[Xerte] FW: Two small niggles with Xerte Online Toolkit

[Alistair McNaught]

This was my non-technical response.

From: Alistair McNaught
Sent: 17 August 2011 11:35
To: 'e.bremner at ukoln.ac.uk'; XERTEFORTEACHERS at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: RE: Two small niggles with Xerte Online Toolkit

Hi Ed
I've forwarded these questions to the main Xerte technical list because the answers might involve more coding than a typical teacher would be familiar with.

This is my quick, non-technical response but others will have better answers
1) When adding a hyperlink using the right click menu, the default adds the target="_blank" which opens the page in a new window and therefore preserves where you are in the Xerte learning object.
[cid:image001.png at 01CC5CD1.87F4A820]

2) Scrollbars - there are some inconsistencies in terms of scroll bar appearance. Whilst some of this is justifiable in terms of discouraging teachers from adding ridiculously long text instead of bitesizing it the reality is that a teacher can add appropriate text which then breaks the page when the learner increases the text size. One of the things JISC Techdis wants to explore at the forthcoming Xerte Unconference is making scroll bar absence / presence more consistent because it does potentially undermine some of the accessibility benefits built into Xerte.

Alistair


From: A list to facilitate and support teachers using Xerte Online Toolkits [mailto:XERTEFORTEACHERS at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Ed I Bremner
Sent: 17 August 2011 11:11
To: XERTEFORTEACHERS at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: Two small niggles with Xerte Online Toolkit

Dear Xerte users,

I have two questions regarding niggles that I have with XOT.

There may well be easy answers to these....that have so far alluded me....so here goes:


1)      A normal web-link from within a XOT resource opens the URL in the same window that the Xerte Resource was in.  This means that you have no easy way to return to the XOT resource, there is no page navigation or 'back' button.  This means that you have to use the menu>history>back to return.  This isn't great, but worse still, when you do this, it returns you to the first page of your Xerte resource, which means you have to find your place again.  Our resources are quite heavy in external links and this is making them quite hard to use.
Questions:  Is there a way of making web-links open into a new window?  or a window with navigation?  If not, is there any way of making it return to the correct page?  Are there better ways of handling external links?

2)      Some templates seem to automatically have scrollbars (especially vertical).....whereas others don't (notably the accordion view). My preference is to adjust text to make them unnecessary.....however sometimes this is not possible and a scrollbar would really help.  I think there can also be problems about changing the size of text and therefore running out of space.
Questions:  Is there any way to ask XOT to always use scrollbars if they are necessary?  Can they be manually added?

I am sure both of these have simple answers.....which you may well of answered before....and if so...sorry.

I normally use Firefox on Mac to develop these resources, but could also use any other browser/platform if it would help.

Best Wishes

eib


*********************************
Ed I Bremner
Research Officer
IMPACT - Improving Access to Text
UKOLN - University of Bath
e-mail:  e.bremner at ukoln.ac.uk
skype:   ed.bremner
twitter:  impactocr
*********************************


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