WiFi Sheep video feedback

Commentary on the video tutorials:

• Perhaps emphasise that “click and drag” means to hold down the mouse button. The first time mom tried, she did it literally – clicked, then moved the mouse (but without holding the button).

• In the information screens, the URLs are arguably the most important part. So why do they have possibly the smallest text?
  [it might be worth considering, even in 2020, if something is readable in 360p]

• It would be better for a quick fade to black (or better yet, fade across) when cutting out something tedious (like typing a line of text in Edit). The brief fade to white is a bit jarring.

• I like the title sequence, especially the little tricks like the rotating cog wheels.

In the information screens, the URLs are arguably the most important part. So why do they have possibly the smallest text? [it might be worth considering, even in 2020, if something is readable in 360p]

To float an idea for a readability test. I wonder how readable the text in these videos are when running !YTPlay or when downloaded using !Murnong and one of the video players?

I like the title sequence, especially the little tricks like the rotating cog wheels.

I agree, they’re great!

I am a rank newbie to Risc OS. I had never heard of it until about a year ago, when I found it as an option on the Raspberry Pi. I was delighted to find an OS that came with a built in programing language. I purchased the software package, but RISC OS is just confusing and all I do with it is play with BASIC.

The videos are very nicely done. As near as I can tell you can not actually use the videos from within RISC OS, so you can not say pause them and follow along. For me anyway that hurts their usefullness. I would find something like a Power Point presentation or Hypercard Stack:) that could be used within RISC OS to be much more useful.

Videos that provide a context for why RISC OS behaves the way it does would be very useful. For instance why does opening an application just place an icon on the bar requiring another click to get a window open and make is useful. I am easily distracted, so I tend to run applications full screen and that is something of a chore in itself. Then with a full screen app to save a creating, I have to make the window smaller, open another with, click to get “Save”, type in a title then drag to another window. On the surface it seems someone stayed up all night developing the most convoluted method possible to save documents. There has got be some reason saving is done that way, but I have never come across anything to explain it.

RISC OS does run very well on my Raspberry Pi and I do enjoy it. My Granddaughter pulls up a stool beside me and we talk about and type in BASIC, and when we get bored with that we like to explore music with Maestro. I think advanced users tend toward trying to wow newbies with all the wonder and awe of what the system can do. I do think however that people are attracted to a new system because one certain something caught their eye. For a new system I am looking at consistancy. There should be one browser and it should access any of the online materials and support the system provides. Applications should be chosen that are rock solid stable and open and work with the widest possible array of formats. No demos should be included. Feature limited software is just plain annoying, people know the tools they need to use and are capable of finding them. Feature challenged software, is agrevating to use, and ends up reflecting poorly on the whole system.

I hope everyone is well in their part of the world and you have a nice weekend.
bill

within RISC OS, so you can not say pause them and follow along

On the other hand, something like setting up the system configuration is likely to involve a reboot or two, so might be best watched on a different device.
Mobile phones are useful in this respect. ;-)

For instance why does opening an application just place an icon on the bar requiring another click to get a window open and make is useful.

This does work both ways. I can completely understand why you might want a window to open when the application starts up (you’ll notice NetSurf does do this).
But on the flip side of the coin, why is Windows (etc) so utterly braindead that applications close and terminate if there isn’t a big window on the screen (or a huge button on the bar at the bottom)? Can’t an application just sit there quietly until it is needed (without the obligatory LONG pause for it to load)?

There has got be some reason saving is done that way, but I have never come across anything to explain it.

Likewise, I find the Windows way of saving to be convoluted. It is great, and quick, if you store all of your files in one place. However if they go in different places, it rapidly becomes annoying.
As an example, I use a photo editor to pick up images from where the Bluetooth gizmo puts them (\Documents and Settings\Rick\Bluetooth or something) and I save the edited ones to the shadow copy of my blog (\RiscMisc\blogtemp\images). With RISC OS, I could open both directories and draggy droppy as required. With XP it’s a lot of back and forth. Oh, and my photo editor uses a custom save box to add extras like image type, quality, etc. So it doesn’t support the buttons on the left that can be set up as shortcuts.

There is another little thing. You can create a picture in Paint, and “save” it directly into an Edit window. Okay, not very useful as it’ll just be a lot of gibberish, however when using applications with compatible file types it can be more powerful. I have, in the past, dragged a Draw drawing out of my desktop publisher package, directly into Draw, tweaked a few things, and then dragged the file from Draw directly back to the DTP software, then saved the modified document. And that final save is the only time anything was actually explicitly written to disc.

To be honest, I think it is a slightly different paradigm born of the fact that RISC OS has always had a mouse. This is why drag and drop is heavily used and menus are completely pop-up.
Windows, on the other hand, began its life with the mouse being optional. So drag and drop is often varying degrees of broken (can’t speak for newer versions of Windows, but why on earth can’t you drop a file on to an application’s task bar to have it open?) and the menu structure is always visible (and accessible via Alt key presses and/or…what was it, F10?).

To that end, it was necessary for Windows to develop an API for loading and saving files that would function without the user needing to touch the mouse. Indeed, under XP, pretty much the only thing you can’t get to by keyboard alone is the systray.

RISC OS is the opposite. You’re stuffed without a mouse. The desktop is pretty much completely unusable. Sure, there are add-ons that fake mouse operation by keypress, but it’s still making that little blue pointer move. ;-)

I think advanced users tend toward trying to wow newbies with all the wonder and awe of what the system can do.

It’s a fair comment. Perhaps a future video might go into some more detail as to why the system behaves the way it does.

There should be one browser and it should access any of the online materials and support the system provides.

You are Steve Jobs and I claim my £5.

Seriously, though, it is often very useful to have multiple browsers. I am writing this on my phone using Firefox, which is my preferred browser since I have a lot of content blocking filters.
However there are some things Firefox is poor at for some reason or another, so I also have Chrome which is pretty stable but has a very annoying “let’s muck up the size of the text and not allow the user to turn this off” feature. So for when something upsets Firefox and Chrome’s supposed cleverness breaks things, then I have option three – Opera.
One browser doesn’t fit all. Not these days.

Applications should be chosen that are rock solid stable

Okay, let’s stop you there. A huge amount of software written this millennium would fail to qualify.

and open and work with the widest possible array of formats.

That would be ideal, but in reality it isn’t always like that.

Keep in mind, also, that a fair few packages can date their heritage back to before people even started using Windows and computers had a megabyte onboard, so weird custom formats are less likely “protectionism” and more likely “a dump of the data structures that define this file”.

Feature limited software is just plain annoying, […] Feature challenged software,

I agree, but just out of interest – what to you is the difference between “feature limited” and “feature challenged”? To me those phrases are synonymous.

Thank you for your thoughts. It’s good to get a point of view of a newbie. And I do agree, some of RISC OS’ peculiarities (as viewed from the base behaviour of Windows/Linux/Mac) really ought to be highlighted and explained.

what to you is the difference between “feature limited” and “feature challenged”? To me those phrases are synonymous.

FWIW, I read it as:

• Feature limited = “All these extra features are only available when you buy the full version”.
• Feature challenged = “The programmer didn’t think to include features present in other programs of this type”.

\Documents and Settings\Rick

XP. It shifted to nicely titled directory called Users in later versions. Either way such things are part of the user profile, which with roaming profiles tries to follow you from machine to machine on a domain. That’s a major pain in the ass for logon times. You see the A-Z of software authors did what MS encouraged and dumped all the application config and cache into the profile (under AppData" Braindead doesn’t cover it.

RISC OS is the opposite. You’re stuffed without a mouse.

Well, it being open source you can hack things a little to make the pointer obey the modified cursor key presses although I think hacking that into the Wimp is a better idea than my Filer hack (the wimp has the focus at regular intervals while the Filer can be out of the loop ‘forever’

I am posting from NetSurf on RISC OS. I have not figured out how to use quoting. I appologize for how poorly my content fits the more typical formatting.

The point I was trying for about the videos is that help and tutorials about RISC OS that are not accessible from within RISC OS reflect poorly on the capabilities of the OS itself.

MacOS applications use to anyway continue running when the windows associated with it are closed and I totally agree that it is the best behavior. The curiosity for me is why an initial window is not generally opened on RISC OS. RISC OS does not seem to have session controls, is it possible to have a number of applications open along with the OS?

I had never thought about RISC OS requiring a mouse to work. I figured if I stuck with it I would eventually get the keyboard shortcuts down and not need to use a mouse. And of course if after boot one hits “F12” you have a command promt and do not need to use the mouse. I have never had Windows installed on a personal system, but it is hard to go through life without using it at some point. Personally I always thought one of its best features was that you could always use it without needing to use a mouse.

Having, using and needing multiple browsers is very valid, but it is not newbie concern. Firefox amd Chrome are not available on RISC OS. The choices seem to be Netsurf and Otter-browser. I am just guessing but I do not think most newbie users know what the differences are. And from that standpoint it seems a distribution should just pick one.

The riscopen website works well with Netsurf. The forum is usable, all the content is viewable and from what I have tried all the downloadable material is usable from within RISC OS. That is very nice and for a newbie it is very easy intro to the system. I think overall the same holds true for other applications. Pick a text editor a paint program, an image viewer for the newbie to use and stick with it. Make sure content you provide or link to works with what is included. The choosing of the best application for a purpose will become important, but it is not a newbie task.

A demo GizmoApp may have “saving disabled”, which I think of a feature limited. A different GizmoApp may “save” but stick in a watermark, which I think of as feature challenged. They are synonymous in that both are annoying. This is not to say a demo is of no use, it is just that to a newbie they are more of just an added frustration in trying to master new complexities.

Enjoy your weekend.
bill

is it possible to have a number of applications open along with the OS?

Yep, go to Configure/Boot and you can drag apps into ‘Run’ to make them run on boot. I’m saying that from memory, so the wording may not be 100% accurate :)

Of course, this adds them to the icon bar and doesn’t fill the screen with windows!

I am posting from NetSurf on RISC OS. I have not figured out how to use quoting.

Option 1 best for isolated quotes is bq dot (which you will see in the “Formatting help” at the bottom of the page when you are logged in ready to post

Option 2 is the only way you can do nested quoyes – which is to use html style blockquote and /blockquote to end that level of nesting.

MacOS applications use to anyway continue running when the windows associated with it are closed and I totally agree that it is the best behavior.

That’s a behaviour that’s essentially forced on the OS by having applications that from day 1 took an excessive amount of memory before they did anything for the user so having multiple items running at once was not a good idea.
RISC OS has always worked with a low memory profile for most applications.

The lack of support for the video formats is a result of 20+ years “in the wilderness” and few developers.

The curiosity for me is why an initial window is not generally opened on RISC OS.

“Under the bonnet” so to speak are a set of variables that are *usually) set by the applications one of these groups of variables is the RunType which informs the system what application to use to open a particular file type so if you haven’t already loaded the app (they tend to be small so many at once is quite common) then it will load and open the file. Having the app preloaded is a faster file open/run.

RISC OS does not seem to have session controls, is it possible to have a number of applications open along with the OS?

Yup.

I had never thought about RISC OS requiring a mouse to work. I figured if I stuck with it I would eventually get the keyboard shortcuts down and not need to use a mouse.

Adding shortcuts is possible (the OS is open source) but the first thing you will note when you look at the source is that things like the Filer module are a mass of assembler code which could be daunting.

Pointer movement is also possible without a mouse – again it’s assembler time.

I am posting from NetSurf on RISC OS. I have not figured out how to use quoting.

See this page for details and examples of how the formatting works.

The curiosity for me is why an initial window is not generally opened on RISC OS.

“Under the bonnet” so to speak are a set of variables that are *usually) set by the applications one of these groups of variables is the RunType which informs the system what application to use to open a particular file type so if you haven’t already loaded the app (they tend to be small so many at once is quite common) then it will load and open the file. Having the app preloaded is a faster file open/run.

Not sure that was the question…

The answer is because that’s what the RISC OS Style Guide has required since Acorn designed the system back in 1988. In general:

• If you launch an application by double-clicking on it, it will sit quietly on the iconbar until you ask it to do something.
• If you launch a file by double-clicking on it, it will either:
  • Load itself into the application, if the latter is already on the iconbar, and open a document window, or
  • Load the application that it needs, if that has been “seen” by the system, then load itself into that and open a document window.

PS. And, of course, in that drag-and-drop style that you’ve noticed, you can also:

• Drag a file from the Filer to an application’s icon on the iconbar to force it to load in that application (if the app can accept it)¹, or
• Drag a file from the Filer to a blank space on the iconbar to launch the default application, as described above.

¹ PPS. For example, if I double-click on a drawfile, it will load into Draw. If I drag that file to the ArtWorks icon on the iconbar, it will be loaded into ArtWorks. This makes it easy to edit files in their native editors, while also being able to easily import them into other packages as required.

Regarding playback of videos on RISC OS, this is something we’ve talked with WiFi Sheep about since the origin of the project. It is our hope to host MPEG versions of the videos for RISC OS playback in due course. However, there is a symbiotic relationship at play – WiFi Sheep need views on youtube to boost their subscriber count (and hence financial viability), whilst RISC OS Dev would like the videos to play on RISC OS native, and have something to bundle on the SD cards!

Are these the videos RISC OS Developments funded (in which case you should have lots of input)?

The point I was trying for about the videos is that help and tutorials about RISC OS that are not accessible from within RISC OS reflect poorly on the capabilities of the OS itself.

There are tools available to play the videos on RISC OS.

There are tools available to play the videos on RISC OS.

On a £40 board or a £500 one?

Pick a text editor a paint program, an image viewer for the newbie to use and stick with it.

The problem is that different people work and think in different ways. I won’t bore you with a long reminiscence, suffice to say that I have encountered various incarnations of Impression (the “leading” DTP software) in my life and I haven’t liked any of them. The software itself is plenty competent and has been used to create numerous things (such as Archive magazine). I just didn’t like it’s “feel”. So I’m an Ovation man (the other DTP software!). As it turns out, this was ultimately a better choice as not only is Ovation and its successor OvationPro able to run native on the modern machines, OvationPro also has a Windows version. So my preferred package basically runs on all my machines. :-)

In terms of newbies, some choice has already been made. Glancing at screenshots of the desktop layout, it appears that StrongEd and Style are there. You can stick with them if you want, or try out alternatives and pick which one you prefer.

Pointer movement is also possible without a mouse – again it’s assembler time.

That’s not the same thing as keyboard control. You cannot open a menu and navigate it using the cursor keys. You can only load an extension to move the pointer using cursor keys. Feasible, but not the same…

That’s not the same thing as keyboard control. You cannot open a menu and navigate it using the cursor keys. You can only load an extension to move the pointer using cursor keys. Feasible, but not the same…

True, now where would the code for the position of the selection highlight in the menu be? Given the ability to step round all open windows thats you next step after selecting “menu-click” in a window.

On a £40 board or a £500 one?

Neither. Choice of £23 or £34.

It takes any time to install but you can use a combination of Python 2.7 + youtubedl + ffplay + YTPlay or Streamer on a Beagle or Pi … to play youtube videos. A small video how it works you find at my youtube channel RISCOS-Berlin.
Rotating cogs you can made with the RISC OS ffmpeg port.

Upps SM-Art-Phone doublette…

That’s not the same thing as keyboard control. You cannot open a menu and navigate it using the cursor keys. You can only load an extension to move the pointer using cursor keys. Feasible, but not the same…

or download and use MouseKey.

The answer is because that’s what the RISC OS Style Guide has required since Acorn designed the system back in 1988.

It does continue to confuse any newbies when I show RISC OS to them. They launch, say, a web browser, they expect to see a window for said web browser. On the other hand, I am an advocate of the Style Guide and I think we should only tweak it very, very carefully over time. I think that there’s a reasonable argument that certain types of applications should open a window but I’d like a preference to switch that on and off. I think Netsurf has such an option, for example.

Thank you for all your replies. Most useful things are the product of sensible design. With lots of use the rational of design decisions becomes obvious and second nature. However starting out the design can seem arbitrary and confusing. I do appreciate your insights into the hows and whys of RISC OS principals of operation.

I did not mean to generate a discussion about RISC OS’ ability to handle videos. I personally find help and tutorials most useful when they are accessible from within the system.

Thanks again for the pointer, and have a nice day.
bill

There are tools available to play the videos on RISC OS (depicted MPlayer and YouTube) – Chris G.

;-) How did you do that?