Bocs Paent Albert (Albert's Paintbox) is a very flexible graphics program for younger children. Its simplicity and clarity make it an ideal introduction to computer graphics for teachers and children.
Many of the tools are hidden until required. The round buttons at the lower left of the screen represent the toolboxes with the tools in the selected box sread out to the right. Anything with a red arrow shows more tools are available in a popup menu.
The standard six configurations (see Contact us/Help > Configuring RESOURCE software) are built in to the program: as every tool in Albert's Paintbox can be turned on or off, there are a number of ways of setting the software to meet the needs of different ages or abilities.
When everything is turned on, there are five basic toolboxes:
The Painting toolbox:
Painting tools |
With a selection of painting tools: Round tip brush, Square tip brush,Slanted tip brush, Spray and Fill to apply paint and Resize your chosen tool.
The two Fudges: Splash and Smudge to modify a picture.
Three styles of paint: Thick, Thin and Rough.
The nine Actions: Freehand, Straight line, Rays, Outline and Filled rectangles, Outline and Filled ellipses, Outline and Filled triangles.
And the Magic button to help in geometric designs:
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File and Print tools
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Load, Save and Print, obviously. |
Text tools |
Text can be written to the screen in any of the three paint styles Thick, Thin and Rough. You can also choose which Font you're gong to use and Resize it accordingly.
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Stamp tools |
Stamps are Bocs Paent Albert version of clip art. We've supplied a good collection and you can add your own from other sources. You can also make your own by selecting part of your picture and grabbing it with a Snap. You can also Cut out part of your picture. You can then Use either type of grab as a repeatable stamp. Save your stamp or Load in others. Let your stamp have a Solid background or Transparent background, or make the whole stamp Transparent.
You can always Rotate, Flip Tile and Resize.
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Picture tools |
You can Zoom in to your picture to do some pixel-size editing, or Zoom out to get an overview. Play around with your picture with a Rotation, Horizontal flip or Vertical flip. Set the canvas up with a Horizontal mirror or a Vertical mirror - clever people use both.
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There are many other inventive artistic tools (try the two methods of paint mixing), but Bocs Paent Albert can also optionally speak the name of each tool as the cursor and show the name. This is a Talk·2·Talk program (clicker here for more details), so other languages can be added. Here is the Colours panel highlighted in English, French, Spanish, Polish and Welsh - even more impressive when you can see and hear the words:
There's a lot of potential in Bocs Paent Albert - install it and try it for yourself. As one of our reviewers reported: 'This new program has great potential - and I do not doubt that Albert’s Painbox will be tested and stretched without mercy!'