Lectora Templates and Universal Changes

Unfortunately there is no way to auto-update a single. similar piece for multiple courses. You may be able to use a text editor that can search numerous files and replace 'imageXYZ.jpg' with 'imageabc.png'. I know that Notepad++ has a plug in that can do this.

@evanh 60496 wrote:

Unfortunately there is no way to auto-update a single. similar piece for multiple courses. You may be able to use a text editor that can search numerous files and replace 'imageXYZ.jpg' with 'imageabc.png'. I know that Notepad++ has a plug in that can do this.

Thanks for your response, evanh.

Stef

@stef.szymanski 60462 wrote:

Does Lectora allow for universal changes?

My company has an online course that uses a template we've built and intends to create more courses using that template. Is there any way to accommodate for future changes we may need to make to the template (e.g., an updated logo, a different font, a new button color) further down the road? We're concerned that should such a change, we'll have to go back into each course individually to change the aspects.

Thanks!

Stef

Each Lectora title is basically an XML + a folder with images. You would need some scripting or text editor magic to change stuff in multiple courses at once, but it's certainly possible, like EvanH said.

Then you can also automate course re-publishing using command line with lectora.exe instead of manually opening and re-publishing courses in desktop Lectora.

Well, in general, there is no global way to change everything. But you can globally change things like graphics and buttons, especially if they are the same size. Here is the way I do something like this. First I create a title that is just used for these kind of things. I create my buttons here. If I need a new button in one of the courses in the series, I create it in this title and then copy it. I put all the common graphics here and copy them to the courses. I guess you could use the Lectora Library but it is sometimes a little hard to find stuff there. Maybe use a special folder.

I use the Resource Manager to make sure that Windows file name is meaningful. Anyway, just as a precaution, you may make the buttons just a little bigger to be allow for expansion. Then, when I need to make changes, I make the changes in that title. Then I copy the images from there and paste them into the other courses and reply Yes to replace. Then you have to republish them.

You can also publish the common title and copy all the graphics from there to the published folders of the other courses. Just remember that does not change the actual courses. You still have to replace those.