[Andrew Field]

Right - I'm going to release Beta 0.9 of the Practice Paper later today.

I've been able to fix the issue that Rob discovered. Serious issue it was too! Basically I was asking Flash to do too much. With the other generator programs all the question data is put into the new .swf file as it is developed. All the question data is put into the .swf in one go.

Problem with the Practice Paper is that the data becomes so complex when you add rich-text it asks too much of the program to handle more than three questions. Rob discovered that it worked fine with three questions, but the program crashed when you entered four. The problem was also exacerbated as I'm encoding the text correctly so it handles all special characters. Main problem with this is that it removes all spaces, so you end up with a massive amount of code in one line (see below).

What I've done is the laborious task of reprogramming the whole technique so each question + model answer is processed individually. I've had to set a limit of 50 possible questions, but I hope this won't limit too much.

I'm now tidying the code up and will go back and visit the printing options before releasing beta 0.9.

I would then just like any further requests / feedback so I add a few further tweaks to release the finished version. This has taken much longer that expected, but yet again I've learned a great deal more about Flash in the process

[Andrew Field]

Due to the program slowing down considerably on older, slower computers I'm instead going to limit the number of potential questions to 25.

I will look to extend that in the future, but I suspect it will be unlikely people will want to use it for more than that anyway. Do let me know if you think otherwise.

[Andrew Field]

I was just about to release this and I've now discovered another problem! Somewhere it seems to crash once you add more than 10 questions.

I think this relates to the code that caters for special characters, but I shall check.

Edit: Yes - it works perfectly without this. However, I need to include the code that looks after special characters so it can handle the rich-text fully.

Hopefully I can fix this!

This post has been edited by Andrew Field: 11 April 2006 - 03:53 PM

[Andrew Field]

At the moment I'm stuck.

I can get the application working perfectly without doing the urlencoding magic that makes accents and special characters appear in the finished versions. It would appear that as I add in the urlencoding the things become too complex for Flash to handle.

I need to think of a way around this. Apologies for the further delay.

[Rob C]

No problem Andrew - I appreciate all your hard work and the time you have already spent on it as it is!

[Andrew Field]

The issue is that I have to use the special Flash command to turn each question into 'urlencoded text'. This is so whatever the person using the program wants to appear in the model answer appears as they want it.

The problem is that when you have more than a certain amount of data to convert, Flash seems to get huffy and crash. As the data for practice paper rapidly gets extensive, the application crashes.

Obviously not the fully technical explanation, but that is the basis of it.

I'm going to experiment further.... it is such a shame to get so far and then get stuck. I think, while typing this I may have thought of a solution though!

[Andrew Field]

I've now found a way of getting past this - I basically setup a little repeating series of checks. It means that the generation of the finished exercise takes a little longer, but it isn't a problem.

Only issue now is that the title details (title, author, hyperlink for quit etc.) have stopped working. They worked perfectly before.

Puzzling - but progress

[Andrew Field]

I believe I've now been able to fix this issue, so the public beta of version 0.9 will appear tomorrow.

[Andrew Field]

Andrew Field, on Apr 14 2006, 11:09 PM, said:

I believe I've now been able to fix this issue, so the public beta of version 0.9 will appear tomorrow.

You can download the beta 0.9 from here:
http://www.contentgenerator.co.uk/download...icepaper09b.zip

This has fixed many of the issues, but a few irritating problems still remain. Previously the program crashed if you included too many questions. I've been able to fix this, but a problem persists that means the generated application (the .swf file) sometimes freezes on the intro screen.

I've literally spent all week working on this and made major breakthroughs yesterday. However, I there is still work to be done on it. As long as you test your application carefully, it can be used on finished websites.

I also haven't added the ability to print the user's answer in addition to the model answer. This I can and will do, but just haven't yet because I've been fiddling with the above issue.

Do please have a go with this and see how you get on.

[Andrew Field]

Thanks for your message Toby. This isn't something I've been able to replicate myself at all. As this is just a one question exercise, can you try recreating it from scratch? It could be that somehow the saved data .txt has gone wrong.

[Tim Laver]

I have encountered the same issues when saving a one question test. I will report back when I have added more questions.

[Andrew Field]

Tim Laver, on Apr 20 2006, 09:10 PM, said:

I have encountered the same issues when saving a one question test. I will report back when I have added more questions.

It must be the one question thing. See how you get on - if it needs to be sorted you can always e-mail me the files at andrew.field@contentgenerator.net and I can sort them.

I'll work on a solution, but I think it will be to add a couple of extra checks to see how many questions there are - I suspect it tries to display an additional one when there isn't one there. This may then corrupt the question data.

It only seems to happen on the first question too. Curious.

[Tim Laver]

Right I now have a four question exercise and it seems to do it to all questions.

Ie once you submit you see the model answer.
If you click try again the first line of this is placed underneath the question and when you then click submit or give up the model answer does not appear, instead a red "undefined" does.

You can move onto the next question and that will display once normally, but encounters the same problems if you select try again.

This seems to be a new issue with beta 9 as I've checked a previous exercise generated with an earlier one and that does not do this.

BTW the printing of the model answer works a treat

Also the creation program still does not let you move back a question if you click too far with the red arrows. You have to input something into the question and answer box. However it does let you move forward so there is the potential of having a blank question in between two entered questions.

[Tim Laver]

Yep it's def just beta 9. I installed that. Installed beta 8 loaded the question data into that and generated the quiz and the problem is no longer present and you can preview the model answer to your hearts content.

This post has been edited by Tim Laver: 20 April 2006 - 08:44 PM

[Andrew Field]

OK - thanks for all these points - I'll look into fixing them.

The one about not allowing you to go back when you get to the final question - you can delete the question. It shouldn't allow you to go forward though.

Only problem with using Beta 8 is that it won't allow you to print the model answers - that only works in Beta 9.

It looks like the way the exercise displays the questions it seems to repackage them incorrectly when you try to use it again. Feel free to e-mail me your .txt file and I'll be able to produce a finished one that works for you.

I'll have something ready over the weekend to fix the above issues though.

[Tim Laver]

that is more than soon enough

and beta 8 does allow printing of the model answers ( may be as i'm editing a txt file started in beta 9 ? still the generated excerise allows the printing function to work).

This post has been edited by Tim Laver: 20 April 2006 - 09:12 PM

[Andrew Field]

Tim Laver, on Apr 20 2006, 10:08 PM, said:

that is more than soon enough

and beta 8 does allow printing of the model answers ( may be as i'm editing a txt file started in beta 9 ? still the generated excerise allows the printing function to work).

Ah - well fair enough then. Yes, I've now had a look and it does. I was getting confused - there has been such development of this.

[Tim Laver]

the exercise is now up at http://www.bishopbriggs-high.co.uk you find it under homework >> stndard grade modern studies revision page