[Xerte-dev] Re: v2 User Notes

Thu May 2 12:06:39 BST 2013

Hi Julian,

One caveat. Using IE 10 doesn't work very well. You may want to check this
for yourselves, as it may just be IE 10 in windows 8. It won't probably be a
problem for corporate users as they won't have upgraded their organisational
hardware, but it will be a problem for learners who have recently (e.g. at
Christmas or more recently) acquired a new computer which will come with W8
and IE10 by default. The pages work best in the current version of Firefox,
and acceptably in Chrome, but IE 10 is pretty much unusable for Xerte as it
comes.

You may need/wish to draw attention to this in the 'Release Notes'.

You may also want to include the kludge for getting IE 10 to play Flash in
the 'Metro' or 'Modern' interface which I noted earlier. This is not just
for the Surface RT.

Thinking ahead a bit more, would it be possible to the get the LO to check
to see if Flash is available and revert to HTML 5 if it's not or to see if
the browser is on the 'supported' list for HTML 5 (currently Firefox,
Chrome, versions of IE prior to 10? and Safari?).

Kindest regards, Thomas

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 02 May 2013 10:41
To: For Xerte technical developers (xerte-dev at lists.nottingham.ac.uk)
Subject: [Xerte-dev] v2 User Notes

We're going to update our install today(!)

I want to put a summary of the changes in v2 for our users to read somewhere
(maybe in a bootstrap template piece I create and link to). I've written
some text, can you think of anything else to add, or anything that is not
clear here? Thanks,

Xerte Online Toolkits v2.0 - Release Notes

==========================================

In Xerte Online Toolkits v2.0, you now have the ability to deliver content
using HTML5 rather than the Flash Player. This has a number of advantages:
you can deliver content to a much wider range of devices, and specifically
you can deliver content to devices that do not support Flash. You should use
the HTML5 delivery option for new pieces of content.

Existing content will continue to play using the Flash Player. You can
change this setting for existing content, but you should check that the
content runs properly, and looks as you intended if you change the setting.
New content is set to play using HTML5 by default and will be able to take
advantage of new developments in the software in the future. We will not be
updating the older Flash delivery engine to handle new page types and
templates, and so we recommend that new Learning Objects use HTML5 rather
than Flash for delivery. New Learning Objects will automatically be set up
to use HTML5, so you do not need to do anything.

When using video, you should use the .mp4 file format in conjunction with
the HTML5 delivery option to ensure that video plays on the widest range of
devices. The .mp4 file format is not compatible with the older Flash player.

To summarise, you do not need to do anything. Existing content will continue
to use Flash and nothing will change unless you want it to. New content will
use HTML5, and we recommend that you keep this setting. You should use .mp4
video rather than .flv video in new learning objects.

The Xerte Online Toolkit now contains over 70 templates for presenting rich
media and interactivity. If you have idea for new ways to present and
deliver content, the developer team would like to hear from you. The
software continues to be user-driven, most of the functionality has been
developed to meet real use cases, and we think this is an excellent way to
capture great ideas that meet real needs.

The MediaInteractions, Interactive Diagram and  Multiple Perspectives
templates have been retired. All the functionality they provided is now
available in the Xerte Online Toolkit template. Existing Learning Objects
created using these templates will continue to function but you will no
longer be able to create new ones.

The new Bootstrap Template allows you to create responsive learning objects
that work well on the widest possible range of devices and function well on
a wide range of screen sizes, from phones to desktop PCs. The Bootstrap
template is designed for the presentation of text, graphics, video and audio
in a structured document: note you can embed content created using the Xerte
Online Toolkit into content created using the Bootstrap Template.

We hope you enjoy all the new features and functionality in Xerte Online
Toolkits v2.0!

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