[Xerte] Re: Creating new template question

Thu Aug 30 21:30:50 BST 2012

Hello Dave,

Sorry for the confusion.

The Page Wizards were never part of the official Xerte download. They were
produced as a separate zip file that when unzipped created a set of
folders, each of which contained several .xcp files. Each single .xcp file
defined the xwd, rlm and xml file for a page. It is this separate add on to
Xerte that has been retired.

The new Xerte 2.18 includes for each page type a separate xwd that defines
the form, and an rlm file that defines the model for each page. Look in

Xerte \ pages \ models
                      \ wizards \ en-GB

to find them.

Each of the pages in the original page wizards download had its own xml
file that was already populated with data. Its data was enclosed in
<learningObject> </learningObject> tags

so the top level node that existed when Xerte converted the xml to an
object was "learningObject"

All the pages in Xerte 2.18 generate xml with their data enclosed in
<pageWizard> tags so the top level node in the object is "pageWizard"

It really doesn't matter what the top level node is called as long as you
are consistent. I think when we moved to implement the individual page
templates in Xerte 2.18 I changed from using "learningObject" as that is
what is used in pageTemplates xml files as a wrapper to contain the data
for a whole Xerte project and not just for one page.

The important thing to realise is that in a pageTemplates (project wide
template ) project or a XOT project there is only a single xml file that
contains the data for all of the pages. Whereas in a Xerte pages project
each page has its own xml data file (apologies if I am teaching you to suck
eggs :-)

Since the intention is to create a model file that can be used in either
Xerte or XOT this raises a problem since the structure of the xml file
differs between the single page for Xerte individual page and the one file
containing the data for all the pages in a XOT or pageTemplates type of
project.

The opening section of the rlm file

pageIcon = icon.parentNode.clip();

if (rootIcon.projMode == "dev"){
// Page Wizard
pageIcon.templateData = pageIcon.extXML.toObject();
pageIcon.templateData = pageIcon.templateData.pageWizard[0];
} else {
// Toolkits
myXML = new XML(extXML.firstChild.childNodes[rootIcon.getPageIndex() -
pgOffset]);
pageIcon.templateData = myXML.toObject();

}

resolves this and the line highlighted in yellow effectively strips out the
reference to pageWizard so that the rest of the model file can refer to
pageIcon.templateData and thus be identical for both environments.

The original Page Wizard files were only designed to work in the desktop
Xerte individual page environment so this was not an issue at the time.

What is now significant is that Tom has written some php code that will
parse through all the xwd files in a xerte install to generate a new
template.xwd file that can be used in XOT. Remember XOT does not use
individual xwd files but instead uses a single file containing the forms
for all the pages. I think this parser looks for the <wizard> and
<pageWizard> tags that are contained in the individual xwd files to help
identify the relevant sections to include when building the template.xwd
file.

You can develop new pages by creating a project using File / New

However if you do so and then try using any of the existing model files you
will run into a number of issues such as missing swf files,
rootIcon.projMode will not be defined and some supporting code that is
shared by several of the models e.g. narration support will not exist in
your project.

Alternatively if you start your project using Pages / Create New Page
Project then all the items needed to support the models will be included in
your project. So it kind of makes sense to use the Page Project option and
then to create a new page by starting from an existing one. If you pick a
page that has some of the features you want in your page you can add extra
fields to the xwd form run the form and examine the xml file to see that it
is being populated correctly. Then you can modify the page's structure to
consume the new data.

By keeping to the standard structures used in the new pages you will ensure
that your new pages can be transferred to XOT if you wish to do that.

I hope that is a bit clearer.

KInd regards

Johnathan

On 30 August 2012 18:59, Dave Burnett <d_b_burnett at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> Thanks Johnathan.
>
> I just opened a new file in Xerte and then inserted the drag/drop .rlm I
> am trying to alter.
>
> so I added the templateData path in the LO and then used just
>
>   pageIcon.templateData = extXML.toObject();
>   pageIcon.templateData = pageIcon.templateData.learningObject[0];
>
> to get the data loaded.
>
> Why am I using learningObject and you are using pageWizard
> I thought you had deprecated pageWizard.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2012 18:25:56 +0100
> From: johnathan.kemp at ntlworld.com
> To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
> Subject: [Xerte] Re: Creating new template question
>
>
> You are using an old model file probably from a page wizard.
>
> The new model files use
>
> pageIcon = icon.parentNode.clip();
>
> if (rootIcon.projMode == "dev"){
> // Page Wizard
> pageIcon.templateData = pageIcon.extXML.toObject();
> pageIcon.templateData = pageIcon.templateData.pageWizard[0];
> } else {
> // Toolkits
> myXML = new XML(extXML.firstChild.childNodes[rootIcon.getPageIndex() -
> pgOffset]);
> pageIcon.templateData = myXML.toObject();
>
> }
>
> A setup script off the entryFrame of a "pages" type project sets
>
> rootIcon.projMode = "dev";
>
> This ensures the model file behaves correctly for a desktop Xerte project.
> This value is not set in XOT projects which enables the same model file to
> be used in both Xerte and XOT. The idea being that people will be able to
> develop new page types in Xerte and then transfer them to a XOT environment.
>
> Refer back to my other reply for an idea of how I approach the creation of
> a new page. Even if you don't follow the same steps it should guide you as
> to what else you need to do.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Johnathan
>
> On 30 August 2012 15:42, Dave Burnett <d_b_burnett at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> I'm playing with the new 2.18 version (Thanks to Johnathan and all!).
>
> I've made a new template and can load it onto the flowline.
>
> Now I want to alter the underlying model and to do that I need to get test
> data into it.
>
> So I open a new file and insert the .rlm from the models file.
>
> In the first script icon of the .rlm we have:
>
> if (extXML == undefined){
>   // Page Wizard
>   pageIcon.templateData = pageIcon.extXML.toObject();
>   pageIcon.templateData = pageIcon.templateData.pageWizard[0];
>
> Am I missing something, e.g. if extXML is undefined, won't pageIcon.extXML
> also be undefined?
>
> What I need to do obviously is get data into pageIcon.templateData in
> order to get the model to function.
>
> Cheers,
> Dave
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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