[Xerte-dev] Problem with XOT textDrawing page type

Thu Nov 15 11:17:36 GMT 2012

Hi guys,

Not sure how much the textDrawing tool is used given that this is quite an obvious problem (and why it didn't show up when the data560.xml file was produced?? - the path down the mountain) but the textDrawing model in XOT doesn't take the size of pictures into consideration when determining the size of the background panel. It does though take the greatest x and y coords of the freehand tool (and most, if not all others) into consideration. See the attached pics for an example...

Can this be easily fixed?

Also, this max X and max Y value is not sent out in the xml and it's not really possible to calculate it (due to possible rotations etc) so it's meaning that the current HTML5 model has to:

set canvas larger than required,
draw,
measure used space,
set final size and then
redraw.

Not the most elegant solution but it works. Anyone have any ideas how to prevent this? Is it possible to output this max X and max Y value (which i'm assuming is calculated in Flash using the dimensions of the containing movie) in the xml or should I stick with the current way for now which won't break backward compatibility with old LOs?

Regards,

John Smith | Learning Technologist
Room A251, Govan Mbeki Building | School of Health & Life Sciences | Glasgow Caledonian University
Cowcaddens Road | Glasgow | G4 0BA
________________________________________
From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Kemp Johnathan [johnathan.kemp at ntlworld.com]
Sent: 15 November 2012 11:02
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Connectors

As a way of putting off the day we need to make a decision I can offer the following, but I don't know what impact any developments regarding the navigation aspects will have on this because I don't know what how you want to handle this yet.

I can produce a set of files for each connector page as follows using the connector menu page as an example below

connectorMenu.rlm
being a single rlm file that will work in XOT or Xerte

connectorMenu.xwd
being an xwd file that works in Xerte and is flagged for xerte only and uses text fields and Page IDs instead of pageLists

xot_connectorMenu.xwd
being an xwd file that works in XOT using the pageList control and is flagged to only be used in XOT

At present the use of the pageList control will break the connections set up in any legacy projects that are already created, unless it can be made to look up the linkID if the xml data contains data that does not begin with "PG".

The way the menu connector handles the option to specify a list of pages has changed so that the Author can select pages using the pageList control (or enter pageIDs individually in Xerte) so that will break legacy projects but it will present a consistent approach between the two.

In principle what should happen is when you build the template.xwd file the xot_connectorMenu.xwd file should get included and the connectorMenu.xwd file should get ignored. But I need to check with Tom if there are any implications with this.

I have attached a pageTemplates project example containing the reworked Menu Connector so you can see how it is panning out. I will need to edit the code a little to make it agnostic about pageIDs or linkIDs but that should be fairly simple.

I have used the linkID to locate the page index so don't I can manage with out a rootIcon.gotoPage(linkID) method. It is easier this way to work with both pageIDs and linkIDs.

This just leaves how to handle the plainText connector situation in which the Author cannot see the linkID value.

I had a thought about that. You could add a child element like I have in the menu Connector and then put an index value in the hyperlink e.g. <a href="asfunction:_level0.engine.fnTextCon,1" target="_blank"> would point to the first child element, <a href="asfunction:_level0.engine.fnTextCon,2" target="_blank"> would point to the second child element. The fnTextCon function could then look up the linkID from the xml data.

Then for all the connector pages we have the navigation options to resolve.

Kind regards

Johnathan

On 15 November 2012 10:12, Ron Mitchell <ronm at mitchellmedia.co.uk<mailto:ronm at mitchellmedia.co.uk>> wrote:
The only additional thing that springs to mind right now is whether there can be a check whether the project is a pages/page wizard project and in that case the pageList control isn't used and the old manually added pageID is used instead. I guess Jonathan is best placed to know whether that would work and what would be involved.

From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> [mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 15 November 2012 09:12
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Connectors

We need to figure out how we are going to deal with the connectors.

Summary
- We want to use the new pageList control in the wizard to allow users to create and use linkIDs behind the scenes. Users will simply select the name of the page they want to jump to from the pageList control. The pagelist control writes the linkID of the selected page to the attribute’s value.
- This means re-working the connector pages to use the linkID rather than pageID (I don’t think this is hard / lengthy)
- This brings a big improvement to the connectors in toolkits.
[so far so good

The same thing would also work with a page templates project in standalone xerte. Project’s could still be round-tripped to toolkits and back again.
[so far so good still]

Problem
The problem is with the page wizards. When using the wizard there, there is no way of getting a list of pages in the piece, or generating linkIDs for them, so this approach won’t work. Now there are many problems, because the page wizards share the code with the page templates models.

Considerations
Xerte standalone is pretty much at the end of its life.
Hardly anyone uses page wizards in standalone xerte.

Before we discuss options, is there anything else to add to this summary? Please keep comments short and to the point so that we can get a clear sight of the problem and the options we have available.

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