Monthly Archives: May 2013

This is it

This post is for others as much as it is for me. I’m using it as a point where I left off today and continue over the next few days.

I’ll start off with the success. Pinch to zoom somewhat works BUT it is very buggy to say the least. If the kiosk is used to disable the pinch to zoom, it should completely disable it and be at the point it was (a usable state). The problem with zoom right now is that it is zooming in the entire web page, but it is only being used when the image is clicked. Other functionalities will be disabled in the zoom sequence. What needs to be altered here is making the background static so it does not move and only the image is zoomed in upon.

Onto the other issue. I’m still trying to work on it, but the carousel is still not swiping. I have it all ready for the code to be put in. The swipe setup  is ready and it is acknowledging the swipe at the right time (using alert() I can tell) it’s just implementing it in. It’s tedious to test. Each time I have to upload the changes to the test server and test through my iPad. It’s an issue with variables. It just needs to update what gallery image needs to be centered. Using and array like galleryImage[i + 10] for example is what needs to be done, but a little more involved.

I’m hoping I can get this running up to standard before the semester is over. I would hate to drop it onto someone else.

 

From the blog Sean » cs-wsu by shorton1 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

CS401 Learning and Progress Home Stretch

Well there is just one more class Session before the semester ends.  Unfortunately we still don’t have a fully working program.  There is a possibility that work will need to continue during the summer.  Some students who will still be around have volunteered to continue working on it.  I as well volunteered for this, although I wouldn’t be much help with the coding side (not having as much experience with it as others) I offered to continue testing and helping with any Kiosk Pro issues that come up.

The good news is that Most of the individual pieces are working well, problems left are minor and mostly just polishing.  Once everything is integrated it will need testing to make sure that process didn’t mess anything up.

On Monday the programmed was reviewed, even if in pieces by WAM, I helped to explain some of the program and each group talked and did a demo of their own part of it.  I took notes on all the changes that they wanted in case anyone needed a reminder later on.  Most of these changes were cosmetic in nature and not to difficult to do according to the teams.

So far as I can tell this week no changes have been made to the code on the server for any section.  So I was unable to do any testing.  I was able to put together a simple word document instructions for setting up the other iPads. This should make things easier for WAM and also help reset things properly if the settings are ever somehow changed or corrupted.

For Next week will do testing on Tuesday (the last day of classes before Final Exam week).  In my blog I will list any remaining problems I have found in my testing as well as any issues from WAM that have not been finished.  I will also send that list out by e-mail to the group so that if for whatever reason I am not assisting in the completion of the program, those that are will have the most up to date list of needed fixes.

From the blog murrayandrewt » cs-wsu by murrayandrewt and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The Final Product

Image

The coloring app is finally done.  I was able to get the button png’s from the Worcester Art Museum this past week and I am happy to say that the app is looking great.  I had some minor functionality issues while trying to undo on the iPad but it is mostly fixed now.  The issue was that you had to click the button twice in order to undo a click event.  The fix was a simple as checking to see what platform the user is browsing on, if its an iPad I call undo and redo twice.  Its an ugly fix but it works.  I also added shadowing to the color page pictures and colors to let the user know what is selected.

I added the tool buttons to a canvas that changes color with color selection which make the color selected obvious.  All in all I think the app came out quite well and I cannot wait for people to try it out at WAM’s new idea lab.

Till the next project.

Jason Hintlian

From the blog jasonhintlian » cs-wsu by jasonhintlian and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Meeting with the WAM

Monday, we met with Tim and the conservator for the exhibit.  It was an unveiling of the iPad kiosk and the features as they stand.  Joe took lead in the discussion, helping to explain the features capabilities and explaining what we could do to fix any concerns.  Unfortunately, from our point of view, it appeared as some of the features we expected them to like, were not accepted with open arms.  Things like a comments feature, or an email feature were rejected, ultimately dropping the need for our database backend.

Originally the database was primarily to be used for content management, but because of time constraints we shifted to adding something more simple, such as high scores for the puzzle, or an email list for the coloring app.  However, it turns out that neither of these features are wanted, so scripting for these features is officially shut down.

I am shifting my efforts to testing the application instead to make sure the release as it is now is as bug free and efficient as possible.  I luckily have my own iPad (with only the free version of kiosk pro)  so I began another thorough application test with Dillon, Brandon and Li.  We found a few issues, but confirmed that Joe would be working to fix them.  We’ll continue to test on the next version.

From the blog mikesaguirre » cs-wsu by mikeaguirre and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

This past Monday, I decided to help another

This past Monday, I decided to help another group with some issues they were having. Being in the server group with no issues on the server, there was not much else for me to do at the time. I looked on with Sompop on the Slideshow application, and helped him get it to work properly. The idea of the coding was done well, but there were a few syntax errors. The slideshow whould not change pictures after changing once at first. After a few syntax changes, the slideshow would run through cleanly. The only problem remaining was that it would not restart the slideshow. This problem was solved by changing “pageinit” to “pageshow.” This started the slideshow whenever that picture was shown, rather than whenever it was initialized. After this, the slideshow was working properly, and it could be pushed back into the development branch.

 

After this, I used Mike’s iPad to go through what we had put together so far. I was looking for any possible bugs. Mike’s iPad only has the free version of KioskPro, so it was difficult to find errors. One thing that I noticed was the dialog box that pops up when completing the puzzle. The title of the dialog box says cstest.worcester.edu. We brought this to the attention of the puzzle team so they could try to get rid of that. Other than that, no bugs or issues were found.

From the blog bchaban » cs-wsu by bchaban and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Switching to PHP

So time is ticking away as the semester is coming to an end.  Our database work with python was progressing slower than expected.  So we decided last week to switch to PHP, which is more widely accepted for web server scripting.  There are many useful guides online for setting up a test site.  I found the following tutorial very helpful for first time setup:

http://css-tricks.com/php-for-beginners-building-your-first-simple-cms/

This tutorial expects that you have PHP installed, and that you have a web server to test with.  Luckily we did have a test server, so I ran ‘yum install php’ on the server knowing that Dillon had already created a basic WAM database with 2 tables, one for the coloring app, and one for the puzzle app.

I created my own .php script files, and uploaded them to a git repository, where I then cloned it to a new branch on my server directory.  Tests successful!  With a few modifications we’d be able to try out some simple features like recording high scores for the puzzle, or storing file paths for saved images on the coloring app.

From the blog mikesaguirre » cs-wsu by mikeaguirre and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.