[Xerte] Interface/authoring options for Xerte?

[Smith, Bradley]

Hello all, 

I have a few questions I haven’t been able to answer by poking around on the site and in the docs I’ve found, so I’m hoping that someone here can help.

First, I mentioned (off-topically) in another thread that I’ve been finding the templates for lesson objects in XOT a bit limiting, and asked about ways to develop my own. Shortly thereafter I noticed the link to “Xerte Desktop” on the downloads page, which sounds like it could be what I’m looking for. However, the only download option is for a Windows installed. Am I correct in inferring that if you’re on a Mac or Linux you’re limited to the XOT interface, which is limited to simplified templates? Is there any other way to develop more complex xerte-compatible learning objects if you’re not using Windows? 

Second, on the website it says that Xerte is now available in HTML5. Does this only refer to the ability to export HTML5 content, or is there a non-flash version of the XOT interface somewhere I’m missing. I think my confusion here is because I’d been thinking that “Xerte” and XOT are the same thing. Is it more accurate to say that “Xerte” refers to the content that XOT outputs?

Finally, one thing I mind myself missing a lot on XOT is a WYSIWYG editor for formatting text with html. Especially if there is a non-Flash version of the tool that I could hack on, I’d be interested in seeing what would be involved in adding one (e.g. a js-based editor like TinyMCE). Has any work been done on that that I should know about, or is there a reason why this wouldn’t be worth trying?

Thanks to anyone who can help!
—Brad
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