[Xerte] Re: several questions from non-technical desirer of Xerte Online - who needs more info before making decision. Can you please help, if possible?

[Pat L (pgogy)]

Dear Darren,

I wrote the plugin as a port of the Xerte Online Toolkits.

1) The plugin produces learning objects, it doesn't per say do courses
2) You can style a Xerte Object, there is guidance on how to do so in the
XOT archive
3) Video can be hosted anywhere, the Youtube page is just to make it easy
for people to add Youtube videos if they want to
4) The plugin uses flash at present, since XOT 2.0 - Xerte LO's can work
without flash now, but the WordPress plugin hasn't been updated to this
5) It doesn't control access to pages based on user status

You'd be better off installing XOT, as it can do most of what you want.

I don't make any money from the plugin, and I don't have any distinct plans
to change it. It was developed so people with WordPress installs could use
XOT, which is what it does. XOT has moved on with the HTML 5 player option,
but the plugin hasn't. I have a lot of other work to get through before I'd
revisit the plugin - so it is unlikely to change in the next 4-5 months (if
at all)

The code is complete open source (on WordPress's SVN and Github) should you
wish to change it.

Pat


On Sat, Dec 21, 2013 at 12:31 PM, Darren Jorgensen
<visceraledge at icloud.com>wrote:

> Hello all.  First of all, I'd like to apologize if I'm using the wrong
> method of posting this "comment", but after attempting to navigate the site
> for Xerte I was so confused by the architectural choices and lack of
> direction when you are looking for specific answers, that at 4:20 a.m. I
> have finally given up!
>
> I am very impressed with what I am learning about Xerte Online Services. I
> became alerted to them as I was looking for a WordPress Plugin with which I
> could do the following things:
>
>
>    1. Build a series of Courses containing Individual Lessons within, and
>    possibly even creating another level below that to break up the
>    Course/Lesson structure a bit more cleanly.
>    2. Brand my Courses, Lessons, etc. with my own company's Branding -
>    including logo, colours, fonts, etc.
>    3. Incorporate multiple forms of media elements, including:
>       1. Photography
>       2. Slideshow and/or (preferably) Keynote Presentations
>       3. In-house produced Video Assets, and if they MUST be hosted on
>       some inferior platform like YouTube, then at least the knowledge that Vimeo
>       integration is VERY CLOSE BEHIND.  YouTube is just really crappy in
>       quality, in how they self-brand so obviously and pervasively (they are
>       trying to pull YOUR visitors to YOUR site watching the video YOU placed
>       there back to THEIR OWN YOUTUBE SITE.  That is hardly my ideal vision for
>       either building up my own following (because YouTube is luring them away
>       with their "suggested videos to watch" at the end of every video).  Vimeo,
>       on the other hand, DOES do their own marketing on the player, but it isn't
>       as pervasive - and the quality of the image is, hands down, far superior to
>       the crappy image streaming out of YouTube.  And yes, I'm a 15-year Video
>       Professional Veteran (Bachelor's and MFA in Video Production) so I guess I
>       have a lot to say when a company has chosen to partner with a company that
>       delivers an inferior product to support their own; all it does is diminish
>       THIS product in the eye of many beholders. At least this beholder.
>       4. Images in all kind of formats - I like to use a lot of
>       multimedia when I construct classes:
>          1. .pdf
>          2. .jpg
>          3. .pnr
>          4. .tiff
>          5. .mov
>          6. .mp3
>          7. .m4v
>          8. .wav
>          9. .pages
>          10. .numbers
>          11. .key
>          12. .xls
>          13. .doc
>       4. And this one might just be the most important of all… I need a
>    plugin or program that works with HTML5 for Video playback - and absolutely
>    NOT flash, I can't believe that there are still developers out there who
>    are integrating Flash as a core component of their device's functionality -
>    when these properties definitely will not work on Apple products. And I'm
>    sorry if you're an Android or Galaxy fan - but those products just don't
>    compare to the iPad or the iPhone and about 80% of my prospects all us
>    Apple products on the go, so it would not make any sense for me to use a
>    product that cannot be used on an Apple device.
>    5. I need to restrict access to courses based upon payments. There's
>    lot's of WordPress plugins that
>    6. I was looking at the Xerte Online Service because it seems so well
>    designed, so well thought out, so well attended - but just certain issues
>    scare the bejeezus out of me when I think about it working in real time.
>
>
> So, does ANYONE have any ideas as to what direction this plugin is heading
> and if any of the above functionalities are on the way or if they're
> working on them - or even if you have an alternative WordPress Plugin that
> would be able to handle the above requirements.  As I stated, I would
> really LOVE to use this plugin - it just has to be able to do certain
> specific things…
>
> Best,
> Darren.
>
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