Mama Documentation
תוכן עניינים
Introduction
Mama is an
educational programming language built on top of
Carnegie Mellon's great
Alice development environment. Mama is designed to help young students start programming by building 3D animations and games.
Building of animations in Mama has two main parts:
scene editing and
program editing. Accordingly, the development environment contains two basic editing modes: scene editing mode and program editing mode. In scene editing mode (received by clicking on the '+' sign at the bottom of the 3D window) the 3D window is enlarged, the object gallery is displayed in the bottom window for selecting objects, and the right window contains controls used for editing. In program editing mode (default mode) the bottom window is the
program editing area and the right window is the
event editing area.
The collection of all
objects and the
events in the current session is called
world. You can play a
world, change it and save it into a file. At any given moment, there's a single world open in the development environment, which is the current world. You can open sample worlds by selecting 'Open' from the 'File' menu, and then select a file from the sample worlds.
There are several parts in Mama window: at the top you'll find the
main menu and the
toolbar, which let you execute commands such as create/open worlds, import 3D objects into the world, create a
standalone application, export the animation to
YouTube, etc.
The other 5 parts of the user interface are:
- object tree - contains the object list in the current world.
- 3D window - this is where objects are positioned, moved, turned, etc.
- events area - lets you edit what happens upon occur of certain event.
- details area - contains information about the currently selected object in 3 tabs: properties, methods and functions.
- editor area (at the bottom) - that's where the program code is written, using drag and drop of instructions.
When in
scene editing mode, two of the above parts are replaced:
- control panel - replaces the events area, and displays various controls that help manipulating objects in the 3D window.
- object gallery - replaces the editor area, and displays objects in hierarchic folders to be selected and embedded in the 3D window.
Installation
Getting Started
The Mama system comprises many topics: rich user interface, 3D animation, an object oriented programming language, an object gallery, and more. To overcome this complexity, you are suggested to study Mama systematically. First, try using Mama as a user , without doing any programming: open example worlds, run them and see what happens. Notice the various windows on the screen, select objects and review their details, try recording a movie and uploading it to your Youtube account, etc.
Next, the interactive tutorials provide a quick and simple way to study Mama programming. To open a tutorial, select 'File'=>'Open', and from the displayed dialog select the tutorials tab, where several tutorials are available. The tutorials are numbered, and it is suggested to follow the numeric order:
- Tutorial 1: Monkey tale - introduce Mama and instructs basic work with objects, editing methods, playing the world, uploading to YouTube and Facebook
- Tutorial 2: Naptime - further explains method editing and creation of new methods
- Tutorial 3: Penguin Chorus - focused on events: creating and editing events, defining event actions
- Tutorial 4: Space - focused on scene editing, embedding objects from the gallery in the 3D window
Each tutorial guides the student interactively, step by step, in building programs and worlds.
Tutorials and other resources:
- This document describes the basic principles of animation within Mama 3D environment
- Animations basics - to understand animation, read and follow the animation tutorial. This guide provides a very good gradual explanation on how to create animation programs.
- Advanced animation - for advanced users, the monkey tale guide provides a thorough explanation of a Mama application and its subdivision into modules, a better understanding of the Mama programming language, advanced animation, and an introduction to working with the camera.
- Sample programs - rich sample programs in the samples directory provide valuable information (actually, some of the tutorials are based on samples from the samples directory). the sample programs provide a good way to explore Mama environment and to see what's are its capabilities. To open a sample program select 'File'=>'Open' and then select a sample world from the sample programs tab.
- Reference Manual - reference manual for for immediate help on specific topics.
- Mama forums - another valuable source of information, where you can post questions or answers, as well as exchange ideas and programs.
- [www.alice.orgs/communitiy Alice forums - contain huge amount of information about Alice, on which Mama is based, so you can use it as another rich documentation source.
- Baldwin's site - yet, another extremely useful source for Alice documentation can be found at Prof. Richard G. Baldwin's site. Prof. Baldwin's site contains documentation and tutorials in almost all aspects of Alice, and the content is very thorough and accurate. Much of the information in this site is relevant for Mama as well.
Keyboard shortcuts
| מקש קיצור | פעולה |
| F1 | עזרה |
| Ctrl-O | פתח עולם |
| Ctrl-N | עולם חדש |
| Ctrl-S | שמור עולם |
| F5 | הרץ |
| Ctrl-Z | ביטול |
| Ctrl-Y | בצע שוב |
| Ctrl-C | העתק |
| Ctrl-X | גזור |
| Ctrl-V | הדבק |
| Ctrl-G | צלם |
| Ctrl + כפתור עכבר שמאלי | הפנה עצמים שמאלה וימינה |
| Shift + כפתור עכבר שמאלי | הזז עצמים מעלה ומטה |
| Ctrl + Shift + כפתור עכבר שמאלי | סובב/הזז עצמים שמאלה/ימינה/מעלה/מטה |
Mama Configuration
The configuration of Mama is determined by two configuration files:
- config.txt - administrator configuration file - under Mama installation root folder (normally c:/Program Files/Mama) - sets the main paths of Mama, and dominates the user configuration (config.xml). Settings in this file will override user settings.
- config.xml - user configuration file - under C:/Documents and Settings/<user-name>/.mamaen - sets various variables of Mama
Within the administrator confix.txt file you will normally set administrator/instructor convenient variables, such as:
| משתנה | תיאור | defalut value |
| config.dir | the user configuration file's directory | c:/Documents and Settings/<user-name>/.mamaen |
| user.dir | user home dir | C:/Documents and Settings/<user-name>/Desktop/Mama_works |
| enableScripting | enable Mama scripting within method code lines | true |
| enableFreeScripting | enable Mama world scripting in a separate window (to enable this you'd have to enable 'enableScripting' too | false |
| scriptingLanguage | the scripting language in use, current available languages are mama and python | mama |
| encryptStandalone | encrypt standalone programs so that they cannot be edited | true |
Within config.xml you can set many variables. The following table contains useful configuration variables:
| משתנה | תיאור | defalut value |
| movieCapture.frameRate | frame rate of video capturing - higher values (24, 32, 64) give a better quality but create bigger files | 16 FPS |
| maxUndoCount | undo stack size - bigger values might cause higher memory usage | 25 |
| enableRunntimeAsserts | enables assertions at runtime using the keyword דרוש - you should set this flag to true while developing, and disable in production version | true (false in standalone mode) |
| importDirectory | default directory for the import file chooser | C:/Documents and Settings/<user-name>/Desktop/Mama_works |
| worldsDirectory | default directory for the user worlds | C:/Documents and Settings/<user-name>/Desktop/Mama_works |
Mama scripting
You can write scripts within your program using Mama programming language. For more about scripts see
here.
Mama reference manual
For instructors
Mama was built to serve educational needs in computer science, and as such, it suits young and adult students studying their first programming language, as well as providing helpful tools for instructors.
General programming style
Two styles are available in the development environment:
- סגנון מאמא - the programming style is similar to modern programming languages: identifier names do not contain spaces, and parentheses are used for bounding the arguments in a method/function definitions/call.
- סגנון אליס - simple style: spaces are allowed in identifier names, no parentheses in method/function definitions/calls. This style is suggested for very young students, or as a preceding stage before moving to Mama style.
For example, given an object named 'Miki', which includes a method named 'walk', this is how we call it:
Miki.walk(10, left)
Miki.walk 10, left
You can set the programming style from the menu 'Edit'/'Preferences' (You will need to restart Mama to apply the change). Selecting the programming style is an important decision that needs to be made by the instructor, considering the age of the students and their programming knowledge.
(For instructors who work with Alice style, you can get from here
the reference manual the
the sample programs in Alice style.
Building tutorials
As an instructor, you can create
interactive tutorials for your students. This is a convenient and efficient way to teach, and is normally preferred over building programs using manual instructions. Within a tutorial you can determine within each step what the student is required to do, so that moving to the next step depends in completing successfully the current one. During run of the tutorial a dark glass screen is displayed which disables access to user interface parts in general, and enables access only to the components defined to be accessed in the current step of the tutorial.
Click here for help in building tutorials.
