AOSL stages

[Ariel Ouziel]

Hi :)

So, I've been thinking about AOS Designer and how to visually model and edit a sequence, and I'm facing problems again with the stages:

Correct me if I'm wrong: say we have a sequence with stages and transitions:

A->B->C->E
       \      /
          D

Canvas at stage "E" may be different depending on which path we have followed: ABCE or ABDE.
In these condition, I face 2 problems:

• What's the meaning of E ? What's its definition ?
  
• How can I represent visually the canvas at stage E ? Potentially stages may have an infinity of states..
  

So what do we show to the user ? We could make the user choose a specific path through the stages and show resulting canvas, but then I can't figure out what are the meaning of these stages ?

For example, how could we define a move based, say, on an object selection if we're not sure if the object is active or not ?

Ariel

[Klaim - Joël Lamotte]

I'm sorry I didn't already write the design documentation of AOS Designer, that would have answered your questions already. :/

To be short, 

 - the user will be able to open an Editor window that will contain a Canvas view and a Story view

 - in the Story view, he will see the "graph" of moves->stages

 - as you say, the Story view expose a path followed by the user through the stages

 - the Canvas view expose the state of the Canvas when you go through the path taken by the user

 - modifying the Canvas content will generate/modify changes in the previous move (not in the first stage).

 - the user can open as many Editor as he wishes for the same Sequence, to allow following and comparing different paths through the Story

Stages are just nodes in a graph. They represent a "stop" in the changes.

They also contain some scripts and other informations necessary to manipulate objects once in this specific stage.

They are the static part of the story if you prefer. 

Tell me if it's not more clear.

Also, I've started working on this visual/edition part so it might not be a good idea to work on it until I publish some base code to build on.

There are tons of other things to do for AOS Designer but I should be more precise about it :/

I'm sorry I'm really lacking time... I'm preparing relocation and will be set after the 14 March, maybe one week later I'll be able to work again on the project.

I think you can still have some clues about the design by checking the Editor code, but it's not really filled yet.

Joël Lamotte

[Klaim - Joël Lamotte]

I forgot to say something important.

In Changes, otehr than transform, you'll see 3 important cases:

 - activate

 - deactivate

 - switch

Let's say I'm at E, after having passed through C.

In the canvas, I see one image that I want to shut off when we get to E.

I just click on it and deactivate it (it disappear).

This will generate the following:

 - create a "deactivate" change in C->E

 - create a "deactivate" change in D->E

Now let's say I want it to be deactivated only if I came from C.

Then I will have a "deactivate" button(or something to do the action) that will be relative to the path.

Then, instead of generating the previously cited changes, it will generate:

 - create a "deactive" change in C->E

The last possible case is that I want it to "switch", but it's only useful IF I've setup a loop. Switch will just inverse the "activated" state, so it might be a good way to turn a light on & off in a loop.

That can be arguably useful but we must not presume about the author's surprising creativity.

I hope it makes edition manipulations more clear. If not, I'll try to make a diagram ASAP.

Joël Lamotte

[Ariel Ouziel]

A diagram would be really useful anyway ^^

[Klaim - Joël Lamotte]

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 09:29, Ariel Ouziel <ariel...@gmail.com> wrote:

A diagram would be really useful anyway ^^

Ok, I'll try to do something in the week end but I can't guarantee anything (lot of boxing to do T__T ).

Joël Lamotte

[Leo Ki]

If I understood it right, both the {nodes/stages/steps/frames/slides} and the {edges/arrows/transitions} can contain {story/show} information but only the nodes can contain user interaction information, am I right?

健闘 (good luck(?)) with the unpacking, Joël ^^

[Klaim - Joël Lamotte]

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 23:29, Leo Ki <leoki...@gmail.com> wrote:

If I understood it right, both the {nodes/stages/steps/frames/slides} and the {edges/arrows/transitions} can contain {story/show} information but only the nodes can contain user interaction information, am I right?

The Story contain Stages and Moves. As a graph, Stages are vertice while Moves are edges, to use the mathematical terms.

So, the Story is a graph and have some default Navigation informations (that tells the implementation what kind of inputs from the user can drive the sequence interpretation).

But Stages can also contain Navigation informations that will then overload the Story's Navigation.

So you're understanding is not correct: Moves (that contains the Changes to apply between two Stages) aren't containing any Navigation informations. 

That said, the presence of only 1 Move means that you can automatically use the "#next" Move (that is provided by the language) that means the interpreter should guess which way to go next (meaning, to the only stage possible).

If there is more than 1 move, #next cannot be used and then the stage have to provide navigation informations to let the interpreter know which input should trigger which move.

It's not really clear by only reading the xsd only, I'll try to make it clear in the related future documentation.

Details are described there :

 - http://code.google.com/p/art-of-sequence/source/browse/aosl/aosl.xsd#917

 - http://code.google.com/p/art-of-sequence/source/browse/aosl/aosl.xsd#1547

 - http://code.google.com/p/art-of-sequence/source/browse/aosl/aosl.xsd#1895

 - http://code.google.com/p/art-of-sequence/source/browse/aosl/aosl.xsd#2217

 

健闘 (good luck(?)) with the unpacking, Joël ^^

Thanks ^^;

T__T 

[Leo Ki]

2012/2/24 Klaim - Joël Lamotte <mjk...@gmail.com>

So you're understanding is not correct: Moves (that contains the Changes to apply between two Stages) aren't containing any Navigation informations. 

I think that's what I was saying basically, so we're in tune ^^ I don't have enough time to work on AOSL but looking at the news on the Catsuka forum I remembered we'd left the discussion on that misunderstanding.

Anyway I'm still interested in that big endeavour since I'm working on the coding for a web mag for all kinds of screen comics including "interactive" fiction, and I hope all that practical experimentation will lead to useful theoretical insights for AOSL.

[Klaim - Joël Lamotte]

On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 7:59 AM, Leo Ki <leoki...@gmail.com> wrote:

Anyway I'm still interested in that big endeavour since I'm working on the coding for a web mag for all kinds of screen comics including "interactive" fiction, and I hope all that practical experimentation will lead to useful theoretical insights for AOSL.

Well AOS Web Player (http://demo.artofsequence.org) already shows that the basic format allow basic features, so I (we?) need to build on it on this side, add features that the language should allow.

I also started another discussion about the next versions of AOSL, based on my experience trying to setup the demo (and other basic experiments).

Joel / Klaim