BabySmash

Overview

The BabySmash game for small kids.

As babies or children smash on the keyboard, colored shapes, letters and numbers appear on the screen and are voiced to help breed familiarization.

Baby Smash will lock out the Windows Key, as well as Ctrl-Esc and Alt-Tab so your baby won't likely exit the application, rotate your monitor display, and so on. Pressing ALT-F4 will exit the application and Shift-Ctrl-Alt-O brings up the options dialog.

Originally developed by Scott Hanselman, based on AlphaBaby. The version here contains some enhancements, but the original version is also available: http://www.hanselman.com/babysmash/

Enhancements

This version of BabySmash includes at least the following enhancements over the original:

• Keypad typing now register as numbers typed, just like the number row.
• Bug fixes, including cleaner shutdown.
• Improved sound handling.
• Ovals are added to the roster of shapes (including Circle, Heart, Hexagon, Rectangle, Square, Star, Trapezoid, Triangle), letters, and numbers.

AutoHotkey

Used in conjunction with a tool like AutoHotkey, you can essentially create a "baby lock hotkey" so you can baby-proof your PC inputs at a moment's notice, with this immersive application instead of just the boring Windows Lock Screen. To set up:

• Download and install, if you don't already have it. Available for free at: http://www.autohotkey.com/
• Run AutoHotkey; for the first time, it will prompt if you want to edit the script. You do.
• If the script is not open, right-click the AutoHotkey taskbar icon (an 'H' icon) and select 'Edit This Script'.
• Choose a hotkey. Avoid relying on the Windows key, as it will be held while BabySmash starts and may be buggy when you exit BabySmash due to the way the key is intercepted. I like to use Control+Shift+Z.
• Code the hotkey. If you're using Control+Shift+Z, you can add "^+z::Run D:\GIT\babysmash\bin\Release\BabySmash.exe" right after the line "#z::Run www.autohotkey.com" (without quotes); Obviously your path to BabySmash.exe will vary depending on where you installed or built the code.
• Save the file and close your text editor.
• Right-click the AutoHotkey taskbar, and select 'Reload This Script'.
• Try out your new hotkey to make sure it works. If not, go back to 'Edit This Script' and try again.

For more advanced customization, see also: http://ahkscript.org/docs/Tutorial.htm

Local Development

Prerequisites

• .NET 5.0

Compile

The BabySmash solution can be built by running the .NET CLI command dotnet build in the root directory or alternatively via Visual Studio.

Debug

Developers can run the BabySmash code by running the .NET CLI command dotnet run in the root directory or alternatively via Visual Studio.

Publish

Build artifacts are included in the Continuous Integration Pipeline GitHub Action. View the summary of a successful build in order to retrieve uploaded artifacts.

In order to run a local publish run the following command from the root directory

dotnet publish --configuration Release --runtime ${{ matrix.runtime }} --output ./publish -p:PublishReadyToRun=true -p:PublishSingleFile=true --self-contained true

If you encounter issues in a locally published BabySmash executable, there are logs published to the Windows Event Viewer under Windows Logs > Application.

Custom Words

Along with any deployment of BabySmash.exe is a Words.txt file. This file determines what combination of letters is constructed into words for the application smasher. Simply adjust the file by adding words on new lines to add to the library.

There are additionally custom regional definitions in ./Resources/Strings/ which may be contributed to to adjust the words used for speaking shape and color names.