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Tom L. Hall President |
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Issue 4
February 1, 2007
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Welcome to this issue of my Newsletter. In this issue, I will concentrate on some of the third party products or tools that are available. The main focus will be on some of the more useful tools provided as either Freebees or inexpensive commercial products from Peter Jackson. Several other products or tools will also be covered. In an earlier issue (Issue 1), you were shown how to use the Add HTML Code Freebee to get rid of the Image ToolBar. I will dedicate a future Newsletter to many of the products from Platte Canyon.
In this Issue:
This tool is a Freebee from Peter Jackson that you can download from his Website. Click here to see a complete description and get a download link from his site. I have created a comprehensive tutorial on how to use this tool. Click here to view that tutorial.
I have found that this tool saves me hours of time if I have a large book to export or several books within a project. I will normally set the book or books up during the day or when I know I am going to be away from the computer, and then start the process before I go away from that computer. Take a look at my tutorial to see how I preset the export properties so that all that I have to do is “load” them up within the tool.
There might be times when you want to “tweak” the HTML files produced by the ToolBook Export process by adding a JavaScript reference. You can do this manually, but Peter Jackson has created another Freebie, Add JavaScript to INDEX.HTML files TB8.9. Click here for a complete description of this tool and a download link.
In an earlier Newsletter (Issue 1), you were shown how to import Local Developer’s Exchange Tools. Here, you see this tool referenced as Add JavaScript to INDEX.HTML files TB8.9.
Here’s an example of how I use this. To set the stage, I use Peter Jackson’s Graphics Preloader a lot in a number of projects. When an application launches in HTML, a popup dialog box opens showing the progress of preloading of the graphics. In one project, I have a button that pops up another page. In HTML, this then causes the Preloader to launch a second time which is something that I do not want.
I use this JavaScript file to solve this problem:
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var launchPreLoader=true; var searchDets = window.location.search; searchDets = searchDets.substring(1,searchDets.length).split('&'); for(i=0;i<searchDets.length;i++){ var passValue = searchDets[i].split('=');
if (passValue[0]=='closeOnClick') launchPreLoader=false; }
if (launchPreLoader) setTimeout("preLoad()",1000);
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This file is named check_preload.js and I will eventually place this file in my WebExport folder so that it can be used by a number of files within a single course.
Once I publish a book, I launch the Developer’s Exchange tool and locate this file.
Notice here an example is provided of how this code is added: <script src=”../../check_preload.js></script>.
This is the beginning of the actual HTML file:
<html><head><title>ToolBook - test.tbk </title><script src="classes.js"></script>
<script src="global.js"></script><script src="../../check_preload.js"></script>
You can likely see from this that it would be really easy to make a mistake here if you did this manually.
The ToolBook Preloader, formally the Graphics Preloader is a commercial product ($249) from Peter Jackson. The main purpose of this preloader is to have most of the applications data download before the Learner gets to the first page, or continues to download in the background if the Learner navigates away from the first page. I have used the Graphics Preloader for several years and find it especially useful with Simulations where I often will have a very large screenshot graphic on each page. I now use the current product, the ToolBook Preloader, which also allows us to not only preload the graphics but also preload the html pages if we desire. Currently, I only choose the option to preload the graphics and find that my pages load very fast. Click here for a tutorial on a previous version, the Graphics Preloader only.
If you buy this product and install it, you get a new Catalog Category, ToolBook Pre-Loader and this Category has one widget (below) that you drag and drop on the first page of your book. You then set the properties from the dialog box shown above.
This is what the Preloader looks like during the launching of an application. If you uncheck Always On Top, this dialog box (window) will go below the application. Click here to see this in action in an application that is fully loaded with lots of images.
The Audio Player Widget is another great inexpensive commercial product from Peter Jackson at ToolBookDeveloper.com. If you have a book with a lot of audios, this is a great solution. The Audio Widget allows you to have only a limited number of Windows Media Player ActiveX controls in your book (only 1 if you have only one background). Click here to see a tutorial on the use of this tool and access Peter Jackson’s Website on this.
Rob Meijer at Japro-Software provides a number of free tools that you can download along with several commercial products that you can purchase. I will focus on a couple of those that are free to download.
Ask/Request Maker
This is a modification of Denny Dedmore's ask/request utility that he first provided for ToolBook Instructor 7. The utility only works for a Native ToolBook application, not HTML. The utility requires a custom system book. When you add this system book, you get a menu option that displays a variety of options.
Note: You must import the icon
resources into your current book in order for this to work if you use any of
the icons other than the four basic ones: stop, exclamation, question, and
information.
JaproSave
As many of you likely know, there is no automatic backup or save
feature in ToolBook. This utility
provides you with several options for accomplishing this.
To use, this, download and install from the link provided above and run
the exe file japrosave.exe. Set you
backup drive and directory as shown above, then identify the files you want to
save and/or backup as shown below:
Finally, set the save or backup intervals.
Bonus File
When I downloaded this, I found this file in the folder:
This is a complication of a lot of old “widgets” but likely this book
can be updated to the latest version of ToolBook and the widgets used in Native
applications. I had not seen this file
in a long time.
This site
has links to download a lot of nice add-ons for ToolBook.
Denny also
has really good products for sale.
TCC Publishing, Inc
Internet Address: tomhall1@tcc-pub.com
Phone: 252-758-4590
Fax: 252-758-4590