[Eclass-users] Re: more bugs

[Kevin O. <ke...@tu...>]

Hi BJ,

On Apr 8, 2004, at 4:05 AM, BJ Cameron wrote:

> Hi Kevino,
>
> With all the new and different builds of 2.5b4, is it possible to
> differentiate them some how? A build number in startup or in the help 
> menu?
> People may download and install an earlier version and then forget 
> about it.
> I am currently testing this on three machines (currently three 
> versions) and
> I know I am going to have problems.

What I'm thinking of doing here is moving over to a "typical" open 
source versioning system. Basically versions would look like this:

2.5.4.7

Where 2 is the 'major' version, 5 is the minor version, 4 is the 
release number, and 7 is the build number (since there can be multiple 
builds of a particular release).

This is equivalent to the current "2.5 beta 4" system we have now, only 
it accommodates build numbers.

However, to go with this system, I'll also want to adopt the "rule of 
thumb" in open source projects that an odd minor version indicates an 
unstable, testing codebase, while an even minor version denotes a 
stable release. So when EClass 2.5 stabilizes and gets these bugs 
ironed out, it becomes 2.6. Then 2.7 will be the codebase where we add 
more features, which then stabilizes and becomes 2.8, and so on.

> My vote is for all checkboxes, since you can't use radio buttons with
> Multiple answers. I think consistency for both instructor and student 
> are
> necessary in the interface. Also if the instructor places the term 
> "click
> all that apply" in the question and only one applies, it gives part of 
> the
> answer away for those who know about web programming.

OK, but this will have to be for the next version, as I need to review 
the code to make sure I remove any assumptions about checkbox questions 
having more than one answer.

> I know this is probably too late for this version, but would it be 
> possible
> to get "new" and "edit" for all of the media (image, audio, video) in 
> the
> "Page Editor"? I imagine you could setup the editors in the "System
> Preferences". It would be really handy, especially when creating new 
> courses
> to create pieces as you go. Maybe eventually, we could have a 
> TALM-Toolkit
> version, where it would be pre-configured...just an idea.

I could probably put something like this together, although the EClass 
editor will start to get bloated. Basically the "New" button will just 
start your editor of choice, while the "Edit" button will open the file 
in that editor. I've also been thinking of a sort of "media library" 
feature, where rather than seeing Windows Explorer when you try to pick 
a media file, you'll see a window with a list of media files that you 
can browse through, sortable by media type, name, etc. Searchable too, 
of course, using the nifty Finder "real-time search" feature. Hopefully 
I can put in preview features too, definitely for images at least. That 
will make a world of difference when working with media files, I think. 
There will be import and edit buttons for adding new media and for 
opening your default editor, which we could set using system 
preferences. (We could put New there too, I guess.) And on Mac, I could 
use AppleScript to load all your iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie files into 
the media library so that you can simply insert files into EClass from 
there too.

In fact, this could become a priority item on my to-do list if people 
think it's a good idea. In any case, I think this is exactly where we 
want to go in terms of streamlining the workflow. The ideal thing 
eventually would be to have embedded windows for image, audio and video 
editing, but that's a ways off. Still, the more seamless we can make 
the process, the more likely people are to take advantage of it.

I also agree that we should have a pre-configured version of the TALM 
Toolkit. It wouldn't be hard to do, just do like it does with 
Greenstone - if you haven't specified an editor, have it check to see 
if Greenstone's in a pre-specified location, and auto-configure EClass 
to use it if so. It'd make life much easier if the programs have 
Registry entries telling me where to find the programs. No reason 
EClass shouldn't be self-configuring. =)

Thanks,

Kevin