[Xerte] Re: xerte XOT HTML5 - graphical menu, connector pages

Fri Nov 8 11:40:15 GMT 2013

The pageID optional attribute was originally included in xwd files to
enable the project author to give a page an identifier that could then be
used in a connector page to reference that page.

pageID became redundant in XOT when Julian enabled the pagelink attribute,
which collected the page information from the projects xml file, so as to
provide the author with a list of pages to select from.

In a Xerte project each page has its own separate xml file and so the
pagelist feature could not function in Xerte. Two versions of the xwd file
were therefore created one for use in Xerte and one for use in XOT.

As an example the multiple choice connector page had a single model file
used by Xerte and XOT but xerte used the xwd file cMcq.xwd whilst XOT used
the file cMcq_XOT.xwd. In Xerte the form prompts the user with "Go to Page
ID" and the user inputs a page id into a text field. In the XOT version the
form prompts the user with "Destination Page" and the user is able to
select a page from the list of pages.

Which xwd file to use when building the master xwd file for XOT is
identified by a parameter called "restrict" in the first line of the xwd
file. restrict="template" results in the xwd file being used for XOT and
restrict="develop" indicates the file is for Xerte.

The key thing here with respect to your considerations is that unless this
has changed since I last worked with the xwds the XOT versions of the
connector pages no longer have an optional "pageID" attribute. The none
connector pages retained their pageID attribute just to retain
compatibility with Xerte rather than to create two xwd files for every page.

Kind regards

Johnathan

On 8 November 2013 01:36, KnowledgeWare <knowledgeware at kccsoft.com> wrote:

> Thanks Julian and John for this info…and yes if I could detect the end of
> a section using pageId’s and trigger a dbase write event I think that would
> be workable to do what I needed. Thanks for these suggestions, I will put
> some more thought into how it might work from my end.
>
>
>
> RonM2
>
>
>
> *From:* xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [mailto:
> xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] *On Behalf Of *Smith, John
> *Sent:* Thursday, November 07, 2013 3:16 AM
>
> *To:* Xerte discussion list
> *Subject:* [Xerte] Re: xerte XOT HTML5 - graphical menu, connector pages
>
>
>
> Hi,
>
>
>
> As Julian says, all the presentation can be done in the attached html
> file. And to address the other items:
>
>
>
> As Jonathan states Unique IDs are generated for each page as they are
> generated but these linkIDs remain with the page for its lifetime and can
> only be changed by editing the xml (from what I’ve seen)… They all look
> like PGxxxxxxx where xxxxxx is numeric
>
>
>
> Then you have the pageID (this is an optional property that can be added
> to every page). This can be set to any key you wish (should probably avoid
> spaces etc that get mangled in urls… so you can set it as Pg5Sec1
>
>
>
> Then you also have deeplinking already available… any URL
> play.php?template_id=1 can be changed to use either page/pageID/linkID to
> deeplink to that page – thus play.php?template_id=14&pageID=Pg5Sec1 will go
> directly to that page…
>
>
>
> You can also use internal PageLinks to jump to specific pages, so not
> requiring the whole LO to refresh…
>
>
>
> The only bit that I see that might be ‘difficult’ is the database
> connection. At present there is no way to do something when a page is left,
> so when a section ends you cannot trigger some code to do something else…
> the actual communication to the db is probably trivial via a custom php
> page but it needs triggering to know when to write data back…
>
>
>
> I plan to rewrite the HTML5 engine into more of an OO model and Tom has
> requested some events to support SCORM and possibly TinCan later but I can
> see that you might also need some custom events to be fired at the end of a
> sections…
>
>
>
> So for example you have a section called Section1 and page_end events are
> fired when each page is left. You could listen for a page_end event and
> pass the IDs/page number into the event handler and from there make a
> decision as to whether it was a section, subsection etc…
>
>
>
> I’m happy to work those events also into the rewrite (although it won’t be
> until Christmas period) and that should pretty much allow you to do what
> you want….
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> John Smith
>
> Learning Technologist
>
> School of Health & Life Sciences
>
> Glasgow Caledonian University
>
>
>
> *From:* xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [
> mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>]
> *On Behalf Of *Julian Tenney
> *Sent:* Thursday, November 07, 2013 10:36 AM
> *To:* Xerte discussion list
> *Subject:* [Xerte] Re: xerte XOT HTML5 - graphical menu, connector pages
>
>
>
> Well, when you load up the html page, you have all the HTML / javascript /
> css you need to do that. You have a problem that is going to need some
> programming to resolve, one way or another,
>
>
>
> *From:* xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [
> mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>]
> *On Behalf Of *KnowledgeWare
> *Sent:* 07 November 2013 02:33
> *To:* 'Xerte discussion list'
> *Subject:* [Xerte] Re: xerte XOT HTML5 - graphical menu, connector pages
>
>
>
> If possible I’d like to get to a parts/modules menu as below (in blue).
> This is xerte desktop with a flash menu inserted (thanks Julian/Dave). John
> by dbase reading I mean the ability to read/write/update a proprietary (non
> scorm, my own) database. For example, the parts and modules in the blue
> menu below are loaded from the database. At the end of a module I want to
> update the database, when all modules in a part done update the part in the
> database, etc.
>
>
>
>
>
> The menu below (black) is in Authorware, it’s just a ‘parts’ module and
> the sections are linear. It’s workable and probably much easier to do in
> XOT than parts/modules. For this I need to ‘insert’ the menu, read the
> ‘parts’ from the database when the LO starts, turn on checkmarks if the
> student has completed the part, then jump to the first page for each part
> when clicked, page through linear, and at the last page in the part update
> the database and return to this menu.
>
>
>
>
>
> In the blue menu I coded the xerte icons with a specific ID which then
> gets parsed to build the menu/parts. For example the page ID for part 1 is
> ‘p1id’, and for the modules inside it is ‘p1m1id’, ‘p1m2id’ etc. It would
> be very useful if XOT had a way to uniquely code each icon but I don’t
> think it does, or as Jonathan stated it does but it may change at runtime:
>
>
>
> *“If I remember correctly XOT assigns a unique identifier to each page
> automatically.*
>
> *You can use this by using the pagelink feature available in all text
> boxes. However I think the assigned identifier changes each time you run
> the project. What is constant is the page name this maps to which is what
> is displayed in the pagelink control.”*
>
> If a client builds a course they’d need some simple method of identifying
> a page that wouldn’t change, that would always remain the same in order
> that the menu works. The page name wouldn’t be good and it may be changed.
>
>
>
> There’s another reason I’d like a unique page identifier – I’m wondering
> if I could send a student an email with a link with his login/password and
> a set of pages somewhere in the piece to navigate to. For instance, on
> login it would go to the part 3 summary pages, page through them, do the
> part 3 quiz, then go to an exit screen.
>
>
>
> That’s really what I’d like to try to accomplish, some type of a menu like
> above that my clients are used to, and if possible a way to jump into a
> piece and navigate through a specific set of pages.
>
>
> Are these things doable in HTML5 XOT? As many of you know I’m not in the
> same league with many of you as a programmer so please bear that in mind if
> replying, things like JSON etc. are beyond me at this point. If there is a
> way to do this however I will work toward it.
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
> RonM2
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk [
> mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk<xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk>]
> *On Behalf Of *Julian Tenney
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 06, 2013 1:49 AM
> *To:* Xerte discussion list
> *Subject:* [Xerte] Re: xerte XOT HTML5 - graphical menu, connector pages
>
>
>
> You do it using media -> flash movie, and set an init object, then load an
> .html file instead of a swf (the init object is what trips the code to
> display this rather than the swf, so you need to sety one, even if just a
> dummy – it also allows you to pass json into the html page for you to use
> in the content):
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Then you get your custom content loaded up:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Glasgow Caledonian University is a registered Scottish charity, number
> SC021474
>
> Winner: Times Higher Education’s Widening Participation Initiative of the
> Year 2009 and Herald Society’s Education Initiative of the Year 2009.
>
> http://www.gcu.ac.uk/newsevents/news/bycategory/theuniversity/1/name,6219,en.html
>
> Winner: Times Higher Education’s Outstanding Support for Early Career
> Researchers of the Year 2010, GCU as a lead with Universities Scotland
> partners.
>
> http://www.gcu.ac.uk/newsevents/news/bycategory/theuniversity/1/name,15691,en.html
>
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