[Xerte] Re: . Xerte 2.n - Page Wizards (April 2011 release)

[Kemp Johnathan]

Hello Deborah,

Thanks for the idea of adding the optional automatic narration parameter, I
will aim to add it to all the page wizards that use narration in the next
release.

I remember some discussion on the mail list that suggested that there may be
some changes to the code that is used to implement narration, but as yet the
current version of Xerte still uses the same code. Hence I have made no
changes to narrationHandler.rlm. Should there be any changes to how the
PageTemplates project wide template delivers narration in a future release
then there may be an update to narrationHandler.rlm.

New Page Wizards cannot update existing pages in Xerte projects, as a Page
Wizard is only used as a source of information by Xerte from which to create
a new page, so existing pages are unaffected by an update to the Page
Wizards.

The changes to a Page Wizard that provide support for optional automatic
narration are all within the code of the page wizard (an extra line in the
xwd file to implement the optional parameter and a small change to the
getPageId code block that adds an extra "if" condition to the section that
implements narration) so no change to the narrationHandler is required.

*Adding auto Narration to any existing page that offers narration*
If you wanted to add auto Narration to an existing page in one of your
projects then this would be a simple 2 step process

Step 1 - add the optional parameter "narPlayback" to the xwd file. Simply
open the xwd file in your favourite editor (not a word processor) - I use
FlashDevelop and insert the line below, after the narration optional
parameter, then save your change.

<narPlayback type="ComboBox" label="Narration Playback" options="On user
request,On page load" data="userRequest,pageLoad" defaultValue="On user
request" width="150" optional="true"/>

Step 2 - add an additional "if" block to the narration code in getPageId. Do
this in Xerte by expanding the page structure and selecting the getPageId
script icon.

// Old page version - no auto narration option

if (pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0].modelAnswer[0].narration !=
undefined){
narration =
pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0].modelAnswer[0].narration;
rootIcon.broadcast('showAudio');
}

// sample version from new version of gapFill Page Wizard

if (pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0].gapFill[0].narration !=
undefined){
narration = pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0].gapFill[0].narration;
rootIcon.broadcast('showAudio');

    if (pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0].gapFill[0].narPlayback !=
undefined &&
pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0].gapFill[0].narPlayback ==
"pageLoad"){
    nar.play();
    }

}

The bit shown in blue above could be added to any page wizard that offers
narration, you would just need to edit the references to the page wizard
name to match the current page wizard, e.g. for modelAnswer code shown
earlier would become

if (pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0].modelAnswer[0].narration !=
undefined){
narration =
pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0].modelAnswer[0].narration;
rootIcon.broadcast('showAudio');

    if (pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0]. modelAnswer [0].narPlayback
!= undefined &&   pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0]. modelAnswer
[0].narPlayback
== "pageLoad"){
    nar.play();
    }

}
That should give your page auto narration option capability. Note the first
two lines shown above are actually all one long line.

*Updating an existing page to use the new version of a Page Wizard*

If you wanted to update a learning object to take advantage of new features
in a Page wizard then you could try the following.

Given an existing page called currentPage with its files saved in folder
pages / currentPage

1 . Create a new page using the new version of the Page Wizard saving its
files to pages / newPage

this would give you a folder pages / newPage containing the Page Wizard's
.xml, .xwd and .rlm files

2. Rename the .xml file to something like orig.xml

3. Copy the .xml file from pages / currentPage to pages / newPage

This should give you a new copy of your original page that uses the new code
for the page, has the new xwd file but benefits from all the settings of
your original page.

But a word of warning. This should work in most instances of new page
wizards, one thing could cause a problem.

If the new Version of the page wizard includes any new parameters that are
NOT optional.

If the new version of the Page Wizard includes a non-optional parameter that
did not exist in the previous version then the wizard may malfunction. To
resolve the malfunction look in the original xml file (renamed to orig.xml
above and identify the missing parameters. These will need to be copied into
the active xml file i.e the copy from your original page.

Whether it is worth updating a page will probably depend on the changes that
the new wizard introduces.

Hope this helps to answer your questions.

Kind regards

Johnathan

PS. Don't worry about asking silly questions - just ask for clarification if
my answers are not adequate to meet your needs.




On 20 April 2011 11:20, Deborah Delin <admin at strivney.com> wrote:

> Hi Jonathan,
>
> Thanks very much for the new Page Wizards release.  Great to have an
> optional parameter to specify automatic narration!
>
> Sorry if this is a silly question:  I have downloaded the new release and
> replaced the files in my Xerte folder, but, in order for existing learning
> objects to be affected by the changes in the new release, do I have to
> re-create the learning objects from scratch?  The release didn't contain a
> new narration handler - wouldn't I need to add an updated narration handler
> to the rlo?
>
> Thanks in advance for your reply.
>
> --
> Deborah
>
>
>
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