The GCompris Administration Handbook

# The GCompris Administration Handbook

Johnny Jazeix

Timothée Giet

Developers: The GCompris Team
Revision 25.1.1 (2025-06-10)

Legal Notice

GCompris is a multi-activity educational software.

Chapter 1. Administration Handbook
Administration Handbook

# Chapter 1. Administration Handbook

## Introduction

GCompris is a rich educational software suite which contains a wide range of activities.

It offers various activities aimed at covering a variety of fields. The topics include reading and typing, arithmetics, geography, sciences, and other topics. It is meant to be used both at home and at school.

The purpose of GCompris is to provide playful activities but always educational.

GCompris is part of KDE project and is placed under the AGPLv3 license. All the code, except the engine for analog electricity activity is under GPLv3 license.

GCompris is available on the following operating systems: GNU/Linux®, BSD, MacOSX, Windows®, Android. It requires a 3D card with support of OpenGL 2.1 or higher. 32 bits color depth mandatory.

Installation
Installation

## Installation

The software is delivered under several forms. Follow the process according to your case.

- GNU/Linux®: use the packages delivered by your GNU/Linux® distribution. If GCompris is not packaged in your Linux® distribution, please contact them to ask for the inclusion of GCompris in your Linux® distribution.

- Windows®: delivered under a classic installer for Windows® or via the Microsoft Store.

- MacOSX: delivered under a classic installer.

- Android: distributed by the F-Droid store or Google Play Store. Apk file is also available.

The User Interface
The User Interface

## The User Interface

The interface is designed for easy use by small children. GCompris is controlled with a mouse. Keyboard navigation is also available on most of the activities.

### Main window

When you start the program, GCompris shows a graphic interface which presents the list of activities with a control bar at the bottom.

Each icon represents an activity. Around each one, you can find small icons which give additional information about the activity. A simple click on the icon will lead you to an activity or a menu of activities. There are 8 sections (categories) of activities, which are placed on the top or on the left (only if your orientation is portrait). For example, there is section "Board games", which includes board games, like chess, tic tac toe or align four.

Some categories have subcategories to better filter the activities. For math activities, we have three subcategories: numeration, arithmetic and measures.

The stars indicate the age group for which each game is designed:

- 1, 2 or 3 yellow stars - for 2 to 6 years old.

- 1, 2 or 3 red stars - greater than 6 years old.

At the bottom of the screen there is a control bar for GCompris. The possible icons are (the icons are only displayed if they are available in the activity):

- Home - Leaves the current activity, returns to the previous menu.

- "OK" - Validate, confirm your answer. Some activities do not detect automatically whether or not the child has completed the task. In this case, you have to click on this icon. You can also use the Enter key on your keyboard.

- Light - Display a hint for the activity. We can help the children on some activities to guide them to find the answers.

- Arrows - The present level is displayed. Click on one of the arrows to select another level. Generally, the activities offer several levels whose numbers depend on the activity. In GCompris, it is possible to go to the next level without having completed the current level.

- Lips - Ask GCompris to repeat the question.

- Question mark - Display the help dialog box. Sometimes, an activity can be too complex to be described easily in the description area. In this case, this function gives access to additional information.

- Tool box - Configuration menu. The configuration is saved in the user repository (folder) under the name `.config/gcompris/gcompris-qt.conf`. This is a text file which can be edited manually.

- List item - Display the activity settings menu. There are two possible tabs here. First one, "Dataset", allows to choose the levels of the activities depending on several objectives and the second one, "Options", allows to update the configuration of the activity if available.

- Capital "G" - Information box on GCompris, presents the main contributors and the version of the software.

- Power - Quit GCompris. You can also use the shortcut on your keyboard Ctrl+Q

### Kiosk Mode

When you use GCompris with small children or on a self-service kiosk, you can disable a certain number of options:

- `gcompris --enable-kioskmode` : disable the Quit and Configuration buttons.

- `gcompris --disable-kioskmode` : enable the Quit and Configuration buttons.

- `gcompris -f` : run GCompris in fullscreen mode

- `gcompris -C` : disable the cursor (touch screen mode)

These options can of course be combined.

### Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut | Action
Esc or Ctrl+W | Quit the current activity or dialog then return to the main menu.
Ctrl+Q | Quit GCompris without further notice.
Ctrl+F | Toggle fullscreen mode.
Ctrl+M | Toggle sound mute.
Ctrl+B | Display or Hide the control bar.

Notes on Internationalization
Notes on Internationalization

## Notes on Internationalization

GCompris is internationalized and is available in more than 35 languages. If you want to check if your language is available, you can start GCompris and select your language in the option of configuration.

Be careful, some languages need specific fonts to be displayed correctly.

If your language is not supported, you can contribute to the software and add the translation of your language. If you are interested, you can contact the translation team of the KDE project for your language. You can check the level of translation for your language on the KDE translation web site.

Language learning
Language learning

## Language learning

You can use GCompris in a foreign language that you are learning. Select a foreign language in the configuration menu. Do not forget to download the optional audio modules for this language.

Customizing activities
Customizing activities

## Customizing activities

You can customize some activities using the configuration button in them. For example, you can set the locale in some text activities (like wordsgame), or make it show real car images instead of filled rectangles (traffic).

For multiple activities, you can choose several datasets in the configuration. Each one has a specific objective which is described.

You can choose the options for this activity.

Console Switches
Console Switches

## Console Switches

Running GCompris from a command console with the --help option will display all the parameters it accepts:

-f, --fullscreen | Run GCompris in fullscreen mode.
-w, --window | Run GCompris in window mode.
-s, --sound | Run GCompris with sound enabled.
-m, --mute | Run GCompris without sound.
-c, --cursor | Run GCompris with the default system cursor.
-C, --nocursor | Run GCompris without cursor (touch screen mode).
-v, --version | Print the version of GCompris.
-l, --list-activities | Outputs all the available activities on the standard output.
--launch activity | Specify the activity when starting GCompris.
--start-level level | Specify the level on which to start the activity specified by --launch option when starting GCompris. Ignored if no --launch option, or if level specified is invalid.
--difficulty {value|min-max} | For the session, force GCompris activities difficulty to be either at value or between min and max values. The values must be between 1 and 6, and if the format is min-max, the min value must be lower than the max value. If it is not the case GCompris will not start.
--export-activities-as-sql | Export activities as SQL.
--enable-kioskmode | Enable the kiosk mode (hides Quit and Configuration buttons).
--disable-kioskmode | Disable the kiosk mode (default).
--renderer={renderer} | Specify which graphical renderer to use. On all platforms, opengl and software are available. On Windows, you can use direct3d11 or direct3d12 (if it was compiled with Qt>=6.6). On MacOS, you can use metal.
--software-renderer | Use software renderer instead of openGL (should work with any graphical card). Deprecated, use --renderer=software instead.
--opengl-renderer | Use openGL renderer instead of software (faster and more graphical effects but can crash with some graphical cards). Deprecated, use --renderer=opengl instead.

### Windows® Example

You can add these switches in the desktop icon properties. Here is an example that runs GCompris in kiosk mode in full screen, without Configuration button and cursor:

`"C:\Program Files\GCompris-Qt\bin\GCompris.exe" --enable-kioskmode -f -C`

### GNU/Linux® Example

Create an application launcher and configure the command line parameters. Here is an example that runs GCompris in kiosk mode in full screen, without Config button and cursor:

`gcompris-qt --enable-kioskmode -f -C`

Chapter 2. Credits and License
Credits and License

# Chapter 2. Credits and License

GCompris

Program copyright 2000-2025 Timothée Giet and others

This documentation is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

This program is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.