[Xerte] Authorware Map Icon / Language Support

[Julian Tenney]

I had thought about providing some sort of Map icon, but not really found it necessary. It would also bring some additional complexity to the xml parser.

 

When pages get complicated, I use a decision icon to organise the various icons: add a page for each category of icons you want to organise, and set it to sequential, with the erase and eraseOnExit to 0 so the content remains on the screen after the decision has been looped through.

 

Regarding the language, here's what I'd do. I'd also appreciate other's views on this:

 

Keep all the language in an xml file:

<!-languages.xmlà

<languages>

  <english>

    <welcome>Good morning sir</welcome>

  </english>

 

  <french>

    <welcome>Bonjour Monsiuer</welcome>

  </french>

</languages>

 

Set the templateData property of your learning object to point to this file:

 

FileLocation + 'languages.xml'

 

//test you can get the data

debug(templateData.languages[0].english[0].welcome);

 

//now you can set the language, and fish the right bit of the xml out easily:

//set the language

lan = 'english';

debug(templateData.languages[0][lan][0].welcome);

 

Develop that idea further and you could also find which languages were supported in your file and allow the user to select the appropriate language. All you ever have to change is the xml file. Use expressions like {templateData.languages[0][lan][0].welcome} in text icons to display the data.

 

HTH,

 

J

 

 

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Kent Chesnut
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2008 9:27 PM
To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Subject: [Xerte] Authorware Map Icon / Language Support

 

Hope you are having a great weekend!
 
This is no emergency... but I have a couple of questions I'd like some input on when it's convenient... if it's not too much trouble.
 
As an Authorware user I found myself using the Map icon to hide complexity... often attaching it to a decision, interaction, or framework icon.
-> I thought this was a very useful abstraction... and thought I was missing something in Xerte... but now I think Authorware essentially forced me to use it by olny allowing 1 icon to be attached to each branch of the decision, each interactive element, or each page of the framework.
-> Xerte's use of hierarchy and ability to hide sub-objects within the learning object seems to have covered the Map functionality (in an arguably more elegant and flexible fashion) and appears to have made the Map icon unnecessary.
 
Is this true?  Or am I missing something?
 
 
Multi-language support in Xerte appears to be very easy... so easy, in fact, that there may be too many possible ways to accomplish it!  Any thoughts on best practice for supporting multiple language training.
-> I only want to code up the interactions, scripts, ... one time.
 
Options I see (I probably don't even see the best way!)
* Create separate text fields for each language.  Use scripts to hide those that are not in the currently selected language.
* Create only 1 set of text fields, but use setText() to change the text in the fields based on the language.  Keep all the text strings in the different languages in 1 big (2 dimensional [string #][language #]) array in a script icon.
* Are there better methods that either of these?
 
 
If you get a few minutes to think on these things, I'd certainly appreciate any input.
 
Have a great weekend,
Kent
 

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