New per screen objects
September 26, 2005 12:00 AM
We discussed this at the conference, Tim L. mentioned it would be a lot of added effort to make Lectora into a storyboard like tool, I think it could be simpler than that. I'd like to see a new set of objects introduced to the Lectora model. These would be:Body (HTML Formatting - uses text formatting tools)TitleNarrationScreen Notes (HTML Formatting - uses text formatting tools)Approved (bit) Each of these objects would work this way:1. Each screen has an object container for each of these object classes, that potentially contain text. 2. On each screen, I would be able to use an action to fill any object or variable with any of the contents of these objects. A text block at the root of the title with a specific name (_body or _title) would automatically fill with the text from the new objects.3. The objects' contents would be editable one of two ways. 1. By editing within a tab in the screen properties. 2. By tabbing across the bottom of the Lectora environment and filling the text box. See graphic below.4. These objects would be reportable in some way - either in a Word doc or a formatted HTML document.5. With the CSS updates replacing RTF codes (previous post) this will make it MUCH easier to build a title from an XML file. The addition of a Screen notes block will make a nice place to add programmer notes, etc.. And the addition of an approved checkbox will move the tool a bit closer to an entire workflow oriented tool (add color coding to the screens / aggregate tracking for Sections and Modules and it's kind of a cool deal). This would make Lectora (more) unique among desktop authoring tools. Not having programmed in the tool, but with a hairs width of exposure to the architecture, in my humble / undereducated opinion - I think this wouldn't be hard to do either:)***See next post for image, it's wide and it made the screen hard to read.Edited By: sflowers on 38621.3887384259
Discussions have been disabled for this post