[LON-CAPA-users] .page display formatting

Todd Ruskell lon-capa-users@mail.lon-capa.org
Tue, 28 Oct 2003 13:36:06 -0700


Gerd,

In addition to cat, I also see eval as a student, which makes sense.  As
an author, I can understand wanting some recognition for my efforts, and
a possibility for people to evaluate my individual resource.  In fact, I
would encourage this, but perhaps as a footnote.

I'm sure you all had some considerable discussions on this issue, but
here's my 2 cents in the hopes that it may be considered at a future
time.

As a person who runs a course, who wants to present a "unified"
resource, and has to explain the existence of the buttons to students,
they are less than desirable.  This is complicated by the current
layout.

I know the buttons refer to the resource directly following them, but if
you are in the middle of a page, that is certainly not clear.  In fact,
in the pages I have created, it appears that there is less space between
the preceeding resource and the buttons, than between the buttons and
the following resource, which is the resource to which they are
attached.  In fact, there is more space between the problem parts of my
resources than are used to offset the buttons.

The buttons also, in my mind, seriously break up the flow of the
document, making the .page a very unattractive solution, and pushing me
to put tons of material inside a .problem which really doesn't need, and
in many cases shouldn't, be there.

So, having vented fully, might I offer yet another alternative:  A list
at the bottom of the page with each resource title, and corresponding
buttons for those resources.  I'm thinking of something along the lines
of the footers produced by latex2html, for example. Something like: This
page was produced using the following resources:  Title 1 (cat) (eval),
Title 2 (cat)(eval) etc.  As a footer like this, you could even include
the author's name and other information, if you'd like.  I'm not sure
how much harder that would be to code, though.

I completely understand the need and desire to be properly referenced. 
I think a footnote type format might be more appropriate in terms of
both the presentation of material, and the detail which could be
presented there.


Todd


On Tue, 2003-10-28 at 12:37, Gerd Kortemeyer wrote:
> Hi Todd,
> 
> On Monday, October 27, 2003, at 11:12  PM, Todd Ruskell wrote:
> 
> > I've recently started putting together some pages, and when the pages 
> > get
> > viewed, there is a series of "remote-control" like buttons before each
> > resource that the page accesses.  To some extent, I can see their 
> > value,
> > but to me they really seem to clutter up the display of the page, which
> > kind of defeats the purpose of combining things into a page.
> 
> 
> The reason those are on the .page-resources was a concern by the 
> authors of the incorporated material that their efforts would be 
> unrecognized if the resource is hidden inside a .page. The initial 
> suggested remedy was to have the author name printed out. We were able 
> to tone that down to just a  CAT button, which is all that the students 
> are going to see.
> 
> >   Is there a
> > way to build a page that doesn't have these buttons for the individual
> > resources?  Is there a parameter somewhere that can be set?
> 
> 
> Given the author concerns, the option would have to be with the author 
> rather than the user.
> 
> - Gerd.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> LON-CAPA-users mailing list
> LON-CAPA-users@mail.lon-capa.org
> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-users
-- 
Dr. Todd Ruskell			
Lecturer, Department of Physics		Office: Meyer Hall 326
Colorado School of Mines		Phone: 303-384-2080
1523 Illinois Street			Fax: 303-273-3919
Golden, CO 80401