In Chapter 4: Previewing Web Lesson, we discussed how the Digital Teacher Authoring Program automatically loads the login page for us to preview our lessons locally.
After previewing our web lessons on our local PC, we will want to publish them on the Web. In this chapter, we will discuss what files are included in the Digital Teacher web application, and which files we need to upload with our actual web lesson files.
The following two files are templates from which other files are generated. These files must always reside in the Digital Teacher authoring program folder.
- dtLogin.htx Template to create login pages for the .HTM type lesson
- dtTemplate.ht_ Template to create actual lesson files such as myLesson.htm or myLesson.asp
The following files must be published along with actual lesson files. They must reside in your web folder.
- dtCodes.js Digital Teacher web lesson code file (for all types)
- dtCookies.js Cookie generating code file (for HTM type only)
- dteach40.dll Digital Teacher ActiveX web data server component (for ASP type only)
- dtGradeBook.ASP Online grade book (for ASP type only)
- dtGradeSelect.ASP Online grade book selection list (for ASP type only)
- dtLoginNT.htm Student/teacher login page sample file (for ASP type only)
- dtLoginSurvey.htm Survey login page sample file (for ASP type only)
- dtMedia.js Multimedia playing code file (for all types)
- dtsys40.dac Digital Teacher web data access component (for ASP type only)
- image files Images related to the Digital Teacher web application (for all types)
In order to reduce the distribution file size, these files are not shipped with the Digital Teacher authoring program installation package. If you haven't done yet, you need to download Digital Teacher Web_Application_Components.zip from the Digital Teacher web site at www.digital-teacher.com.
This archive file contains all of these files as well as two sample .ASP type web lessons,
Here is an example to show you where we might want to place these files on our server - either for the purpose of previewing on the local server (Personal Web Server), or for actual publishing on the Web.
Your server (either your local PWS path or www.myWebsite.com)
/digitalteacher dtCodes.js
dtCookies.js (optional)
dteach40.dll (Also see Chapter 13.)
dtGradeBook.asp
dtGradeSelect.asp
dtLoginNT.htm
dtLoginSurvey.htm
dtMedia.js
/database dtsys40.dac (Also see Chapter 13.)
sample_exam.wsd
sample_survey.wsd
/lesson sample_exam.asp
sample_exam.js
gourmet.gif (lesson specific image)
devour.wav (lesson specific sound)
sample_survey.asp
sample_survey.js
/program_images back.gif (background image)
other general image files
As shown in the above example, all the Digital Teacher web application component files are placed in the [digitalteacher] directory, which is the root of our Digital Teacher web application. Some of them are placed in subdirectories.
However, if all we want is to create and deploy .HTM lessons only, and never want to install PWS on our local PC, we will only need to install dtCodes.js, dtCookies.js (optional), and dtMedia.js in any folder on our local disk.
(Example)
c:\Digital Teacher 4.0
\WebCourseFolder dtCodes.js
dtCookies.js (optional)
dtMedia.js
\lesson our_WebCourse_or_Quiz.htm
our_WebCourse_or_Quiz.js
lesson specific multimedia files
\program_images all general image files
All Digital Teacher web component files must be inter-referenced, with their file locations pointing each other. That is, whichever web directories these files are placed in, each file's path (URL) reference to another must remain valid (linked) in order to view a lesson with all the data and images properly displayed.
For example, with the directory configuration shown in the above example, the URL references to dtCodes.js and background.gif from the current lesson location (/lessons) will be:
Absolute Path Reference:
www.myWebsite.com/digitalteacher/dtCodes.js www.myWebsite.com/digitalteacher/program_images/background.gif
Relative Path Reference:
../dtCodes.js ../program_images/background.gif
If you are not familiar with all these "absolute" and "relative" terms, please read an HTML guide first.
So, every lesson file generated and stored in the /lesson directory should be referencing the correct path to other files. We set all the necessary path references in a lesson template so that the lesson files generated from the template inherit the same reference settings. Thus, we won't have to bother typing in every reference in every lesson file.
The script below is an example of the file path references in the sample_exam.asp lesson page.
Response.write objDT.getFeedback("../dtLoginNT.htm")
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" src="../dtCodes.js"></SCRIPT>
<BODY BACKGROUND="../program_images/back.gif"">
If the lesson is created with its contents stored in the .js file,
the following line is also included.
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" src="sample_exam.js"></SCRIPT>
Copyright 2001-2002 Francis Software, Sunnyvale, California