KidsRuby

KidsRuby (http://kidsruby.com) is a Ruby programming environment meant for kids. If what you want is just to download/install KidsRuby, please go to http://kidsruby.com/download

KidsRuby is heavily influenced by Hackety Hack (http://hackety-hack.com). In fact, you can run many of the same code samples from Hackety Hack in KidsRuby. For example:

color = ask("what is your favorite color")
if color == "blue"
  alert("you picked blue")
end

You can also use the Turtle, just like Hackety-Hack does

Turtle.start do
  background yellow
  pencolor brown
  pensize 2
  goto 30, 200
  setheading 180
  1000.times do
    forward 20
    turnleft rand(10)
    backward 10
  end
end

Design Goals

Simple single file editor
You can run the current contents of the editor
The output appears next to the editor
It runs a normal Ruby 1.9.2 on the code. With normal gems etc.

Implementation choices

Webkit-based editor - currently using Ace (http://ace.ajax.org/)
QtRuby app - hosts webkit and provide http server to communicate with running Ruby environment
Minitest/Minispec for testing. Yes, code must be tested
Tutorial content is easy to create just drop HTML files on disk locally to the KidsRuby editor.
Using a modified version of the JS library Turtlewax for the Turtle implementation https://github.com/davebalmer/turtlewax

How to Run KidsRuby:

ruby main.rb

Getting setup for development on Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install libqt4-dev
sudo apt-get install cmake
bundle install

Take note that the native compilation of qt (the line Installing qtbindings (4.6.3.4) with native extensions) can take several minutes without apparent progress ... You could run top to see cmake and cc1plus effectively in action.

If you also want Gosu

echo "" >> Gemfile
echo "# needed for gosu" >> Gemfile
echo "gem 'gosu'" >> Gemfile
sudo apt-get install g++ libgl1-mesa-dev libpango1.0-dev libboost-dev libopenal-dev libsndfile-dev libxdamage-dev libsdl-ttf2.0-dev libfreeimage3 libfreeimage-dev libxinerama-dev
bundle install

Getting setup for development on a Mac using Homebrew

I used the qtbindings gem: https://github.com/ryanmelt/qtbindings Since I also run homebrew, I discovered that the homebrew install for Qt4 needed a little symlinking before I could run the gem install for qtbindings as described here: https://github.com/ryanmelt/qtbindings/issues#issue/14

However, since KidsRuby requires Qt 4.7, you need to use the following (thanks @clemcke for updated instructions):

cd /usr/local/Library/Formula
git checkout 83f742e /usr/local/Library/Formula/qt.rb
brew install qt
for DIR in /usr/local/Cellar/qt/*/lib/*.framework; do ln -s $DIR/Headers ${DIR%%/lib/*}/include/$(basename $DIR .framework); done
brew install cmake
bundle install

If you have already installed KidsRuby using the OSX installer, you will need to uninstall that Qt package before trying to install the qtbindings gem, or it will not build/install as described here https://github.com/ryanmelt/qtbindings/blob/master/README.txt.

The solution is to run this before attempting to install the qtbindings gem:

sudo /Developer/Tools/uninstall-qt.py

Getting setup on a Mac using Ports

Someone please describe this procedure here.

Getting setup on Windows

Install git standalone
Install Ruby 1.9.2 standalone
bundle install

DONE

create hackety-hack compatible class with UI dialogs for ask/alert
get syntax highlighting correct for Ruby code
create hackety-hack compatible class for Turtle graphics
tabbed divs for output/turtle/help
layout for local html pages with tutorials
implement Turtle width and height methods
correct top/bottom orientation for Turtle relative to user
adjust proportions of editor to sidebar for more visible space for tutorial section
home to main index for help & browser forward/back buttons for help section
split up HH help "pages" to go forward/back like the original tutorial
make the canvas bigger for the Turtle
add Gosu libs/classes to KidsRuby OS to make it easy to write games right away
How to use KidsRuby
editor save/open
make the Run button WAY WAY bigger
capture keystrokes within main Qt app and pipe to stdin when executing ruby process so we can support gets
replace DBus communications with http based protocol which allows better multi-platform support and fewer installation dependancies
fix background color
A couple of funny things with the formatting of gets
need to display complete debug info on errors again
make the turtle canvas keep a correct aspect ratio when resized
switch editor colors to white background for better presentation display. we already have inverse css file, just need a way to switch to it, and back

TODO

ROADMAP

1.1 - Localization

TURTLE

correct pencolor so it works when switching color while drawing

EDITOR

paste into editor (copy already works)

HELP/TUTORIAL

update ruby4kids to include their latest lessons
add more good stuff!

POSSIBLE IDEAS:

make it easy to run pie (see what I did there?)
create Shoes compatible classes (slippers?) to run Shoes example code too

alony / kidsruby Goto Github PK

kidsruby's Introduction