User interface for KA Lite (GTK3)

[radinamatic]

Installation

1. "ka-lite" OR "KA Lite"
   During the installation I chose not to to run at startup, and this window confirmed my choice:

• Do ka-lite and KA Lite in this window refer to the same thing? It will help the user if we start using consistent names, ex. ka-lite for the default user account and KA Lite for the server/program. If both here refer to the program, use KA Lite.
• I suggest rephrasing the text as follows (to avoid passive sentences while writing instructions):

You have chosen not to run KA Lite as a system service and that means you need to run it manually.  
Use the following command to setup KA Lite from the Terminal:

 kalite manage setup

When setup finishes, run KA Lite with:

 kalite start

1. Assessment items

• Let's start getting users accustomed to the terms we use in KA Lite. I suggest rephrasing the question as follows:

Do you want to download the assessment items (exercise data) now? Beware it can take a while, download size is over 500Mb. 

• We should also include the instructions what to do if the user does NOT want to download the assessment items at that moment: link to download separately, where to save them and which command to use to unpack & install them.

  Menu Applications

Right where it should be, under Education! :)

KA Lite Control Panel

• After the install the Control Panel window opened really wide (see the previous screenshot), and I was unable to resize its width, only the height. After the second restart though, it opened with much more reasonable dimensions:

• Window title: is it possible to call it KA Lite Control Panel instead of ka-lite-gtk?
• I know there is a function behind, but for all the effects and purposes of the user interface, those are buttons ;)
• Unifying the terms: system service or startup service, but not both.
• It might result confusing if the KA Lite is currently running, but the Server status is: Stopped (1)

I'm brainstorming here - it seems we have 3 messages for the user in this view:

• How to start & stop
• How to run on startup
• How to change the account

Can we try to reorganize the view like this:

To Be Continued...

[benjaoming]

@radinamatic

Couple of things:

• As said before, you are running things from a testing PPA. Users will not normally have to download assessment items, they will have a bundled .deb that includes them. If / when we ask people to download 500 MB, it's important to ask them something that they know what means... otherwise they'll skip it and be missing the assessment items!
• ka-lite is the name of the debian package. You cannot change that name, it's a technical term that WILL be present in the debconf window where you are asked questions. I will call the project "KA Lite" everywhere that I can control.

Changes done:

It might result confusing if the KA Lite is currently running, but the Server status is: Stopped (1) Done!

Window title changed to "KA Lite Control Panel"

I really like the suggestion for the start-up tab so I'm gonna implement that, too :)

[radinamatic]

ref. Assessment items - I tota11y get your point here now. If the users are going to get the .deb with them included, than it's a non-issue!

ref. names - My only concern is that the same name ka-lite (deb package, debconf window, default user account that runs the server...) will create confusion and make the support more difficult, that's all. I don't know, maybe call the default user account something different, like KAL? :)

[benjaoming]

@radinamatic we try to give sane defaults, do you mean you have 'ka-lite' suggested as the user account for installing ka-lite[-bundle] ? Because that's usually your own user account when you install from commandline at least... haven't tested with the software centre.

[radinamatic]

Well, that's what I'm here for, to test what you don't usually try... :)

I must admit I haven't tried to install ka-lite-bundle previously, doing it now.

• I'm not sure if you can control this, but in the pop-up window that opens, KA Lite that needs to be removed is not selectable, and the message in the button "Install anyway", to me at least, suggests that something might go wrong if you do. Anyway, if there's nothing you can do about it, disregard.

• However, once the installation finishes, the message should be corrected, as kalite alone in the Terminal will just give the command options. I suggest adding the full command that should be run after installing the ka-lite[-bundle]:

• The biggest issue is that KA Lite Control Panel has disappeared from the Applications/Education menu (something has gone wrong after all... :(
• When I run the kalite start, the server start OK, but I sudenly have 2 Default facility inside the drop-down in the login modal:

[radinamatic]

If after the previous I try to install from the command line I get:

didi@didi-Inspiron-3531:~$ sudo apt-get install ka-lite[-bundle]
[sudo] password for didi: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'ka-lite-gtk' for regex 'ka-lite[-bundle]'
Note, selecting 'ka-lite-all' for regex 'ka-lite[-bundle]'
Note, selecting 'ka-lite-raspberry-pi' for regex 'ka-lite[-bundle]'
Note, selecting 'ka-lite-bundle' for regex 'ka-lite[-bundle]'
ka-lite-bundle is already the newest version.
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 ka-lite-bundle : Conflicts: ka-lite-raspberry-pi but 0.14.alpha11-0ubuntu1 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
didi@didi-Inspiron-3531:~$ 

[radinamatic]

To get back to the original question, I didn't get to the point to have any name suggested as the user account for installing ka-lite[-bundle]. Tomorrow I'll try uninstalling and starting form scratch...

[benjaoming]

@radinamatic A lot of this is unrelated to ka-lite-gtk -- maybe we can focus on getting that to work? I can't handle too much randomness in the test process.

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 ka-lite-bundle : Conflicts: ka-lite-raspberry-pi but 0.14.alpha11-0ubuntu1 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

...means that you have a broken installation of ka-lite-rasberry-pi and you cannot install conflicting packages on top of that.

I don't know why it might be broken, but try apt-get purge ka-lite-raspberry-pi.

[radinamatic]

The second take

sudo apt-get purge ka-lite ka-lite-bundle ka-lite-raspberry-pi
...
sudo apt-get install ka-lite-bundle
...
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  ka-lite-bundle
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 375 MB of archives.
After this operation, 602 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://ppa.launchpad.net/learningequality/ka-lite/ubuntu/ vivid/main ka-lite-bundle all 0.14~a12-0ubuntu1 [375 MB]
Fetched 375 MB in 1min 30s (4,121 kB/s)                                        
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously unselected package ka-lite-bundle.
(Reading database ... 265916 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../ka-lite-bundle_0.14~a12-0ubuntu1_all.deb ...
Unpacking ka-lite-bundle (0.14~a12-0ubuntu1) ...
Setting up ka-lite-bundle (0.14~a12-0ubuntu1) ...
Setting ownership to didi for assessment item database
Copying init.d script

Creating config file /etc/init.d/ka-lite with new version

Two "Package configuration" windows appeared in between (for startup question & scripts). I would recommend adding those instructions here too (as it is done after the setup):

(after Creating config file /etc/init.d/ka-lite with new version)

Download and initial configuration is finished. Use the following command to setup KA Lite server:
 kalite manage setup

After the setup and starting the server, I still had 2 Default facilities as yesterday, and I was unable to download any language packs. I stopped that server instance.

Then I downloaded the ka-lite-gtk_0.3~a1-0ubuntu1_all.deb file and installed through the Ubuntu Software center.

Start/Stop tab looks much clearer! :) I started the server with the corresponding button, and in the Log tab there was the output of the setup process, which is unclear as it supposedly already happened in the Terminal:

(the end of the command output from the Log tab)

Scanning for video files in the content directory (/var/ka-lite/.kalite/content)

CONGRATULATIONS! You've finished setting up the KA Lite server software.
You can now start KA Lite with the following command:

    kalite start

To access KA Lite from another connected computer, try the following address(es):
    http://192.168.1.42:8008/
To access KA Lite from this machine, try the following address:
    http://127.0.0.1:8008/

Going to daemon mode, logging to /var/ka-lite/.kalite/server.log
Running 'kalite start' as daemon (system service)

Stand by while the server loads its data...

INFO:kalite:Setting up KA Lite; this may take a few minutes; please wait!

WARNING:py.warnings:/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/kalite/distributed/management/commands/setup.py:68: UserWarning: /usr/share/kalite/dist-packages is not writable so cannot delete stale *pyc files
  "{0} is not writable so cannot delete stale *pyc files".format(path))

WARNING:py.warnings:/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/kalite/distributed/management/commands/setup.py:68: UserWarning: /usr/share/kalite/python-packages is not writable so cannot delete stale *pyc files
  "{0} is not writable so cannot delete stale *pyc files".format(path))

INFO:kalite:Running videoscan.
INFO:kalite:Preloading exercise data for language en.
INFO:kalite:Preloading content data for language en.
INFO:kalite:Preloading topic tree data for language en.
INFO:kalite:Copying static media...
WARNING:py.warnings:/usr/share/kalite/python-packages/tastypie/resources.py:328: UserWarning: 'override_urls' is a deprecated method & will be removed by v1.0.0. Please rename your method to ``prepend_urls``.
  warnings.warn("'override_urls' is a deprecated method & will be removed by v1.0.0. Please rename your method to ``prepend_urls``.")

Once I started the server, my double Default facilities have disappeared and it seemed as a fresh install! :)

Proceeding to the Settings tab:

• kalite command is a bit unclear. Is it indicating the location of the command or something more? Can the user change it (I'm guessing not)? Maybe just add: "Location of the kalite command"
• Not urgent, but for the future releases I suggest adding a [?] help button with more details about what data the 'Data directory' actually contains, and if there are any consequences of changing the location of the folder itself

So I finally see the option of having my own user here (don't recall seeing it yesterday, damn me for not having made the screenshot before)! :)

• I would put the user that is currently running the server at the first position with the text: User account currently running KA Lite
• And in the second option Run as 'default_user_name' user

Maybe also change the last phrase to: In case you changed any of the settings above, you will have to restart the server!

[benjaoming]

@radinamatic the Settings tab is the one I'm currently working on. So testing it won't be a very good experience ATM.

Regarding data: KA Lite stores data in the user account's home folder. That's why selecting which user account should run KA Lite is so important.

When you run KA Lite and the data from a previous installation is still there, it's because uninstalling KA Lite does not touch the user data. These facilities that you had were user data... the fact that they disappeared only happened because you started using KA Lite from a different user account.

[benjaoming]

P.S. I thought you were going to make high-level suggestions, didn't you promise not to test the broken things? :) :)

[radinamatic]

I don't go looking for trouble, but somehow it always manages to find me... ;)