[Xerte] Xerte Future

Fri Feb 17 20:21:47 GMT 2012

Hi Julian,
Thanks for the clarification! Will the "Xerte Developer Edition" be maintained on the long run? When you're stating that "Xerte Online Toolkits will to some extent de-couple from Xerte 2.x", I am a little worried about sustainability for my content: I understand that Xerte 2.x is dependent on the Flash runtime for the authoring site, but will it be possible to deliver content to HTML5 in the future - or will this development be exclusively for the Xerte Online Toolkits?
I am aware that it is hard to predict, but any thoughts on this would make me feel much more at ease...
Best,
Stefanie

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Julian Tenney
Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 4:54 AM
To: Xerte discussion list
Subject: [Xerte] Re: release / print / hyperlinked images / hyperlink color/ select and copy/ table of contents / export to ePub

1.       Xerte 3.0 is completely different to Xerte2.x It's a flex compiler, building AS3 swfs / Adobe Air applications directly using the Flex SDK. This is a long source of confusion: when we discussed it here people wanted to keep the name Xerte, but there is confusion as 3.0 sounds like an upgrade from 2.x when in fact is a completely different product. We have just redone the xerte web site in our CMS where we have started to refer to Xerte 3.0 as 'Xerte Flex Compiler' and Xerte 2.x as 'Xerte Developer's Edition'. Xerte Online Toolkits remains 'Xerte Online Toolkits'. Xerte 3.0 is pretty much done: I'm using  it to build mobile apps, but I'm not sure anyone else is... Also, Adobe have just 'donated' the Flex SDK to the Apache Foundation, and dropped the mobile flash player, and the implications of both of those are not yet clear.

2.       The fact that we build xml is one of the great strengths of the tools. ePub would be a good thing to explore. Our current efforts are likely to go into HTML5 though, but anything can take xml and do stuff with it, as you know.

3.       In the long run, I see Xerte Online Toolkits delivering primarily to HTML5. Toolkits is where we have all the traction, and HTML5 is where the future is. There's a lot of work to get to that point, and Xerte Online Toolkits will to some extent de-couple from Xerte 2.x - which will always be about the Flash runtime. It would be cool to see if we could build a Xerte-like editor for a javascript runtime for advanced developers, but that would probably be a different product - that is just a glint in my eye at the minute (althoughthe Xerte 3.0 editor could be mashed up to edit HTML5 and javascript rather than the flex components and AS3).

4.       Regarding helping with documentation, brilliant, thank you, thank you, thank you. A couple of the other developers here are looking to set up a community web site and do a better job of community stuff than the wiki did, which I  hope will get off the ground sometime shortly. Our strategy with the main xerte web site is to have a low maintenance site that introduces the tools and hosts the main downloads. I'm hoping the community site will be where the software really lives and breathes.

J

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk> [mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk]<mailto:[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk]> On Behalf Of Panke, Stefanie
Sent: 16 February 2012 19:08
To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>
Subject: [Xerte] release / print / hyperlinked images / hyperlink color/ select and copy/ table of contents / export to ePub

Hello!
Yet again, I have "a few" XERTE questions - an opportunity to thank everyone for the support on  this mailing list!
1.       New Release date: I am getting started with a bigger project (an open access "e-book" on local government in North Carolina) and currently working with xerte 2.17. Since Jonathan cautioned me towards the use of page wizards which I am currently relying heavily upon to create functionality, I was wondering  when the new release of Xerte is due and became a little confused: Xerte 3.0 is still beta isn't it?
2.   Print: I am sorry to bring this up again, but printing has really been a nightmare for me. Attached is a sample LO with a print button. It displays the button on every page, but does not have the print functionality desired: What am I doing wrong in adding the script? Does anyone have a working example I could use as a model? Also, when I integrate content in navigation pages (slides, accordion) is there a way to include this in the print view? As a makeshift solution, I figured that I could just manually create a PDF for each page and link that. Which than leads to the question of how I can place a hyperlink on an image... - see 3.
3. Hyperlinked images: How can I place a URL on an image within the image icon, e.g., if I want to link from an image back to a Web site or create a button (see above)?
4. Hyperlink color: At the moment, the hyperlinks in my LO have the same font color as the rest of the text. I can add color and style with a font tag, but, obviously, that solution isn't really great. I was trying to change the color of hyperlinks with the solution suggested in the Xerte wiki (http://wiki.xerte.net/index.php5?title=Stylesheets). However, it does not work. Can anyone see a reason why?
5.  Select and copy text from published Xerte learning object: For some reason, I cannot select and copy text from my published learning object. I have seen this in other Xerte objects as well: http://www-old.hud.ac.uk/tqef/xerte/index.htm. However, in some courses, for example the Sherwood Forest LO, copy and paste works fine. Can I change a setting or do something else to enable copy and paste? I imagine that would be really annoying for users / readers.
6. Table of contents: Can I include pages that are not displayed in the table of contents but are available through back / forth navigation?
7.  I read a bit about concerns with Xerte player's Flash format and the suggestion to see it as an XML editor and create different output formats. Has anyone ever tried to export the Xerte XML content to ePub or other formats?
Advice on any of these questions would be greatly appreciated! I am happy to contribute and share documentation for Xerte, since I will have to provide training here at the School anyway.
Thanks,
Stefanie

[Description: Description: Description: Description: cid:image001.gif at 01C9FF16.6FA5CCB0]

Stefanie Panke, PhD
Instructional Analyst
School of Government
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Campus Box 3330, Knapp-Sanders Building
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3330
Tel:  919.962.0592
Fax: 919.962.2707
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