From Platte Canyon Multimedia Software Corporation.

In This Issue

Introduction

Top Stories
Click2learn is now SumTotal Systems
ToolBook Sale through March 31, 2004
TBCON 2004 Preview
Announcing TBCON One-Day Events
Learning & Mastering Instructor 2004 Outline and Release Schedule
Report from Training - Spring 2004
Report from the German ToolBook & VBTrain.Net Event and Learntec

ToolBook Tips and News
Plug-In Pro Tool Spotlight
Expert Information from the "Learning & Mastering ToolBook" Series
OpenScript Tip
Actions Editor Tip

VBTrain.Net Tips and News
VBTrain.Net Tidbit

More News and Information
Come See Us: The Platte Canyon World Tour
Platte Canyon Products in the Pipeline
Coming in the Next Issue of The EnterPage
About The EnterPage
Information on Subscriptions
 

Top Stories

Click2learn is now SumTotal Systems

Many of you likely already received an email to this effect from Click2learn, but the short and sweet is that the new company name is SumTotal Systems, Inc. Right now, it looks like the new company will have offices in Mountain View , California (Docent's headquarters) and Bellevue , Washington (Click2learn's headquarters). This is in addition to other offices around the world. Andrew Eckert of Docent will be CEO and Kevin Oaks of Click2learn will be President. Here is the link for the official release:

http://www.sumtotalsystems.com/press/2004/03/19/1/

From a developer perspective, we are thrilled with the visibility given to ToolBook on the new SumTotal web site as well as in private conversations that we have had with key players. Here's the ToolBook page on the new site:

http://www.sumtotalsystems.com/toolbook/index.html

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ToolBook Sale through March 31, 2004

As part of a joint "housewarming party" by Platte Canyon and SumTotal Systems, we are pleased to offer customers in the U.S. and Canada $150 off any full version of ToolBook and $100 off any upgrade through the end of March. Customers in other areas please check with your local reseller or Click2learn regional office to see if they have similar offers. The special deal of a $100 credit for full versions and a $50 credit for upgrades that can be applied to your TBCON registration or any Platte Canyon product or training class is still good as well. Here are the sale prices for Instructor (Assistant prices listed on our site as well):

• Upgrade from 8.5/8.6: $495.
• Upgrade from 8.0/8.1: $695.
• Upgrade from 7.2 or earlier OR from any version of Assistant: $895.
• Full version: $2,100

Here is the link to our online store:
https://www.plattecanyon.com/store/productslist.aspx?CategoryID=18&selection=4

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TBCON 2004 Preview

We have a flyer coming in the mail, but don't even wait to see it before signing up. We have an amazing lineup with the leading ToolBook and VBTrain.Net experts from around the world converging on Colorado Springs to share their expertise with you. This will be our 6th year and we are still going strong.

The list of sessions is getting too long to put in The EnterPage, so please click this link (and remember that there will be EVEN more by conference time):

http://www.tbcon.com/tbconsessions.aspx

Among the many highlights will be Tim Barham sharing the vision about future versions of ToolBook as well as insight into how the development team implemented such new features as the updated editor for the Simulation Object and the ability to call functions in .js files. Mauro Rech will share his usual ToolBook wizardry as well as show you how his team has built new web-based courseware using VBTrain.Net. Tom Hall will share his expertise on the Actions Editor and Simulation Object. Denny Dedmore will steer you away from the problems he sees in ToolBook technical support on a regular basis. Marty Weller will show us how to use JavaScript from within ToolBook. Chris and Jeff will cover a plethora of VBTrain.Net topics as well as some of their ToolBook favorites. Here's a complete list of confirmed faculty (more to come):

http://www.tbcon.com/tbconpresenters.aspx

Pricing is very similar to last year and well below the price for other conferences, despite the fact that all registrations include meals plus the great events on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. Sign up quickly, though, since registration prices go up by $50 on May 1st and again on June 1st.

• Off Campus ($720)
• Loomis Double ($805)
• Loomis Single ($845)
• Apartment Multiple Occupancy ($895)
• Apartment Single ($1,095)

Preconference Workshops ( http://www.tbcon.com/tbconPreconSessions.aspx ):

• One Preconference Session $150
• Two Preconference Sessions $285
• Three Preconference Sessions $420
• Four Preconference Sessions $555

Hope to see you in Colorado Springs in June!

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Announcing TBCON One-Day Events

If you can't make it to Colorado Springs in June or don't want to wait a whole year between conferences, we now have the answer for you. Platte Canyon will be hosting one-day TBCON events before the major training conferences throughout the year. Right now, we have confirmed the Sunday before Training - Fall in San Francisco ( October 10, 2004 ) and the Sunday before Training - Spring in New Orleans ( February 27, 2005 ). Look for more to come. We will provide eight hours of technical sessions on ToolBook and VBTrain.Net topics. Attendees will choose the exact topic covered out of a large list of possible topics! For larger groups, we will split into separate ToolBook and VBTrain.Net groups. Price is $285 per person, which includes lunch, snacks, and beverages. Here's a link for more details or to sign up:

http://www.tbcon.com/1dayevents.aspx

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Learning & Mastering Instructor 2004 Outline and Release Schedule

We're still hard at work on the latest version of our Learning & Mastering CD. We're shooting to have it shipping by TBCON in June. We hope that you'll find it worth the wait. Here's the outline:

MODULE 1		
	1 Using This Training	
		Navigation
		Additional Training Features
	2 Understanding the Tools of the Trade  	
		e-Learning Essentials
		e-Learning Development Applications
		e-Learning Terminology
	3 Making the Initial Decisions in your Project	
		Things to Consider
		Deployment Options
		Learning Management

MODULE 2		
	1 Getting to Know Instructor	
		Instructor:  A Tour
		Books, Pages, Backgrounds and More
		The Book Specialist
		Viewers
	2 Working with Objects	
		Using the Catalog
		Creating Objects
		Manipulating Objects
		Object Properties
		Text, Hotwords, and Formatting
	3 Incorporating Graphics and Media	
		Placeholders
		Graphic Resources
		Media via Players
		Media via Clips
		Animation
	4 Adding Interactivity	
		Action Objects
		Introduction to the Simulation Object
		Questions
		Hyperlinks and Navigation
		Menus and Printing
	5 Introducing the Actions Editor	
		Actions Editor Basics
		Working with Actions
	6 Getting Started with OpenScript	
		OpenScript Editors
		OpenScript Basics
	7 Publishing to the Web	
		Introduction to DHTML Deployment
		DHTML Deployment In-Depth
		Neuron Plug-in Deployment
	8 Deploying via CD or LAN	
		Traditional Deployment with AutoPackager
		Other Traditional Deployment Options

MODULE 3		
	1 Expanding Actions Editor Skills	
		Arrays, Shared Actions, and Methods
		Communicating with a SCORM LMS
		Using JavaScript and OpenScript Functions
		Actions Editor Case Study
	2 Building Advanced Simulations	
		Using the Simulation Capture Tool
		Creating Detailed Simulations
	3 Getting Deeper with OpenScript	
		OpenScript Techniques
		Drag and Drop
		Creating Custom Development Tools
		Creating Actions via OpenScript
		Enhancing Simulations with OpenScript
	4 Incorporating Controls and External Applications	
		ActiveX Controls
		Advanced Media with ActiveX
		Incorporating Flash
		Advanced Internet Topics
		Launching Media Players
		Automation and ADO
		Connecting to Databases with ADO
	5 Extending Your ToolBook Knowledge	
		How We Made This Training
		Further Resources

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Report from Training - Spring 2004

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Report from the German ToolBook & VBTrain.Net Event and Learntec

http://www.tbcon.com/learntec/learntec2004.html

It was a special pleasure to finally meet longtime ToolBook List contributor Cecil Cheah. Cecil has been adding .NET to his repertoire and has graciously allowed us to host his new VBTrain.Net tutorials:

http://www.vbtrain.net/tutorials.aspx

John Ballard has also added some VBTrain.Net forums alongside his popular ToolBook forums at:

http://www.ballardpublishing.com/toolbook/index.php

The Learntec exhibition itself was very large with quite elaborate displays. We ran into even more old friends from the ToolBook list as well as potential new customers. Luckily their English was better than our German!

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VBTrain.Net Tips and News

VBTrain.Net Tidbit

by Jeff Rhodes

In the last issue, I showed you the code for creating a random exam that my son used for his 6 th grade Science Fair project on sleep deprivation. We were all thrilled when he not only won first prize in his category but also was the Grand Prize winner for all of Junior High (6th, 7th, and 8th grade). He was most pleased with the $1,100 prize money. Nice job Derek! Here's a link for anyone who is interested:

http://www.pprsf.org/res2004.html

He's off to the Colorado Science Fair in April.

Putting on the developer hat instead of the proud parent hat, let's talk about dynamically adding event handlers at runtime. For the front end of the storyboarding application mentioned above, we wanted to have "presets" available via a right-click menu. So rather than typing in "Click on a button to see its associated information" a hundred times, the subject matter expert could right-click and choose an "instructions" phrase from a popup menu. These phrases are stored in the database and can be updated at any time. With multiple instruction fields, 11 content fields, etc., I didn't want to write individual code for each control. Instead, I wanted one ContextMenu object per type (one for instructions, another for content, another for media, etc.) and then keep track of which control the user clicked on so as to put the selected text into the right spot.

On the way into the form, I read the database to determine the menu choices and populate the menu (we'll show the Instructions menu in this example):

	InstructionsContextMenu.MenuItems.Clear()
	numItems = instructionsPresetTableViewId.Count
	For menuCounter = 0 To (numItems - 1)
		rowId = instructionsPresetTableViewId(menuCounter)
		menuText = String.Concat(rowId(0), "_", rowId(3))
		InstructionsContextMenu.MenuItems.Add(menuText, _
			AddressOf PresetSelected)
	Next

The instructionsPresetTableViewId is a DataView object that contains the sorted list of available presets. The AddressOf keyword says to call the PresetSelected handler whenever the menu item is selected. The rowId(0) is the primary key of the row, which we will use to find the data we need. The rowId(3) is the title of the preset but not necessarily its text (which is in a different column and could be quite long).

Next, we loop through all the TextBoxes on the form and use this code to add the appropriate MouseDown handler based on the name of the control.

	ElseIf textBoxName.ToLower.IndexOf("instruction") > -1 _
		Then
		AddHandler currentField.MouseDown, \
			AddressOf instructionsTextBoxMouseDown

currentField is the reference to the TextBox. This code says to call the instructionsTextBoxMouseDown handler whenever there the user clicks on the TextBox. Here's that code.

Private Sub instructionsTextBoxMouseDown(ByVal sender As _
	Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.MouseEventArgs)

	If e.Button = MouseButtons.Right Then
		Dim textBoxId As TextBox = CType(sender, TextBox)

		If HasTypingError = False OrElse Not _
			CurrentTextBox Is textBoxId) Then

			CurrentTextBox = textBoxId
			CurrentTable = instructionsPresetTableId
			InstructionsContextMenu.Show(Me, _
				Me.PointToClient(Me.MousePosition))
		End If
	End If
End Sub

This code checks to see if it is a right-click and then checks a property to see if there is a typing error. This is needed because there is also a right-click menu with a list of spelling suggestions that needs to take priority over this preset menu. If there is no error, then we store the reference to WHICH TextBox this is in the CurrentTextBox property (since there are lots using the same menu), keep track of which table of data has the presets, and then show the popup menu in the right spot.

Private Sub PresetSelected(ByVal sender As Object, _
	ByVal e As System.EventArgs)

	Dim menuId As MenuItem = CType(sender, MenuItem)
	Dim menuText As String = menuId.Text
	Dim menuArray As String() = menuText.Split(CChar("_"))
	Dim keyId As Integer = CInt(menuArray(0))
	Dim rowId As DataRow = CurrentTable.Rows.Find(keyId)
	Dim textToLoad As String = rowId(2).ToString

	LoadPresentContent(textToLoad)
End Sub

Private Sub LoadPresentContent(ByVal textToLoad As String)
	If IsNothing(CurrentTextBox) = False Then
		With CurrentTextBox
			If .SelectedText <> "" Then
				.SelectedText = textToLoad
			Else
				If .SelectionStart > 0 Then
					Dim selNum As Integer = .SelectionStart
					Dim newText As String = .Text

					newText = String.Concat _
						(newText.Substring(0, selNum), _
						textToLoad, _
						newText.Substring(selNum))

					.Text = newText
				Else
					.AppendText(textToLoad)
				End If
			End If
		End With
	End If
End Sub

The PresetSelected handler figures out the preset text that we need (notice how it finds the proper row of data using the primary key and the Rows.Find() method of the DataTable object). It then calls LoadPresentContent. It does some gyrations to figure out whether to replace selected text with the preset, insert it into a specific spot, or append it to the end. Notice that these handlers are used by all of the dozens of preset menus in the application.

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Coming in the Next Issue of the EnterPage

• Focus on TBCON 2004
• Another Plug-In Pro Tool Spotlight
• More CBT Creation Tips
• More OpenScript Tips
• More Actions Editor Tips
• More VBTrain.Net Tidbits
• ToolBook Tip (from the "Learning and Mastering ToolBook..." Series)
• More

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About The EnterPage

The EnterPage is distributed four times a year, with occasional special issues. Individuals who have expressed interest in Platte Canyon Multimedia Software Corporation or its products receive The EnterPage. Suggestions for articles or proposals for article submissions are welcome. Send information to EP@plattecanyon.com. Back issues of the EnterPage are available at http://www.plattecanyon.com/enterpage.aspx.

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