[Xerte] Working with Templates

[Julian Tenney]

Thanks for the feedback.

The workflow is roughly:

Double click the xtp file. Let Xerte unzip it for you into a folder.
Open up the .rlt file. The wizard will open. Go ahead and add your pages
and configure them using the forms for each page type.
Press Play to preview your work. At this point your file is saved - it
is also saved when you hit the 'save' button.
When you're done, close the form. The Xerte main window appears.
To get back to the wizard, double-click the Learning Object icon, which
as a little cog wheel on the icon, telling you that this piece is data
driven.
Don't touch the actual .rlt file unless you want to make changes to it -
you can close Xerte as usual from here.
Next time you open the .rlt file, the wizard should open - otherwise
just open it by double clicking the LO icon.


What's actually happening:
The .rlt file is data driven. It gets it's data from an .xml file,
specified in the templateData property of the LO icon.
The wizard edits this xml.
The .xwd file in the project folder tells the wizard how to edit the
file,, i.e. which sort of controls to use for each node or attribute in
the xml file being edited. It's just xml - take a look.
The .xwd means it is extremely quick to develop new editors. Read the
'Developing Templates' guide on the website for more info. Wizards are a
factor of 100 faster and easier to develop than Authorwarew Kos, and
performa  similar function.
The .rlt file is given the xml when it starts and then constructs itself
using the page types held on the pageStore icon. These are data driven
models that use the xml data at runtime.

The idea is that a developer creates whatever templates he wants,
creating the .rlt, the initial .xml and the .xwd files, and zips them up
into an .xtp. He then hands them over to SMEs to use to use to create
the content without having to do anyhting more difficult than use the
wizard. The SME can create as many projects from the .xtp as he wants
and the developer can get back to playing space invaders.

We have some new, very powerful tools we are about to release, which use
the wizard in the browser. In a nutshell, any user can log in, create
projects from .xtp files, edit them (and a heap of other things) all
without having to download and install anything, in a Web 2.0 sort of
fashion. It hugely simplifies the process. All they ever see is a
browser, the toolkits web site and the wizard interface. We're looking
for beta testers very soon with a LAMP setup (even a localhost) they can
trial it on. Let me know if you are interested.

J


-----Original Message-----
From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of
jventola at verizon.net
Sent: 15 August 2008 00:23
To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Subject: [Xerte] Working with Templates

Congratulations on 2.0.  It looks great.

In the Help file is information on "Creating Models and Templates" that
speaks of saving an icon as a model and never mentions templates.  What
is the difference?  There is also a section on creating templates for
dynamic use, with the data in xml files.  But there is no section I can
find about using templates to build your lessons.

I am a user.  I have found a wonderful wizard called "pageTemplates"
which is an xtp file.  When I double click that, I get all the tools I
need in an Insert drop down.  Surely, this is the palce to start.  But
there is no documentation.  
And I do not understand the workflow at all.

I open the xtp fileand create a new rlo file in a folder. The xtp seems
to add a bunch of other files in my folder.  I do some work.  I go to
save it.  There is no SAVE AS only SAVE.  (I guess that is because I am
in the wizard?)

So I save and close and find myself in the basic Xerte editor.  Now I
can save the rlo with any name.  I learn that all that stuff from the
wizard is in a framestore.  So save and close the rlo.

Now what?  How to I get back to edit my project? Do I work with the rlo
file? 
Do I keep loading the wizard?  Do I use the stuff in the framestore?

I need a nice screncast showing how to use a template--from an author's
point of view.  Aimed at the newbie, it could even start from a clean
install of Xerte and should include saving and reloading. If it then
covered SCORM publishing, it would give the newbie a good start.

(The free jingproject.com might provide an easy way to create and
publish such screencasts.  I use the plural because I hope to see many
from generous users of Xerte.)
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