[Xerte-dev] Re: navigating to page name

Wed Feb 15 16:36:28 GMT 2012

Glad you see the point - wasn't sure that would be clear without a proper
example but yes I'm excited by lot's of possibilities with this.

Yes I figured it was better placed under Navigators than Interactivity but
happy to go along with what you think.

I'm not sure what this has in common with Jonathans scenario page but from
what I saw on the first of those two dev days this possibly meets a
different need/user. My focus here really is the creation of a visual page
where the visuals are created externally but the links are easily added via
the interface. I'm pretty sure the staff I work with will like it and put it
to good use.

I'll have a look at the alternative controls options. I agree what I did
there seems wrong but I searched the mailing list archive and found that as
a solution. Will have a look at the other options and test and report back.

So as you'll have seen the hotspot options at the moment include the
following:

internal link via page title

internal link via dropdown e.g. next, prev, first, last

external link

sound

The other thing I wondered about was having a pop up option where the text
added to that nested page is displayed in a popup when clicked and the popup
can be dragged around or closed. Is there anything existing for that?

Cheers

Ron

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 15 February 2012 15:57
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: navigating to page name

I like what you're driving at here, seems to work well. Not sure about
hiding / showing the interface buttons (I prefer to grey out or dull
inactive buttons rather than make them appear / disappear, and that would be
consistent with other xerte design stuff).

Is this a 'Navigators' page type?

What does it have in common with Jonathan's 'scenario' page?

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Ron Mitchell
Sent: 14 February 2012 17:05
To: 'For Xerte technical developers'
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: navigating to page name

It can be an ugly application too - especially late at night! ;-)

With Jonathan's talk of branching on a regular basis and inspired by the
recent rapid e-learning blog post about comic strip type interactions e.g.
http://www.worldwarfighter.com/hajikamal/activity/ and
http://www.brokencoworker.com/

I've been working on an additional page template page that I've had in mind
for years ;-) that for now I've called branching image. It's basically a
revision of the image hotspots page which links to internal or external
destinations rather than displaying hot spot panels. Here a quick test - I'm
hoping you'll be happy to include this in the official page template?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1388941/branching_image_example.zip

Cheers

Ron

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 14 February 2012 16:35
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: navigating to page name

>Xerte is such a beautiful application

You made me smile there. It's all good stuff, and I'm really grateful for
all the work you're putting in. Yes, these are all good questions for the
future. It's a bit like the old Authorware community: all these people who
really got what AW was all about, how fast and easy it was to build complex
stuff (to a point); it's the same with the people who get Xerte (I like to
think), unfortunately, they remain relatively few in number (but not a bad
number for a marketing budget of zero). If you think back though, there was
time when Macs were only being used by a very small number of zealous
maniacs.

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Kemp
Johnathan
Sent: 14 February 2012 16:17
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: navigating to page name

I can understand why the focus may be on how the data that currently exists
in XOT projects can be output as HTML5.

XOT offers a tremendous facility in which to develop learning resources that
can be shared with other institutions, but not a friendly environment for
the creation of new page designs.

I believe that people will find in Xerte 2.18 (with the integration of
individual page templates and availability in several languages) a really
friendly and useful platform in which new page designs for XOT can be
created. This opens up the potential for the Xerte / XOT project to benefit
from the expertise of people all over the world who may develop and share
their page designs. 

I hope that in all the thoughts about the future of XOT some weight will be
given to how the wider XOT community might be facilitated to create new page
designs as XOT moves over to HTML5. Xerte is such a beautiful application
perhaps it might inform the solution to this question.

Kind regards

Johnathan

On 14 February 2012 14:44, Julian Tenney <Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk>
wrote:

Yeah, carry on, you're much closer to this than I am at the minute.

We're currently in a wait and see about some funding for HTML5 output from
toolkits: in the long run that's likely to be where my effort goes, and it's
something we're going to do anyway - the funding will just help us
prioritise the work.

I don't know what the answer is, but we do need to think about how those two
tools (Toolkits, primarily outputting HTML5) and Xerte (making .xml for an
AS2 runtime) complement each other. The wizard is possibly the only thing in
common in the end: our first attempts will be to take the existing data from
toolkits and run it into HTML(5) somehow. I can see the two things existing
in parallel for a good while yet (think, maybe 3 - 5 years) but ultimately I
can see toolkits de-coupling from Xerte. There is a lot of traction in
toolkits, and a lot more potential if it didn't rely on Flash.

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Kemp
Johnathan
Sent: 14 February 2012 14:36

To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: navigating to page name

I don't know if you have had a chance to work with the version of the Xerte
interface that includes Tom's modifications for individual page templates,
but it has really enhanced desktop Xerte as a development environment.

I can pick a page from a menu and see hints and thumbnails, just as you do
in XOT or a page templates project. When I select a page from the menu it
creates a folder for the page, copies the page's xwd to the folder and
automatically generates the xml for the page based on the xwd, saving it in
the page's folder. In addition it adds a new page to the project tree using
the page's rlm file.

This then leaves me in the desktop xerte environment with each page having
its own xwd and xml contained in its own folder. I can tinker with the
page's icon structure or just consume the page as originally specified,
whilst populating the page's data using the xwd form.

I can edit the page's xwd in FlashDevelop to add extra features and update
the page's structure to consume them. I have full access to all the
project's pages and every page's icons.

In desktop Xerte using individual page templates, once a page has been
created any change to Xerte's copy of the xwd file or rlm file does not
affect the page in the project, unlike in XOT where template.xwd and the set
of  rlm files are accessed when the project runs, thus resulting in any
changes to these files affecting all projects.

It is a great environment in which to develop new pages from existing ones.

Can you see any problem with the approach I am intending to take with
respect to the routed paging? Are you happy for me to continue with this
proposed solution to the issue?

Kind regards

Johnathan

On 14 February 2012 14:09, Julian Tenney <Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk>
wrote:

OK, maybe we're just in slightly different worlds, me toolkits, you xerte.
You paste in models through the editor? (I can't remember) and then
essentially don't care about that model ever again: it's just there waiting
for some xml payload to drive it?

Do you actually add the child icons (i.e. essentially the same thing as
pasting in the model manually at design time? Or do you create a reference
to an external model file a la toolkits?

I can see it is tricky to set the icon property at design time.

There must be a way to set the name property at runtime, but maybe not so
easy of you've pasted the whole set of icons into the main piece - which is
what I think you do..?

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Kemp
Johnathan
Sent: 14 February 2012 14:05

To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: navigating to page name

There may be something wrong in my understanding of how things are working
here but my reasons for not going down this route were

1) The script you quote is from templates.rlt and does not exist in an
individual page template project - though something similar could perhaps be
added.

2) In an individual page template project there is no project wide external
xml file, rather each separate page has its own external xml file.

3) I am seeking to implement a solution that works for both pageTemplates
and individual page template projects.

4) Even if this can be made to work for individual page template files I am
still wary of using the name property (title field in the xwd form) as the
unique identifier as I think it is already being used to meet a different
purpose that could compromise it as a unique id. A project that used routing
could easily be compromised by a late decision to change the title of a
page. Which would affect every page that had been set up to route to it.
With a separate pageID used only as the identifier for routing purposes this
issue is avoided.

Since routed pages are not yet a feature of Xerte it makes sense to get a
solution that is robust. Have I missed something in my approach? Is there
anything in the approach that I am proposing that would be detrimental to
the project?

I have performed some limited tests with this approach using my scenario
page in both  pageTemplates and individual page template projects and thus
far it has worked reliably.

Kind regards

Johnathan

On 14 February 2012 13:32, Julian Tenney <Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk>
wrote:

> Part of the problem has been the lack of a suitable identifier for each
page that could be set within an xwd form

Why can't you set attributes on the icon in the makePages script, in these
bits of code?

if (modName == 'xerteModel'){

  newXML = new XML('<PG model="' +
extXML.firstChild.childNodes[i].attributes.modelFile + '"/>');

  //is there an initObject...?

  if (extXML.firstChild.childNodes[i].attributes.initObject != undefined){

    newXML.firstChild.attributes.initObject =
extXML.firstChild.childNodes[i].attributes.initObject;

  }

} else {

 newXML = new XML('<PG model="templatePath + \'models/' + modName +
'.rlm\'"/>');

}

newChild = newXML.firstChild;

newChild.attributes.title = extXML.firstChild.childNodes[i].attributes.name;

newChild.attributes.linkID =
extXML.firstChild.childNodes[i].attributes.linkID;

if (extXML.firstChild.childNodes[i].attributes.linkID == _level0.linkID &&
extXML.firstChild.childNodes[i].attributes.linkID != undefined){

  linkIndex = i;

}

ifc.appendChild(newChild);

newChild is the xml that is added to the interface. The engine then loads up
the modesl identified in each page attached, but does not replace the page
icons you create here.

You won't see the changes at design time(i.e. populate the name property in
the xerte editor), but they can be set at runtime, and thus be used for
navigation.

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Kemp
Johnathan
Sent: 14 February 2012 12:36

To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: navigating to page name

I have considered how to implement the ability to route pages for some time
now. Part of the problem has been the lack of a suitable identifier for each
page that could be set within an xwd form. In page wizards I used the "name"
field of the page icon, but this is not definable from an xwd form. 

In pageTemplates projects the xwd defined name value is used as the page
title and there is no way to set the page Icon name property. The page title
is a bad candidate as a unique identifier as its main function is to be a a
page title making it potentially lengthy, potentially liable to change,
possibly even unique and probably more prone to error in typing when
referring to it as a page destination.

As part of the move to individual page templates I am including in every xwd
file an optional property pageID the purpose of which is to act solely as an
identifier to enable other pages to locate it in the project.

I have a number of page wizards that I will be converting to individual page
templates that offer routing i.e. the ability to specify a target page which
the user will be taken to on completing an action e.g. making a selection
from a multiple choice question, clicking on a link in some text etc. These
will use the new pageID property.

This is achieved by using the following code.

In the rlm file's getPageID script the following opening is used for any
page that offers routing

if (extXML == undefined){ // Page Wizard 
    pageIcon.templateData = pageIcon.extXML.toObject();
    pageIcon.templateData = pageIcon.templateData.pageWizard[0];

    // routed pages only
    pageID_array = new Array();
    for (i = 0; i < rootIcon.pages.length; i++){

pageID_array.push(rootIcon.pages[i].extXML.firstChild.childNodes[0].attribut
es.pageID);
    }

} else { // Toolkits 
   myXML = new XML(extXML.firstChild.childNodes[rootIcon.getPageIndex() -
pgOffset]);
   pageIcon.templateData = myXML.toObject();
   rootIcon.setTitleText(templateData.learningObject[0].name);

   // routed pages only
   pageID_array = new Array(); 
   for (i = 0; i < extXML.firstChild.childNodes.length; i++){
     pageID_array.push(extXML.firstChild.childNodes[i].attributes.pageID);
   }  
}

This makes available to the routed page an array of every page in the
project with a value for pageID where it has been defined. 

Navigation to a page can then be handled in a manner such as

// navigate to destination page
for (i = 0; i < pageID_array.length; i++){
   if (pageID_array[i] == destPageName){
     pageFound = "true";
     destinationIndex = i;
     rootIcon.gotoPage(destinationIndex);  
   break;
  } else {
    pageFound = "false";
  }
}

This will open up the potential to create a variety of "routed" pages which
all use a standard method of page identification.

Kind regards

Johnathan

On 14 February 2012 09:50, Julian Tenney <Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk>
wrote:

Ah, the other gotcha is that those asfunc calls need the full path to the
object.

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Ron Mitchell
Sent: 14 February 2012 08:24
To: 'For Xerte technical developers'

Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: navigating to page name

:-)

sleep worked!

Got it working with _level0.engine.navToPage(pagetitletogoto);

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Dave Burnett
Sent: 14 February 2012 00:43
To: xerte-dev at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: navigating to page name

So much for in vino veritas.

  _____  

From: ronm at mitchellmedia.co.uk
To: xerte-dev at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:31:28 +0000
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: navigating to page name

Thanks for the suggestion Dave

but I've pretty much tried that but it's not working e.g. if I
debug(myPageIndex); it's coming up undefined.

Time to shut down and have another look in the morning.

Cheers

Ron

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Dave Burnett
Sent: 14 February 2012 00:22
To: xerte-dev at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: navigating to page name

http://lists.nottingham.ac.uk/pipermail/xerte/2010-April/004972.html 

??

I've had a couple pints, so I may be missing the point.

:-)

  _____  

From: ronm at mitchellmedia.co.uk
To: xerte-dev at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:10:31 +0000
Subject: [Xerte-dev] navigating to page name

Hi

I think I'm missing something silly here :-(

In a script icon in a page templates project I want to dynamically pass a
page title to navigate to that page.

I know <a href="asfunction:_level0.engine.navToPage,yourpagetitle">Click
here or some other wording</a> works in xot as a hyperlink but haven't
managed to call the same function in a script icon?

Or is there another/easier way of doing this e.g. navigating to a page title
in a page templates project?

Cheers

Ron

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