Proposed changes to ToonTalk tools

Dear ToonTalkers -

Micke Kindborg wrote to me with ideas for enhancements for manipulating
pictures in ToonTalk. The problem he was addressing is that when you
place pictures on pictures the only way to move or change the size of a
subpicture is to vacuum it off, spit it out, change it if necessary and
then carefully place it where it should go. (A tip: if you hide your
hand with F9 while holding the picture you can place it very accurately.
You can even use the arrow keys for fine control.)

After discussions with Jakob and Ylva we came up with a partial solution
that is very easy to implement and keeps ToonTalk nice and simple:

1. Pumpy should be able to pump up a subpicture just like how Maggie can
copy a subpicture. This change is unlikely to be disruptive since robots
don't use Pumpy and people should be able to change the size of a part
or the whole by paying attention to the wiggling and color feedback. Now
it is possible for a picture to be completely covered by subpictures -
then one will regret this change. But I suspect it is rare. In such
cases the best way to change the size of a picture is to use the Width
and Height sensors.

2a. The solution for how to move (rather than change the size) of a
subpicture is less clear. One idea is that Dusty be given an additional
behavior. If he sucks "weakly" he won't be able to suck a subpicture off
a picture but you could drag it around. Not clear if this should be a
new button state or some other kind of modifier.

2b. Writing this it just occurred to me that a different solution would
be say that your hand can grab subpictures. This would make it easier to
change things but it would mean you need to be careful to pick things up
where there are no subpictures. And if you have some application like a
checker board that is covered by 64 squares you need to leave a border
to grab.

Either version of 2 is a fair amount of work while 1 should be very
easy.

I feel like enhancement 1 is a good idea and MAYBE 2b is as well. But
I'd like to hear what others think about this.

Best,

-ken

P.S. ToonTalk 3 is coming along well. The code is well-tested and the
demos need to be rebuilt. And the dialogs enhanced. Sorry about the
delays.



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