Teaching Guide Template s2

Technical guide: Retail Services Series 10 Flexible Learning Toolbox

Technical guide

SIR07 Retail Services Training Package

Series 10 Flexible Learning Toolbox

Supporting resources for:

SIR20207 Certificate II in Retail

Version 1.0

flexiblelearning.net.au

Technical guide: Retail Services Series 10 Flexible Learning Toolbox

The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Commonwealth of Australia. This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Commonwealth. Requests and enquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to Training Copyright, Department of Education Science and Training, GPO Box 9880 Canberra City ACT 2601 or email .

flexiblelearning.net.au

Technical guide: Retail Services Series 10 Flexible Learning Toolbox

Contents

Introduction 2

System requirements 3

Client hardware and software (for learners) 3

Server hardware and software (for RTO) 3

Developer hardware and software (for customising) 4

Toolbox Help Desk and support services 4

Customising Toolbox content 5

What features can be customised? 5

Basic editing 10

Customising a Toolbox for single unit delivery 11

Keeping to the standards 11

Visual design 12

Navigation 14

File structure 15

Accessibility 16

Technical support 17

Installation on a web server 17

Installing into a SCORM compliant LMS 17

Producing CD-ROMs for distribution 17

Known issues 18

Troubleshooting 18

Frequently asked questions - FAQs 19

The Toolbox Help Desk 20

References 20

List of tables and figures

Table 1: Customsisable elements 8

Table 2: CSS style list <edit as required> 12

Part of the Australian Flexible Learning Framework iii

Technical guide: Retail Services Series 10 Flexible Learning Toolbox

Introduction

The Retailer Toolbox provides a valuable source of training material for delivery of the newly endorsed SIR20207 Certificate II in Retail.

The Toolbox is based around scenarios that provide learning experiences which replicate real life work situations faced by retail operators. The scenarios are supplemented by:

· training sessions that provide background theory and practical tasks

· topics that encourage sharing of ideas and experiences

· activities to be completed in the workplace.

This Technical guide has been developed to support you in delivering the SIR07 Retail Services Training Package and gives specific details on file structure and naming conventions (to help you find files within the toolbox) and how to edit some of the files. Your understanding of these instructions will depend on your level of knowledge and experience in web development. If you find you do not understand some of the concepts in the guide or you run into trouble when trying to edit or locate files in the Toolbox, you may need the help of a professional web developer.

A Teacher’s guide has been developed to assist and advise teachers and trainers as to how to use the Toolbox in their delivery of courses to learners.

This Technical guide is divided into three sections:

· System requirements

· Customising Toolbox content

· Technical support (FAQs, troubleshooting, help desk)

System requirements

Client hardware and software (for learners)

Hardware

To use the learning material in this unit, learners will need a computer with the following features:

· IBM® compatible with a 1000 MHz processor running Windows 2000, XP, Vista

-- OR --

· Apple Macintosh® with a 500 MHz processor running OSX v10.2.0 with:

o 128 Mb of RAM

o 800 x 600 pixel display

o CD-ROM drive

o Internet access

o Sound card

Software

Learners will also need the following software/plug-ins installed on their computer:

· Internet Explorer 6.0 or above (http://www.microsoft.com/ )

-- OR --

· Firefox 1.5 or above (http://www.mozilla.com/ )

-- OR --

· Safari 1.3 or above (http://www.apple.com/ )

· Microsoft® Word 97 or a similar word processing program to open and use downloadable forms, checklists and worksheets.

· Adobe® Flash Player 8. If you haven’t got this plug-in, you can download and install the latest free version from: www.adobe.com

· Adobe® PDF Reader 6.0 or above. If you haven’t got this plug-in, you can download and install the latest free version from: www.adobe.com

Incorrect versions of these applications could result in information being shown in an unreadable form or not shown at all.

Server hardware and software (for RTO)

· IBM compatible computer with a 1000 MHz processor (OR Unix equivalent)

· 128 Mb of RAM

· 4 Gb hard disk space free

· CD-ROM drive

· 2xISDN (128k), T1 preferred

· Internet server software

Developer hardware and software (for customising)

Same as client hardware and software above, with the addition of:

· An HTML text editor such as Homesite®, BBEdit® or Macromedia® Dreamweaver.

· A word processor such as Microsoft® Word to edit documents.

· If customisation of multimedia interactions is required, then the following applications may be necessary:

o Flash CS3

o XML SPY or equivalent XML editing tool – Dreamweaver can also be used to edit XML files

o Photoshop/Fireworks (or equivalent) for editing still images

o SoundEdit16 (or equivalent) for editing sound content

o Premiere (or equivalent) for editing video content

Toolbox Help Desk and support services

The Toolbox website provides support at http://toolboxes.flexiblelearning.net.au/support/patches.htm. This site offers help desk details, frequently asked questions, installation and configuration advice and patches for any products that are found to have minor errors or discrepancies. If you are unable to find what you are looking for on this site, please email the Toolbox Help Desk at or phone 1300 736 710.

Customising Toolbox content

In most cases Toolboxes are able to be modified and redistributed with minimal licensing or copyright encumbrance. However, before commencing any modifications we recommend that you check the license details of the Toolbox, to ensure that any customisation undertaken does not contravene the conditions of that license.

For licensing conditions visit: http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/toolbox/license.htm

Remember to retain the original files in their CD-ROM format so that you always have an original copy of the Toolbox as a backup.

What features can be customised?

Toolboxes can be customised by users under the flexible licensing arrangements, as long as they are not on-sold. You are therefore encouraged to customise the Toolboxes. However, before embarking on any modifications or customisation, we suggest that you:

· check the licensing details of the Toolboxes to ensure that any customisation does not contravene the conditions of the licence.

· have the required trained personnel.

· remember to retain the original files in the CD-ROM format as a backup (should you require them at a later stage).

Some design aspects of the Toolboxes can be easily customisable. However, there are other aspects of the Toolboxes that are more difficult. For this complex customisation we recommend that you proceed only if you have the relevant trained technical personnel.

The Toolbox has been created using Templates which control the structure of the Toolbox and the most of the links. All links found in any of the global navigation and the menus of the scenarios are controlled in the templates. This makes the Toolbox much easier to update quickly and easily. The Training Rooms are have their structure created by one template and therefore the links need to be set manually inside each individual page rather than by use of a template.

There are a number of multimedia applications that have been included in the Toolbox and all, where possible, have been made using easily editable XML files and in a few cases a Flash actionscript file that accompanies the Flash application source file included in the source_files directory of the Toolbox.

Other applications that are considered very basic and are absolutely one off will not have this edit ability and the information can only be edited by someone with a basic knowledge of Macromedia/Adobe Flash. In this case the majority of the actionscript used to create the application can be found on the root timeline in a layer called script. An example of this would be the scanner application located in activity two of the Buy now scenario. There is only price information in this application and this information can be found in the place described above.

The XML has been written in the hope that it is intuitive to use. Below is an example of an XML file that supplies information to the mid sized sound player found in the intro to the Taking it back scenario:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

<sound_player>

<sound>

<play_on_load play_pause="0" />

<file_type type="mp3" />

</sound>

<style>

<player_colour>669933</player_colour>

<button_colour>669933</button_colour>

<text_area_colour>FEFEFE</text_area_colour>

<highlight_colour>3344AA</highlight_colour>

<font_size>20</font_size>

<font_colour>333333</font_colour>

<font_family>Arial, verdana, sans-serif</font_family>

</style>

<sound_xml_complete />

</sound_player>

Inside the sound node you will find the file node use the attribute file_location to describe the location of the sound file in relation to the web page that the application is residing on.

The play_on_load node is used to tell the player to play the queued sound as soon as the sound is ready or to wait until the play button is selected. Changing the play_pause attribute to 1 will cause play on load and 0 will disable the sound until play is pressed.

It is possible to supply an icon of the person speaking using the

icon type_or_location="default" Using default will not load an icon and specifying the path to an image in relation to the page where the application resides will load in that image.

The text node is used to supply a transcript of the audio that is currently queued to play.

file_type should always be set to mp3.

image fileLocation is only available when the full sized sound player is used, the file location is again relative to the page where the application resides.

Duplicating the sound node will enable another sound to be placed in the queue and enable the next and previous buttons

It is also possible to change the colour of the application if needed by supplying colour values found inside the style node. The colour values should be supplied in hex values without the # symbol.

Changing the colour, size or font of the text displayed in the player can be done by changing any of the font values also found in the style node.

The home page of the Toolbox, retailer.htm has a map of a shopping centre. This Flash application does not have an xml file to update the information this instead uses an actionscript file called text_and_urls.as that is located in the source_files directory of the Toolbox. Changing the text found inside the actionscript file will change the text that appears in the Flash application when the shockwave file is recreated. If removing Scenarios from the Toolbox the Flash file will need to be opened to deleted the characters that have links and text associated with them. A portion of the actionscript file is shown below:

The first part of the actionscript file is used to provide information about the individual stores, using basic html mark up is allowed:

var SupermarketMessage = "Welcome to PriceCRASH. We've CRASHED prices on all major brands so you buy more for less. PriceCRASH scenarios:<li>First in, first out!<li>No use crying…<li>Emergency!"

var WattsNews_Message = "Welcome to Watt's News. We're so proud of our family's newsagency/ Tattslotto agency that we've put our name on it! Watt's News scenarios:<li>Looks a bit sus!<li>Change of shift."

(More…)

The next section provides information about the individual characters, using basic html mark up is allowed:

var newsagent_boss = "In this scenario Mr Watt is telling his staff about a recent spate of shoplifting in the centre. <br<br>Select Mr Watt to begin."

var new_stock_arrived = "In this scenario Martin has just received word that new stock has arrived. <br<br>Select Martin to begin."

(More…)

And lastly the URLs specify the location of the individual scenarios in relation to the home page of the toolbox:

var newsagent_boss_URL="toolbox10_05/scenarios/bit_sus/01_intro/01_intro.htm"

var new_stock_arrived_URL="toolbox10_05/scenarios/first_in/01_intro/01_intro.htm"

(More…)

Table 1: Customsisable elements

Element / To Customise
Description / Location
Toolbox index page / Formatted entirely in HTML, edit with Dreamweaver. / index.htm
Retailer home page / Formatted mostly in HTML, edit with Dreamweaver. Editing of the Flash interaction is explained above. / retailer.htm
Orientation text / Most text in is standard HTML, browse to the location in the Toolbox, take note of the URL, and use that to find the appropriate file in the toolbox_10_05 directory.
Open the file in Dreamweaver (or a text editor) and make the changes. / \content\*.htm
Flash interactions / Most of these interactions can be customised by anyone with basic Macromedia Flash design skills. However some are more complex, and require actionscript knowledge.
Some Flash interactions in this Toolbox are self contained, but most pull in external data from an XML file.
If there is an associated xml file it can be found inside the media/flash/xml folder and generally matches, or relates in name to the name of the Flash file. To customise the XML open in Dreamweaver or any basic text editor. The XML has been written in the hope that it is intuitive to use although some experimentation may be required. Experimenting with the XML will not damage the application but may make it not work as expected, always keep a back up of the original XML file.
To customise open the page in Dreamweaver and select the Flash object that you wish to change. Under the properties of the object, you will see a filename such as flashint.swf. You cannot change this directly, but must rebuild it from the source code.
Using Flash CS3 authoring software, browse to the source directory and locate a .fla file with the same name as the .swf.
This is the file you need to edit. Open it up inside Flash and look for comments in the actionscript attached to the first frame. These comments will point you in the right direction.
There are, in Flash, a few places where scripts will be stored, a script layer, a functions layer and an XML layer. Rarely has script been placed on actual buttons, look for scripts in the timeline first and then the buttons/movieclips. / \content\*.swf
\source\*.fla
\content\xml\*.xml
\images\*.jpg

The Teacher guide includes a ‘high-level’ overview of customisation. That guide refers to this one for further information. It is important that this cross-referencing is consistent. Do not accept what is written below – customise it to suit your product and make sure all references are relevant.