[Xerte-dev] Re: Connector pages

[Julian Tenney]

I have. That's got nothing to do with connectors. It's about what makes sense in a linear piece in our interface.

I'm starting to feel a bit like a broken record now, so I'm going to have my lunch.

-----Original Message-----
From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Ron Mitchell
Sent: 13 September 2012 12:25
To: 'For Xerte technical developers'
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Connector pages

I thought you'd already changed the navigation back to linear but left the function in place so that if someone uses a connector could potentially change/use history if required? 

Going from memory rather than testing this - don't have time for the latter right now.

-----Original Message-----
From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 13 September 2012 12:03
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Connector pages

I get all that, but I am still not entirely reassured, and uneasy about the navigation problems that we know exist.

If people have to ask us why the back button did something it did we have failed. That is not a question we should ever face, and if avoiding that question means not doing something, I'm prepared to not do it.

-----Original Message-----
From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Ron Mitchell
Sent: 13 September 2012 11:57
To: 'For Xerte technical developers'
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Connector pages

Rather than just what Toolkits is intended to be I'd say it's also about what users would like it to be and also sometimes they don't appreciate the latter until they see it. 

In my experience of supporting a wide range of XOT users (who aren't Xerte Desktop users) they do want and would value some of the functionality the connectors provide. This isn't just about navigation to other pages and hiding linear navigation. For instance I think the hotspot image connector will be extremely popular and can be put to good use without any navigation to other pages although it obviously provides that if required.

Also in terms of FWS lots of people (especially in FE) have often created a similar kind of non linear navigation in PowerPoint e.g. disabling the usual slideshow navigation and adding hyperlinks and action buttons etc. 

Like other and long standing page types in XOT a lot comes down to the learning design and how it's conceived and applied and many of those existing page types can be used badly as well as effectively - I'm sure we've also seen examples of each. Likewise there are desired solutions that haven't previously been available and in my experience users who want a bit more than FWS - e.g. experienced XOT user simple! ;-)

Following the two days in October what I'd be keen to do is to document and demonstrate how those responsible for an XOT installation can choose what page types to enable/disable rather than removing that choice from the download. There are other long standing page types that are rarely used by some individuals/organisations and despite being FWS still cause confusion and support requirements.

HTH
Ron

-----Original Message-----
From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Fay Cross
Sent: 13 September 2012 11:25
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Connector pages

I think the connector pages (except scenario) pretty much are FWS to set up but I'd agree that from the end user point of view it could be confusing to have sections hidden. I know that when learning stuff myself I would prefer to be able to have all the information available to me and to choose myself whether to skip sections rather than have it forced on me because of a question I answered at some point. Maybe it does just come down to whether this is what Toolkits is intended to be and what people expect from a Toolkits project they're viewing.
________________________________________
From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney [Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk]
Sent: 13 September 2012 10:58
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Connector pages

OK. Or we get some sort of documentation produced pronto.

I am quite worried about connectors in general. I do understand the point of them. I just don't think toolkits is the right place for them, and I think we are trying to force a linear piece of content to do something it was never intended to do by hiding pages from menus, and creating new navigation systems, and allowing people to create bad stuff, and I don't want to be forced to do this bad stuff in the HTML5 version to achieve parity with the existing set of models, as the alternative is that existing content won't automatically port over to the new runtime.

Personally I'd rather scrap them, put it down to experience, and later, when we have the HTML5 stuff working properly, we can look again at the problem.

The FWS principle has got us a long way, I'm very wary of losing that, and I feel like a lone voice in keeping on speaking up for it.

-----Original Message-----
From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Fay Cross
Sent: 13 September 2012 10:44
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] Re: Connector pages

If it helps, it was specifically the Scenario Connector that she (and I) was confused about. She had tried the other connectors and understood how they worked ________________________________________
From: xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[xerte-dev-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney [Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk]
Sent: 13 September 2012 10:39
To: For Xerte technical developers
Subject: [Xerte-dev] FW: Connector pages

See below from Fay, who is manning a stand at ALT-C.

I'm proposing we take the connectors out of the current released version, before any more of the genie gets out of the bottle. We have unresolved issues with the navigation system to figure out, and there is insufficient documentation regarding them to enable users to have a good time with them.

If people want to build more complex things, they can use the standalone version. I don't know if connectors make sense in the new HTML5 stuff.

-----Original Message-----
From: Cross Fay
Sent: 13 September 2012 10:30
To: Tenney Julian
Subject: Connector pages

Hello

Just had an embarrassing moment on the stand... Someone came over to say that they have just installed toolkits and she had been looking at the Scenario Connector page and wanted help trying to understand it. I said I hadn't used it myself but would try to work it out - it turns out I have no idea what the hell goes on in it, how do you get the scores to link to the actions? It desperately needs more instructions as if I can't make sense of it, being pretty familiar with Toolkits, then not many pople will! I did say that it was developed by someone in the Xerte Community so that's why I wasn't too sure about it.

See you in a couple of weeks
Fay

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