Time to do some 'Love Bombing'.

[richmond62]

Anyone who has taken any time off to study the mechanisms of the most effective (and hence most dangerous) cults will be aware that the Moonies go in for something they term "Love Bombing" . . . c.f. 'Ticket to Heaven':

https://youtu.be/94tUYWQPgGU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticket_to_Heaven

[always makes me cry as reminds me of how I was seriously manipulated in a different, equally nasty cult about 40 years ago]

Anyway, not to bang on to much (joke intended) about that; for us to spread 'the cult of OXT' it might be time to do some Love Bombing of our own.

So, I have written 2 squibs for this:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/hello-world

And at one point mentioned the idea of doing a double-page spread re LC for them: which resulted in a very vague 'Possibly' from their end . . .

Notwithstanding that, I can "run up" a double-page spread for them in fairly short order (probably a seriously caffeine-fueled Sunday + an edit once their editor lobs it back for tidying) about, Yes, you guessed it, OXT . . .

Obviously, before that we need:

1. A version 1.0. That, at least, works consistently on Windows and Macintosh.

2. A website that does not just consist of a list of download links.

AND, to get the editor of "Hello World" (why does the name of that thing make my toes curl up?) to say 'Yes!" some serious 'Love Bombing'
on the part of all the interested parties hereabouts, probably in the form of email contacts saying something like:

What about an article to introduce Primary Teachers to OXT and all its fantastic educational possibilities?

[tperry2x]

Obviously, before that we need:
1. A version 1.0. That, at least, works consistently on Windows and Macintosh.
2. A website that does not just consist of a list of download links.

Well, the Mac and Windows versions are 'on par' I believe - they are consistent (faults and all) when you have it actually running.
The biggest hurdle for mac users are the hoops you might have to jump through for gatekeeper.

Then, in Windows 11 at least, you may get erroneous reports from Windows defender and UAC alerts when trying to use revCopy functions.

In Linux, we have the well covered browser widget error and the 'player' tool error.

Aside from this, they all offer identical interfaces in OpenXTalk Lite 0.94 - however broken some of that may be.

If this is going to be 'reviewed', by anyone outside of this forum - they need to understand that it's kind of beta-level-quality at the moment. With these broken things, it comes down to engine improvements required.

It's just not at a level where a 1.0 moniker is justified. Perhaps the next version could be called 1.0b signifying that it's a beta product. I would feel more comfortable about that, and perhaps feedback outside of the "OXT community" would be less harsh as a result.

With no built-in tutorials / documentation (aside from the dictionary), anyone else looking in from outside would also wonder - "great, but where do I begin?". So, not very user friendly at this stage either. Again, not really ready for primetime yet as far as I see it. A review could be quite scathing at the moment, and might actually do more harm than good.

[richmond62]

I have no intention of reviewing OXT.

What I should like to do is to start with a 2-pager explaining in 'baby' terms how to make something very simple indeed with OXT.

Perhaps the best way for me to explain this is to direct you to a Facebook page that I set up in memory of my father to teach LC to pensioners:

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063797865443

[richmond62]

Probably the best way to understand this is to download an issue:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/hello-world/issues

and have a look.

[tperry2x]

This is a very handy series of posts, but here comes my "but however" comment.
Is there any chance of you opening each post (sans comments) and saving each as a PDF?
The reason I ask is that Facebook (all social media actually) is blocked in many schools (20+ in this trust), and other Trusts I can think of too, which have multiple schools under their control.
So, if we can get those posts off Facebook and into PDFs, that might be good.

[richmond62]

if we can get those posts off Facebook and into PDFs

Certainly worth a try . . .

HOWEVER: I do not really have the time to do that, anyone else, as indicated there, is welcome to 'beg / borrow / or steal' whatever they want.

Similarly: https://www.facebook.com/RMOXTclasses

[richmond62]

And we need to do some website design and some promoting like mad so that some people become conscious of us:
-

fCREAMfinal.png (168.53 KiB) Viewed 940 times

[richmond62]

The Open Source thing really needs to be emphasised:
-

openSource.png (952.03 KiB) Viewed 936 times

[OpenXTalkPaul]

"no built-in tutorials / documentation (aside from the dictionary), anyone else looking in from outside would also wonder - "great,
There IS guides built, but they're tucked away in the Guides tab in the Dictionary stack.
There should be a button on revMenuBar that opens straight to that tab.

The nice thing is they're built with simple markdown (that gets converted to HTML).

[tperry2x]

they're tucked away in the Guides tab in the Dictionary stack....
The nice thing is they're built with simple markdown (that gets converted to HTML).

Is that in the RCx versions?
If they are on the dictionary stack, that's probably why I've never noticed them (not having access to a windows or a mac machine full time) and therefore not having the browser function on linux properly - means I've maybe never seen it. I'll have to have a dig through and see if I can find it. Would it be possible to have this as a simple stack instead? (keeping xtalk within xtalk was my thinking).

[OpenXTalkPaul]

they're tucked away in the Guides tab in the Dictionary stack....
The nice thing is they're built with simple markdown (that gets converted to HTML).

Is that in the RCx versions?
If they are on the dictionary stack, that's probably why I've never noticed them (not having access to a windows or a mac machine full time) and therefore not having the browser function on linux properly - means I've maybe never seen it. I'll have to have a dig through and see if I can find it. Would it be possible to have this as a simple stack instead? (keeping xtalk within xtalk was my thinking).

The 'Guides' tab is in all versions v8 and v9 of the Dictionary stack, it's not something I added (although I did 'de-brand' edit them and add some more to them, edited its index some). OXT version is in RCx, and so if you're using the Documentation folder from one of those then my edits should be in it. Just as with the Syntax dictionary entrees, the Guides are also 'Dynamic' and installing a Widget or Library can install a new guide in the process (if the Extension includes one). The guides tab is on the card, not in it's HTML/JS and so it does NOT display (edited because I just realized this now) if you' are routing the 'Dictionary' to open in external Web Browser instead of the IDE stack.

I suppose the Guides section could possibly be spun-off into a separate stack, but that might be more work than it's worth to convert guides to xTalk-only? It wouldn't be hard to convert the GitHub-freindly .md ('markdown') format text into HTMLText for display in a plain old field, but the displaying inline images would be more problematic. I image that the end result would look a bit like how the 'Resource Center' stack's cards are setup with grouped scrolling content.

I'm thinking that we could at least add a button to open the Guides HTML/JS in an external browser.
... oh wait, it already works if you open Guides from the Help menu 'All Guides' Menu Item:

Works.jpg (83.22 KiB) Viewed 882 times

[FourthWorld]

So, I have written 2 squibs for this:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/hello-world
...
Obviously, before that we need:

1. A version 1.0. That, at least, works consistently on Windows and Macintosh.

Does the Raspberry Pi site not want a version of OXT that runs on Raspberry Pi?

[tperry2x]

... oh wait, it already works if you open Guides from the Help menu 'All Guides' Menu Item

Hi Paul, that must be the case in your RCx versions, as didn't work in the Lite versions. - I probably just missed it. I've corrected this and it'll make a reappearance in the 0.96 version, thank you.