[Xerte] Having problems duplicating nodes

Mon Dec 8 23:12:01 GMT 2008

That's pretty much what my xml file looks like:

<quiz>

 <question lesson="1">
    <prompt>This is the question to display on the screen.</prompt>
    <answer correct="false">This is a wrong answer to the
question.</answer>
    <answer correct="true">This is the answer you should have
selected.</answer>
 </question>

 <!-- more questions follow -->

</quiz>

And each lesson is in its own framework, with a wrap up section at the
end that should display the questions and answers (untracked in the
lessons) for just that lesson. I'm not using any page templates, and
each page of the wrap up will be the same (hence the duplicate() I've
been trying to use to duplicate the nodes). Once the user has completed
all of the lessons, the Test button becomes enabled, and should present
them with all of the questions, randomized. They must pass that test to
get a certificate.

P

________________________________

	From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
	Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 2:52 PM
	To: Xerte discussion list
	Subject: RE: [Xerte] Having problems duplicating nodes

	how fussy are you about the .xml format?

	could you work with:

	<questions>

	  <question section="1">
	    <!--data for question here -->
	  </question>

	  <!--etc-->

	</questions>

	and generally, what does the .rlo need to do? Present a
framework of content for each section, and then show the quiz (on the
last page?). Do the page types vary?

	and then a final section framework summarises and then shows all
questions, randomised?

________________________________

	From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk on behalf of Paul
Swanson
	Sent: Mon 08/12/2008 19:15
	To: Xerte discussion list
	Subject: RE: [Xerte] Having problems duplicating nodes

	Commenting out the two randomQuizData lines doesn't change
anything. I've moved the statement that randomizes the questions to the
button that launches the final test, rather than have it in the setup
script.

	Maybe I'm just going about this entirely the wrong way. What I
want to accomplish is to have all my test questions within one setup.xml
file. I have six lessons, and some of the questions will also be
presented at the end of each lesson. So I need to parse which questions
are for lesson 1, which are for lesson 2, etc. Once the student has
completed all of the lessons, they must take a test to pass the course.
This test will be comprised of all of the questions for all of the
lessons, with the questions randomized. Am I on the right track with
what I've been trying to do, or do I need to take a different approach?

	Paul

________________________________

		From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
		Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 11:32 PM
		To: Xerte discussion list
		Subject: RE: [Xerte] Having problems duplicating nodes

		You are creating references to the same array.

		quizData = templateData.quiz[0]; // non-randomized
questions

		randomQuizData = templateData.quiz[0]; // for randomized
questions
		randomQuizData.question.randomize(); // randomize the
list of questions.

		quizData.question is also randomised.

________________________________

		From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk on behalf of
Paul Swanson
		Sent: Thu 04/12/2008 19:32
		To: Xerte discussion list
		Subject: RE: [Xerte] Having problems duplicating nodes

		I think the problem is where I take the quiz part of
templateData and assign it to quizData:

		quizData = templateData.quiz[0]; // non-randomized
questions

		randomQuizData = templateData.quiz[0]; // for randomized
questions
		randomQuizData.question.randomize(); // randomize the
list of questions.

		All of the questions are between the <quiz> </quiz>
tags, and there is only one set of those. To indicate which lesson the
question is for, I have an attribute for the <question> tag (lesson="1",
lesson="2", etc.). Then I try to get just the lesson 1 questions with:

		// create arrays for lesson 1 quiz
		lesson1quiz = new Array ();
		wrapupQbuilt = new Array (); // for questions
		wrapupBuilt = new Array (); // for question answers
		wrapupTracking = new Array ();
		wrapupAnswers = new Array ();

		lesson1Counter = 0; // counter for number of questions

		// loop through all questions to get lesson 1
		for (i = 0; i < quizData.question.length; i++) {

		  if (quizData.question[i].lesson == '1') {

		    lesson1quiz[lesson1Counter].question =
quizData.question[i];
		    lesson1Counter++;

		  } // end of quizData.question[i] conditional

		  myCounter = i + 1;

		} // end of for loop

		// create the right number of questions
		if (wrapupQbuilt[lesson1Counter] != 'true') {

icon.nextSibling.childNodes[6].childNodes[0].childNodes[2].childNodes[0]
.childNodes[1].duplicate(lesson1Counter-1);
		}
		wrapupQbuilt[lesson1Counter] = 'true';

		But when I print lesson1quiz.length for debugging
purposes, it prints 0, I was expecting it to print 2. Yet if I hard code
the index of the lesson1quiz to get a question, it does appear. Hard
code 0 and it pulls the second question, hard code 1 and it prints the
first question (backwards from what I expected, but the order isn't
important), so there must be something in the lesson1quiz array.

		Paul

________________________________

			From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
			Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 12:58 AM
			To: Xerte discussion list
			Subject: RE: [Xerte] Having problems duplicating
nodes

			What you describe sounds right. I think the
index is correct (and that' backed up by the fact you use the same var
to display the current page number to the user).

			So if that is indeed correct, then it must be an
issue with reading the data out of the xml data. Are you using th index
in the right part of the templateData path?

			From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Paul Swanson
			Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 10:04 PM
			To: Xerte discussion list
			Subject: RE: [Xerte] Having problems duplicating
nodes

			Well, apparently I was. I had the duplicate code
in the entry frame of lesson 1, so I guess it was executing each time I
moved from page to page in lesson 1? I moved the code to just above the
interface icon (so it can only run once), made the necessary changes to
the childNodes structure, and it was still acting funny. I then found
that I had both a variable and an icon id of 'lesson1Counter' so it's no
wonder it was acting inconsistently. ;o)  I fixed that and now I'm
consistently getting the correct number of question nodes.

			I still have one problem though: it only
displays one question. When I get to the first question node, it
displays the question correctly, the second node displays the same
question, and if I back up to the first question node, it's blank.  Here
is the code where I get the question number:

			questIndex = icon.parentNode.index() - 1;

			The script icon with this code is the first icon
in the proto Wrap Up page (what I was calling the question node above),
and the proto Wrap Up page is the second child of the wrap up framework
(the Entry Frame being the first child), so questIndex should be 0 for
the first question, and 1 for the next, right? I'm using questIndex+1
for a page counter, and that is correctly displaying 1 for question 1
and 2 for question 2, but the questions don't change. Any insight on
that?

			Thanks for all your help!

			P

________________________________

				From:
xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
				Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 12:45
PM
				To: Xerte discussion list
				Subject: RE: [Xerte] Having problems
duplicating nodes

				You're not duplicating icons more than
once are you? When you call duplicate, you are manipulatingthe xml in
the rlo file:

				//this makes n + 1 children on
icon.nextSibling:

icon.nextSibling.firstChild.duplicate(n);

				//call it again (perhaps because we
revisit this page):

icon.nextSibling.firstChild.duplicate(n);

				//how many children?

debug(icon.nextSibling.childNodes.length); //duh. Twice as many as I
needed.

				//so, only let the duplicate run once,
'cos if we revisit a page, we'll end up with too many xml nodes...

				if (someFlag != true){

				  duplicate(....make icons here...);

				  someFlag = true;

				}

				//i tend to do it like this, so
duplicate code in icon will only ever run once:

				if (icon.attributes.built != 'true'){

				  //duplicate and other logic here

				  icon.attributes.built = 'true';

				}

				sort that out and the see if you've got
any issues left. The thing is that 'icon' refers to the underlying xml
node - that is key to understanding what's happening with duplicate();
make sure the code that builds the piece only runs once.

				J

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