Author: ellen

Explanation of relative, absolute, network and web paths

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Paths can be one of the most confusing aspects of web development. Most web designers are familar with absolute paths and relative paths:

Absolute paths point to files that can be anywhere on the internet. They don’t assume any relative location to the current document. An absolute path to a file will always be the same, no matter where the link to it is located.

Example of an absolute path:

http://yourdomain.com/directoryname/otherfile.htm

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Rescuing a corrupt Captivate File

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If you do any work with Adobe Captivate, you probably have experience with Captivate’s tendency to corrupt files. The last Captivate project I worked on gave me a chance to get reaquainted with this feature, so I am posting the solution which saved my work:

First, you must know the exact size of the old project. If you are using an odd size, be sure to note it down. Create a new, blank project at that size. Select “File>Import Slides/Objects” and import all the slides and their objects from the corrupted project. If you don’t see any slides to import, you are probably out of luck.

The knowledgebase article on adobe.com does not seem to be available anymore, but the cached version is still available on Google:

Google cache of the article

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Limiting number of tries on Perception Quizzes under SCORM control

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When Questionmark Perception is launched from an LMS using SCORM, Perception’s built-in user management system can’t be used. Perception receives user data from the LMS, and although it stores that data with the results of the quizzes, it can’t use the data for purposes of scheduling and limiting access to quizzes.

Unfortunately, our LMS, SumTotal 6.5, does not have a good way to limit attempts on a learning activity either. There is a rather inflexible option: If you set any learning activity to “allow access upon completion,” after the activity has been completed once, the user will only be able to launch the activity for purposes of browsing, but never take it again for credit. In other words, the user can not enroll again.

This isn’t always the best solution. For example, we wanted to allow two or three tries, depending on the quiz, and we never allow users to browse old quizzes.

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Creating Acrobat forms that users can save changes to

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Sometimes, otherwise positive technological advances leave important functions behind.

For example, CD’s are so small, the liner notes are usually unreadable. Similarly, cell phones and PDA keyboards have become smaller than most people’s fingers.

And when typewriters gave way to dedicated word processors, and then personal computers and all the other replacements, so did the ability to fill out paper forms easily.

In large part, forms have moved onto the web, but there are still many that need to be filled out in hard copy. There are plenty of government sites, for example, which will provide a PDF version of a form, which usually has not been enabled as a form, so it must be printed out and filled out by hand, or on a typewriter if you can find one at a local Kinkos.

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