
Pere

> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Tuxpaint-users mailing list
> Tux...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tuxpaint-users

Re: [Tuxpaint-users] New to list, but not to TuxPaint

[Anat C. <cas...@gm...>]

Hi,

Thank you both for your active engagement with our tuxpaint issues!
We have both problems, actually. But resizing the targets would be a good
start. I mean, those keys are too small even for my fingers when I use the
tablet in touch mode (and I have decently slender fingers)! We'll try to
memorize the keyboard key locations if we cannot see them until you find a
different option... haha

As for the other two problems: thank you for pointing out the
documentation. I was able to work through the "starters." Of course the
school district created horrible permissions for all those tux paint
subfolders and it took me a while to circumvent that (when the school owns
the tablets, they tend to lock students out of pretty much everything other
than the downloads folder). On windows 10 there is something a little like
a unix softlink, so I had to change 'starters' to soft-link point to
another folder for which I did have permissions. But this seems like it's
tenuous and the next time we update tux paint it is likely to break.
I know in the configurations one is able to change the folder in which the
artwork is saved. Is it also possible to point 'starters' to a different
folder?

Thanks for all your help!

Anat




On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 11:43 PM Pere Pujal i Carabantes <
per...@gm...> wrote:

> El dt. 25 de 08 de 2020 a les 22:04 -0700, en/na Bill Kendrick va
> escriure:
> > On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 08:00:14PM -0700, Bill Kendrick wrote:
> > > On Sat, Aug 22, 2020 at 08:30:19AM +0200, Pere Pujal i Carabantes
> wrote:
> > > > El dj. 20 de 08 de 2020 a les 18:38 -0700, en/na Anat & Aviv va
> > > > escriure:
> > <snip>
> > > > > Second issue is that no matter how hard I've looked into the
> configuration options,
> > > > > I've been unable to find a way to resize the teeny tiny keyboard
> that comes up
> > > > > when we want to use text. I'm sure it's obvious and there, but
> I've not been able
> > > > > to locate it.
> > > > >
> > > > This is an overdue feature that is not implemented yet, sorry :(
> > >
> > > Pere, I'm going to try to take a stab at this, right now...
> > > I may give up, because I didn't work on the OSK feature, and
> > > it may be too hairy for me. :)
> >
> > Okay, I made a very quick-and-dirty change.  If there is enough
> > room to fit a keyboard with larger, 48x48 buttons, on the
> > current canvas, with the chosen layout, Tux Paint will do so.
> > Otherwise, it will fall back to the smaller, 24x24 buttons.
> >
> > You can see examples here in this tweet:
> > https://twitter.com/TuxPaintTweets/status/1298484446216089600
> >
> > While I was at it, I made the font size used for the buttons
> > slightly larger.  It was 12pt before (24x24 buttons).
> > It is now 16pt on the small keyboard, and 32bpt on the larger
> > keyboard (48x48 buttons).
> >
> > I hope this proves useful!  Any further improvements would probably
> > require a bit of rewriting how things work in there.
> >
> > The commit, for anyone curious:
> >
> https://sourceforge.net/p/tuxpaint/tuxpaint/ci/61998e4d00c849a5787a1c6b10ded1ef67d14cf0/
> >
> > -bill!
>
> Hi Bill,
>
> Nice, Thanks :)
>
> These days I am currently too tired after day work to do something
> useful.
> I've take a look at the code and noticed a partial workaround that
> could be helpful for the current 0.9.23 version:
>
> scaling up the 5 btnsm_***.png images should render the onscreen
> kerboard bigger, however the font size will not be altered by this
> change.
> So if the problem is to identify the letters this will not prove
> useful, instead if the problem is precision of the eye tracker to point
> to a small button, then it could help.
>
> HTH
> Pere
>
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Tuxpaint-users mailing list
> > Tux...@li...
> > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tuxpaint-users
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Tuxpaint-users mailing list
> Tux...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/tuxpaint-users
>

Re: [Tuxpaint-users] New to list, but not to TuxPaint

[Bill K. <nb...@so...>]

On Wed, Aug 26, 2020 at 07:44:50AM -0700, Anat Caspi wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Thank you both for your active engagement with our tuxpaint issues!
> We have both problems, actually. But resizing the targets would be a good
> start. I mean, those keys are too small even for my fingers when I use the
> tablet in touch mode (and I have decently slender fingers)! We'll try to
> memorize the keyboard key locations if we cannot see them until you find a
> different option... haha

FYI, it's also possible to construct your own keyboard layouts,
though I'm realizing now that it's not really documented at all.
(I think it would be good to add to the "EXTENDING" documentation,
like we do for Input Methods.)

I'll see what I can I do about that, soon.

This could allow constructing a keyboard that has a more suitable
layout for eye-tracking or tapping purposes.  (And if anyone does so,
and they might be useful for others, we can consider adding them
to Tux Paint itself.)


> As for the other two problems: thank you for pointing out the
> documentation. I was able to work through the "starters." Of course the
> school district created horrible permissions for all those tux paint
> subfolders and it took me a while to circumvent that (when the school owns
> the tablets, they tend to lock students out of pretty much everything other
> than the downloads folder). On windows 10 there is something a little like
> a unix softlink, so I had to change 'starters' to soft-link point to
> another folder for which I did have permissions. But this seems like it's
> tenuous and the next time we update tux paint it is likely to break.
> I know in the configurations one is able to change the folder in which the
> artwork is saved. Is it also possible to point 'starters' to a different
> folder?

Yes, definitely.  Tux Paint has a "savedir" option that can be supplied
via the configuration file, or on the command-line (i.e., in the application
launcher shortcut in Windows).

See the "OPTIONS" documentation for all of the various things you can ask
Tux Paint to do.  I've tried to make sure LOTS of things are configurable.
(Including simplification options and options to disabling new features,
as we add any that I feel might be a bit too confusing for younger users.)


> Thanks for all your help!

Happy to help!

-bill!