The Comment Collector System

The Comment Collector System can be used during the Review process to collect information such as suggestions for text changes or to report issues with performance and functionality of the Web-Based Training lesson. When turned on, the Record Comments button appears in the lower-left part of the screen. The Reviewer clicks that button to get the popup shown here. They click in the field, type their information, and click the Save button.

The Reviewer clicks that button to get the popup shown here. They click in the field, type their information, and click the Submit button.

The availability of the Button is controlled by a JavaScript file. A return value from a JavaScript function sets the value of a variable named RDS_Status to a series of 1's or 0's. We check character 1 of this string to see if we want to show or hide the Record Comments button.

A really good feature of this tool is that if the system is left in the application after final deployment, it can be controlled by the JavaScript function and turned on at any time, allowing information or issues to be reported at any time. All that is necessary to do this is to change a number in one line of code of an ASP Page.

This is a sample Comment Menu.

Clicking the File Name link brings up the Comment Report.

Clicking Edit for any Comment brings up the Comment Editor. Here you see that as the TBK Author, I have put in my comment and I am about to mark the Status as Fixed. This means that by this time, I have updated the Storyboard, produced a new ini file, and then used the Authoring Engine to update the book to include next text on Page 2 of this book.

In a normal situation, I would continue to go through the Comments, making changes or Ignoring comments until the report for a lesson has been cleared.