Personalizing Sugar

You can customize Sugar to meet your needs.  You can change options such as:

• the color of your XO icon
• your nickname
• the language used in the interface
• the power-saving features
  

The Sugar Control Panel is the place to configure your system. 

Note: Many of the changes described in this chapter require that you restart Sugar (ctrl+alt+erase) for them to take effect.

Opening the Sugar Control Panel

Hover over the XO icon in the center of the Home View and a menu appears. Select Control Panel.

 

Main Panel

The Main Panel has eight categories of options.

You can use the text box at the top of the window to search the available options. Options that don't match the search text are dimmed.

You accept changes made on the category panels by clicking the "OK" button in the top right corner. Clicking the "Cancel" button discards the changes and returns you to the main panel.

You can quit the control panel by clicking the "X" in the top right corner of the panel.

About Me

Note: If you make changes on this panel, you must restart Sugar (ctrl+alt+erase) for them to take effect. Caution: You may lose any work you have open.

Name

You can change your user name in this box.  The user name appears when you start Sugar.

Color

Click the XO icon to cycle through the colors for it. These colors show up in the Neighborhood View, Group View, Home View, on your Frame and when sharing with other Sugar users. There are almost 400 different color combinations available, which consist of a combination of six base-colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple) used as stroke-color and fill-color and three shades (light, medium, dark).

Please see wiki.laptop.org/images/0/05/Buddy-Icon-Color-Matrix.pdf  for an overview of all the available color combinations.

About my XO

Identity

Some computers, such as the XO laptop, report the serial number here.  You might need the serial number for repair service or to request a developer key.

Software

Here you can see which software and firmware version is currently installed on your system.

Date & Time

Note: If you make changes on this panel, you must restart Sugar (ctrl+alt+erase) for them to take effect. Caution: You may lose any work you have open.

You can set your time zone in multiple ways:

• Select a location such as Europe/Vienna.
• Enter an offset to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) or Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), for example: GMT+2 

Frame

Note: If you make changes on this panel, you must restart Sugar (ctrl+alt+erase) for them to take effect. Caution: You may lose any work you have open.

 

Activation Delay

You can change the delay for activating the Frame. You can set the delay separately for the corners and edges.

• "instantaneous" means that the Frame appears immediately when you move the pointer to that position (corner or edge).
• "never" means that moving the pointer to that position never activates the Frame.
• Values in the middle of the range indicate what fraction of a second the pointer must remain in the position before the Frame activates. The range is from 0.001 to 0.999 seconds.
  

In the default configuration the Frame is instantly shown when the pointer is moved into one of the corners of the screen. 

Language

Note: If you make changes on this panel, you must restart Sugar (ctrl+alt+erase) for them to take effect. Caution: You may lose any work you have open.

You can select your system's default language. Even though your language might be included in the list, the translation might not be complete or available.

 

Network

Wireless

This checkbox allows you to turn the system's wireless radio on or off.  For example, if you use the system on an airplane, you must turn the radio off.

Mesh

Note: If you make changes to this setting, you must restart Sugar (ctrl+alt+erase) for them to take effect. Caution: You may lose any work you have open.

Here you can enter the name of a collaboration server based on jabber. This lets you to share Activities with other people connected to the same server, even when they're located half-way around the world.

Please note that some local OLPC user clubs and universities run their own collaboration server so it is worth checking wiki.laptop.org for relevant information.

Power 

You can configure the power-saving features of your system.

Please note that these settings are always used, even when the computer is plugged into a power outlet.

Click the check boxes to enable or disable the following options.

Automatic power management

This mode dims the brightness of the display and turns off the CPU after one minute when there is no input via the touchpad or keyboard and no Activities that make heavy use of the CPU.

Extreme power management (disables wireless radio, increases battery life)

Enabling this mode turns off your wireless radio.  This significantly increases your system's battery life. Enabling this option turns off the two LEDs on the left side of the laptop. You won't be able to see any other networks or XOs on your Neighborhood View. Enable this mode for maximum battery life.

Software updates

You can select, install, and update Activities on your system.

Checking for updates

If your system is connected to the Internet, it tries to fetch a list of all the available Activities.

If your system isn't connected, the message "Could not access the network to check for updates" appears. 

 

Selecting updates

The panel shows a list of new or updated Activities that are available. The overview also contains information about the Activity's version and size. An Activity is selected if its check box contains a check mark.

1. Select the Activities that you want to install on your system, and clear the checkboxes for the ones you don't want to install.
2. Click "Install selected". 
   

Modifying Activity groups

You can click on Modify activity groups to enter alternative activity groups.

Downloading updates

A status view informs you of the download and installation progress.  

Software is up-to-date

If all your Activities are up-to-date, you see the following message.