Status update of Dr Geo

[Hilaire Fernandes <hilaire.fernandes@iname.com>]

Some remind point about Dr Geo may be usefull :

"Dr GEO is an interactive geometry software. It allows the construction
of interactive geometric figures. It's an educational oriented software.
So I took care of the design of the Dr GEO user interface. Also Dr GEO
can handle differents languages (Cf traduction scheme). This software
can be used by mathematic teachers. In a class room to make a show or in
a computer class room. Also Dr GEO can be use by students. To help them
to resolve geometric home exercices or to go deeper with exercices given
with Dr GEO."

Dr Geo was first written under DOS (with free tools only), next a port
of the graphic library used by Dr Geo to Xwindows make the port of Dr
Geo to Xwindows very easy (almost just recompile). Unfortunatly the port
is not as good as will be a native rewritting of Dr Geo to Xwindows.
There is problems, some peolpe says it's too much memory hungry : it's
normal as there is an unicode font to dispay Chinese but Dr Geo is to
much CPU time consumming and it needs to work under 8bpp . This is why
I'm working in the GTK port. The chinese version will be lost as GTK
can't cope with unicode.

Right now I'm learning the GTK library and the lack of a complet GTK
documentation doesn't help. However the guys in the gtk-dev mailing list
are very helpfull and now I've rewritten the different Dr Geo toolbars
with GTK. I try to keep the same philosphy of the software (no uneeded
icons or menus in the display).
So the GTK part of the port is not a big deal. The big deal is that
developing an application under Dos and Xwindows is done in a totaly
different way and Dr Geo needs some deep changes and I'm quite sure
nobody can help for this (need to know how DrGeo works) - all the people
who try to help they have gave up. I hope to finish the port before this
summer and then resume the evolving process of Dr Geo - at this stage I
hope people can start looking at the code and joining the project.

But peolpes can still help in other field. 
Many thing need to be done for Dr Geo that is not code specific :

- writting a nice documentation using sgml. For now there is
documentation in french and english. The english one is quite simple but
complete. The french one is more rescent. The sgml sources are in the Dr
Geo distribution. I can also provide the icons in xpm format or PCX. To
write the documentation one can use the actual Dr Geo program, in GTK Dr
Geo change will appear only in the 'change stlye tool'
For this, Barret is volonteer.

- design exercice with worksheet (this CAN be in any language, If you
are spanish just write it in spanish as Dr Geo can display spanish). The
actual Dr Geo and GTK Dr Geo file format will be the same (compressed),
so don't worry you will no lose your file. In the Microsoft platform, Dr
Geo seem to gain some success (the Dr Geo site hit rate is ~250 a week),
I don't want to disapointed those people when they will move to the
Linux platform.
For the worksheet, I may suggest the use of Lyx : it's free and teacher
can easily edit worksheet. It doesn't need to learn many things. Also Dr
Geo figure can be exported in PCX format, Xfig allows to encapsulate PCX
file in EPS one that can be include in Lyx...

- it's will be nice to have a mascot !

- other suggestion ?


People joining the project will be a moral benefic for myself as
sometime I just feel : why losing your time ? It doesn't bring you a
better standart of living!


Hilaire

Dr Geo project leader.

-- 
Hilaire Fernandes
Dr Geo project http://members.xoom.com/FeYiLai/dr_geo/doctor_geo.html