[Xerte] Questions about Templates Error, WYSIWYG, Open Source license,

Tue Feb 2 10:57:09 GMT 2010

The interesting debate is around the tension between powerful flexible
tools that can do anything you need to, and tools that anyone can use,
with very little learning curve. I don't think there is the 'one' tool.

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Alistair
McNaught
Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 10:54 AM
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Questions about Templates Error, WYSIWYG, Open
Source license,

The other point about WYSIWYG which we've discussed in the past is that
it might compromise some of the accessibility benefits - for example if
the tutor chose yellow text in the WYSIWYG but the learner selected a
yellow background all the text would be invisible. Error trapping that
would be somewhat difficult.

Alistair

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: 02 February 2010 10:06
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: RE: [Xerte] Questions about Templates Error, WYSIWYG, Open
Source license,

HI,

Thanks for the questions.

Which templates are causing you problems when you try and install them?
What happens exactly?

The WYSIWYG editor would be great, but is quite an undertaking: and
there is some debate over whether it would actually simplify things -
also some types of icon don't have visual elements on the screen, so how
to select and adjust properties of those? There is some WYSIWYG via
shift-F5.

The project is completely open source -do whatever you like with it. If
you or others want to develop a new editor for the .rlo format, that
would be great, and something I'd be keen to support - but I cannot do
it alone. The current work on Xerte 3.0 might present an opportunity to
add the WYSIWYG stuff, as the codebase for that is much more object
oriented and modular, and easier to work with  - remember, Xerte 2.x
began life in 2004 as a Flash 6 swf, in the days before any proper
object-oriented support in Flash. Xerte 3.0 is built on the Flex
framework, and is all ActionScript 3.0, so it's right up to date, and
there is loads of potential. I'm very keen to encourage a developer
community around it.

Who do you mean by instructors? Academics at your institution? I don't
think that even a WYSIWYG editor will get them doing what is essentially
programming, and they will need some skills with scripting. Here, our
academics use Xerte Online Toolkits to create content from templates,
and they manage quite well - you might want to explore that more. I
don't think there is a holy grail, and I have searched hard for it too -
I think the answer is in a suite of tools that compliment each other,

Regards,

J

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Christopher
King
Sent: Monday, February 01, 2010 10:34 PM
To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
Subject: [Xerte] Questions about Templates Error, WYSIWYG, Open Source
license,

Hello,

I've came across Xerte fairly recently and have only just begun to
experiment with its  capabilities for authoring learning objects.  

Coming from a background in instructional design, I've worked with quite
a variety of commercial e-learning authoring tools over the years,
including Flash, Lectora, Softchalk, Articulate and many others.
However, I've always felt these commercial offerings had  shortcomings
that ultimately made them very unlikely to be really see much use by the
majority of instructors in academia.  Typically, these elearning
authoring tools either have too steep a learning curve for teachers who
have very little time to spare, or that they are far too expensive to be
feasible for a departmental budget, or both. 

So for many years, I've made it a point to search for this "holy grail"
of e-learning tools. As I searched, I added to my wish list that the
idea tool would be XML based, able to export to its content in swf
format, and create content that was 508 accessible. Thus, I was
extremely excited to discover Xerte and to learn that this platform is
free and open source, based in XML and creates highly accessible
content. 

However, as I've begun to delve into making my first learning objects
with the Xerte standalone tool, I'm running into some early challenges
getting comfortable with the authoring workflow and with getting things
to work right.

For example, I've tried to take advantage of some of the pre-built
templates, but when I try to install a template, I get an "Invalid File
Format" error prompt.  I've tried this in two different versions of
Xerte, including the latest, but no luck.  I would really like to try
these out so wondering if anyone might have a suggestion.

I'm also concerned that not having a WYSIWYG authoring environment will
likely be a show-stopper for many instructors.  Is there any plan to
have such an interface enhancement added to future versions?

Also, I'm curious to know to what extent this tool is Open source.
Obviously, it is free, but is the source code also available for other
developers to modify to create their own customized versions?  If
modification of the code is permissable, my institution has some fairly
robust programming talent which might be utilized to enhance aspects of
the authoring infrastructure, such as adding a WYSIWIG editing
component.

I hope these questions aren't out of place in this forum, as I would
greatly any feedback offered.

Much thanks.

Chris King

University of South Florida Polytechnic

Lakeland, FL USA

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