GlossaryΒΆ

Activity

Sugar education software module. In other contexts these might be called programs, but we prefer to emphasize what the students can do with them, not where they came from.

Definition

An association between a name which may mean nothing by itself and a description intended to convey an important idea. Frequently we need a different kind of association between names and ideas, such as pictures, animations, or actual experience. The most important purpose of definitions is to explain what the thing named does; another is to describe its uses, or as we often say its purposes; a third is to describe the appearance of something, so that we can recognize it when we see it; a fourth is to enable us to talk about the thing conveniently with those who already have some idea of it. Usually the order of importance of these purposes is entirely misunderstood.

Favorite

Activity that shows in the Home view icon ring. A user can mark an Activity as a Favorite in the List view by clicking the star outline next to the Activity name.

Frame

Popup rectangular border in Sugar showing View icons and active Activities on the top; friend icons on the right; hardware icons on the bottom; and icons for open documents on the left. The frame is activated by putting the mouse cursor into a corner of the screen, or optionally the side (see My Settings), or by pressing the Frame button on the top right of an XO keyboard. Moving the mouse cursor away from the activation area or pressing the Frame button while the Frame is active dismisses the Frame.

Group view

View showing colored XO icons of the user’s friends who are connected, and grayed-out icons for those who are not.

Home view

View showing XO icon, an icon for the current Activity (or journal if no Activity has been started), and a ring or other arrangement of available Activity icons.

Hover Menu

A menu that pops up when the mouse cursor is held over an icon for one second, and expands further after one more second. A feature that many users cannot discover without being told about it.

Index

Synonym for Glossary.

Journal

A browser for saved software sessions and documents, allowing sorting, searching, and access to metadata.

Menu Bar

A rectangular area at the top of the screen containing text labels or icons, where clicking with the mouse results in the appearance of a drop-down menu containing further labels or icons for Activity functions available to the user.

Metadata

Information about a file, such as file type, software used to create it, description, tags, a screen shot, date and time, and more. The Journal maintains metadata about saved documents and software sessions.

Neighborhood view

View showing wireless mesh and access points, connected XOs, and shared Activities.

OS

Operating System. This describes the Software that runs on your XO laptop.

School server (XS)

A computer designed by OLPC for use in schools to hold student backups and content, and to provide school administration server software such as Moodle.

Sugar

Education software for the One Laptop Per Child project, designed to run on the XO and on other computers running the Linux operating system.

Toolbar

A rectangular area of the screen, usually at the top, containing icons representing Activity functions available to the user.