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

[Kemp Johnathan]

For .rml file referred to above read ".rlm" file

Perhaps playing a chromatic button accordion is messing up my touch typing!

JK

On 21 April 2011 16:22, Kemp Johnathan <johnathan.kemp at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> I have just performed a few tests.
>
> I took the following Page Wizards
> Summary
> Image Viewer
> Quiz
>
> For each one I unzipped the page wizard, edited the .xml file to remove the
> learning object tags and any leading spaces, edited the .rml file by
> performing a search and replace on ".learningObject[0]." replacing it with
> "."
>
> so that lines such as
>
> align = pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0].quiz[0].align;
>
> became
>
> align = pageIcon.templateData.quiz[0].align;
>
> The xwd files were not altered in any way.
>
> The modified files were then rezipped into Page Wizard .xcp files and the
> wizards used in a new Xerte project.
>
> The summary page appeared to work correctly.
>
> The quiz page wizard failed to perform correctly in that when the quiz item
> was selected in the left panel, the quiz properties were displayed in the
> right panel but the link to add a new question was not displayed. When the
> question option was selected in the left panel the question properties were
> displayed in the right panel but only the link to add a new option was
> displayed, there was no link to add a new question.
>
> The image viewer wizard failed to display properly - whilst the wizard
> appears to work correctly, when the wizard is opened spurious entries appear
> in the left panel as shown in the attached jpg file.
>
> I have no idea what could be causing these side effects, however they
> appear to be consistent across each page wizard. That is to say that if I
> create two quiz pages, they both fail to offer the link to add a new
> question. If I create additional image summary pages they each display the
> same strange entries in the left panel of the wizard.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Johnathan
>
>
> On 21 April 2011 15:45, Dave Burnett <d_b_burnett at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> Maybe a <learningObject> tag hiding out in an .rlm or something?
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:09:33 +0100
>> From: johnathan.kemp at ntlworld.com
>> To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
>>
>> Subject: [Xerte] Re: . Xerte 2.n - Page Wizards (April 2011 release)
>>
>> We looked at leaving out <learningObject> in the xml in the early days of
>> Page Wizards.
>>
>> I can't remember the details fully but I know it caused problems. I think,
>> though could be wrong on this, that one Page Wizard based page in a project
>> worked fine, but once you had a project with several Page Wizard based pages
>> in it set up without <learningObject> in the xml then things started to go
>> wrong. There was some conflict taking place.
>>
>> Kind regards
>>
>> Johnathan
>>
>> On 21 April 2011 14:04, Julian Tenney <Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk>wrote:
>>
>> You don’t have to have <learningObject/> in your xml though. You have
>> separate xml files for each model? Then make the root the page node, not
>> <learningObject>
>>
>>
>>
>> Or am I missing something?
>>
>>
>>
>> We are probably due a zip of things. Unless we get any more feedback,
>> we’ll go ahead.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:
>> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] *On Behalf Of *Kemp Johnathan
>> *Sent:* 21 April 2011 14:00
>>
>> *To:* Xerte discussion list
>> *Subject:* [Xerte] Re: . Xerte 2.n - Page Wizards (April 2011 release)
>>
>>
>>
>> I am always a bit wary of changes in subversions in that things may be a
>> little volatile, something being modified may then lead to side effects
>> being found and then further changes resulting. Or alternatively one good
>> idea leads to another and further improvements are made. I prefer to wait
>> until things are stable and then make all the changes that have taken place
>> available in a new release of the Page Wizards.
>>
>>
>>
>> My standard procedure is to take a new release of Xerte when it is made
>> officially available and to create an empty Page Templates based project. I
>> keep a similar project from the previous version and use this as a base line
>> for comparison. I then compare both project folders using win merge which
>> highlights all the changes for me in each individual file.
>>
>>
>>
>> I can then update the relevant page wizard files one file at a time to
>> implement the changes I see in the latest Xerte release. The biggest problem
>> is likely to occur when a significant change to the .rlt file is made as
>> this will reflect code that many different page templates may call upon.
>> This is why thus far I have limited the Page Wizards to the Page Templates
>> and not extended them to cover any of the other project wide templates.
>>
>>
>>
>> What I find difficult sometimes is to identify when a new release has
>> taken place as sometimes the last update date on the Xerte web site may not
>> be updated, or version numbers displayed in the version information may not
>> be up to date.
>>
>>
>>
>> I have read in the mailing list of a forthcoming release of Xerte On-line
>> toolkits and am bracing myself now for a new release of desktop Xerte, in
>> anticipation that it may create a fair bit of maintenance for the page
>> wizards.
>>
>>
>>
>> I recall a while back there being some discussion regarding looking into
>> how the PageTemplates project wide template and the Page Wizards could share
>> the same set of files, this would significantly reduce the maintenance
>> burden of the Page Wizards. The sample code below shows the key issues in
>> achieving this.
>>
>>
>>
>> // code from getPageId from a typical page wizard
>>
>>
>>
>> pageIcon = icon.parentNode.clip();
>> //myXML = new XML(extXML.firstChild.childNodes[rootIcon.getPageIndex() -
>> pgOffset]);
>> //pageIcon.templateData = myXML.toObject();
>> pageIcon.templateData = pageIcon.extXML.toObject();
>>
>> //rootIcon.setTitleText(templateData.learningObject[0].name);
>>
>> if (pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0].dragDropLabel[0].narration !=
>> undefined){
>> narration = pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0]
>> .dragDropLabel[0].narration;
>> rootIcon.broadcast('showAudio');
>> nar.play();
>> }
>>
>> The blue code is needed for PageTemplates use and the red for Page Wizards
>> use
>>
>>
>>
>> I would have thought it might be possible to cover everything except for
>> the inclusion of ".learningObject[0]" insertions by some kind of project
>> wide flag and an if else block that tested the flag condition.
>>
>>
>>
>> Is there any way that pageIcon.templateData could be defined for Page
>> Wizards so that it included the ".learningObject[0]" so that it does not
>> need to be referenced every time a call to external xml data is made? If so
>> this could then be included in the above mentioned if else block and the
>> rest of the code could stand unchanged.
>>
>>
>>
>> Kind regards
>>
>>
>>
>> Johnathan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 21 April 2011 11:35, Julian Tenney <Julian.Tenney at nottingham.ac.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Do you watch the subversion rss feeds?
>>
>>
>>
>> http://code.google.com/feeds/p/xerte/updates/basic
>>
>>
>>
>> That’s probably the best way of being kept in the loop of changes. I try
>> and comment them. If there is no comment it’s usually a smaller bug fix
>> rather than a  change. If you keep your svn synched up you’ll see the files
>> that have changed on each update. If it looks like something you ought to be
>> aware of, and can’t see what’s changed then send me a mail.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:
>> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] *On Behalf Of *Kemp Johnathan
>> *Sent:* 21 April 2011 11:32
>> *To:* Xerte discussion list
>> *Subject:* [Xerte] Re: . Xerte 2.n - Page Wizards (April 2011 release)
>>
>>
>>
>> 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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