alice-teacher saved He-builder?

[Don Slater]

See my answers below…


On Oct 24, 2013, at 1:14 PM, Matt Jadud <matt_jadud at berea.edu> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I'm revisiting this thread, and unclear how to actually execute the save of a character. And, I'm starting to realize how rough I've made things for myself and my students...
> 
> As a group, we're trying to animate the short story "Harrison Bergeron" by Vonnegut. The class split into groups, and were breaking down the scenes, characters, and so on. I'm now seeing how hard it is to share code, characters, and so on between projects in Alice... if, for that matter, at all.
> 
> 1. Is it at all possible to share code between worlds? I think the answer to this is no, but I have to ask.

I am assuming you are asking about Alice 2.3. It is not possible in Alice 3 at all at this time. 

The short answer for Alice 2.3 is indeed no… 

A possible workaround would be to add a "code holder" object to the scene. A "code holder" is an object that is not part of the animation, with an "isShowing" property value set to false (in other words, make it invisible). Add a procedure to this "code holder" object, and any code that you would typically put in "my first method" goes into this "code holder" procedure.

For example, add a sphere. set its isShowing property to false, and then add a method to the sphere and call it "main". Copy your code "my first method" into the sphere's "main" method.

Then in the events editor, change the "When the world starts method" from "world.my first method" to "sphere.main". Click the "Play" button, and your animation should execute.

Now, right click on the sphere tile in the object tree, and choose "save object…" from the context menu that appears. Save the object.

Import the saved "code holder" (sphere) object into the target world, that should have all of the objects that the source world has..

To be safe, you should open the sphere.main method and reset the object names to the names of the objects in the new world. (Even if the names are identical in both worlds, resetting the objects will make sure that the change of context from one world to another does not cause side-effects.)

Change it's "When the world starts method" from "world.my first method" to "sphere.main". It should work.

This is certainly a hack, and not without risk, There is the potential of version control issues that your students will have to wrestle with. But this is not a bad set of issues for students to wrestle with.


> 
> 2. Is it at all possible to share characters between worlds? It looks like "yes," but I'm starting to think that a "character" is just the actor... and, if the students decorated that actor with objects (and made it so those objects rode with the actor as a "vehicle,") that the add-on objects would not be exported.

No, see above… When you save an object, it should save all the methods, functions, and property settings of the source object.

See the tutorial Dr Susan Rodger sent a link to a little bit earlier.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

All the best,
Don Slater



> 
> In other words, I feel like I accidentally set my students up for some serious failure, because we chose to break a project up across groups, but those groups won't actually be able to share anything. I can't have one group work on a dance scene (there is one in Harrison Bergeron), and then share that code with another group who is doing some other part of that scene (perhaps camera work, for example).
> 
> Either way, I'm not clear where I need to do the right-clicking from the description below. I've switched to a number of views in Alice3, but no amount of right clicking seems to bring up a menu from which I can export a character.
> 
> Cheers,
> Matt
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: alice-teachers-bounces+matt_jadud=berea.edu at lists.andrew.cmu.edu <alice-teachers-bounces+matt_jadud=berea.edu at lists.andrew.cmu.edu> on behalf of Don Slater <dslater at andrew.cmu.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 01, 2013 10:01 AM
> To: Alice educators
> Subject: Re: alice-teacher saved He-builder?
> 
> Laurie,
> The character was not automatically saved... They must
> - right-click on the character, either in the scene or in the object-tree, and choose the Save as... menu option
> - name and save the file
> - in the new project, from the file menu, choose Import, find and select the saved character file to ring into the project
> 
> Let me know if you have any other questions or if this does not work for you...
> 
> All the best,
> Don Slater
> 
> On Sep 30, 2013, at 11:12 PM, Laurie Solomon Cohen <lscohen613 at aol.com<mailto:lscohen613 at aol.com>> wrote:
> 
> My students (very beginner students) created their own hero for their animated story, using the He-builder in the Gallery. They each named their person, and it worked great in their story. However, is he saved to be used another time? We can't seem to find him?
> 
> 
> Laurie Cohen
> LSCohen613 at aol.com<mailto:LSCohen613 at aol.com>
> 240-793-1269 cell
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