A lab is an XML element normally in its own file that is expanded using XSLT. Specifically, equipment and instruction elements are specified within a lab. For example, Lab-1 references Equipment-17 and Instructons-1.
The equipment and instruction elements can be placed direclty inside a lab element or they may be placed in a stand alone XML file by using the refid attribute. This allows one to reuse content by creating it in a stand alone file then reference it by name rather than using copy and paste with an editor.
A stand alone equipment elements are defined in XML files that are expanded to create HTML and SVG content with references to JavaScript functions which are definded in emle_lab.js. By convention the equipment elements are number. The numbering is independent of the lab element that uses it. This is because an equipment element may be and is expected to be used in more than one lab.
There are three major items that are normally in an equipment XML element: 1) text, 2) SVG graphics and 3) controls.
There are several text elements such as pretext and posttext which reference message identifiers which are embedded inside with HTML tags. The message identifiers are defined in language specific XML files which contain no HTML markup.
Graphic elements have attributes like graphicType which for example can specify a rectangle or a circle. Additionally, attributes may specify whether the shape is to be segmented or not.
Control elements are transformed into HTML fragments such as a form with two sets of radio buttons for denominator and numerator values. Control element attributes include minimum and maximum values for the radio buttons.
The control element may be nested inside a graphic which provides the user with input buttons to change values. For example, the display of a pie chart graphic segmented for representing a fraction. So, the user could select 3 from the numerator buttons and 4 from the denominator buttons which invoke a JavaScript function that displays a pie chart with 3 of the 1/4 segments shaded and would leave the 4th one blank. If the user were to change the denominator button selected from 4 to 3 then the pie chart would be divided into only 3 segements rather than the former 4 with all of the 1/3 segments shaded.
Now returning to the description of the lab element which normally references an instruction element. These instruction elements are defined in separate XML files for each instruction by reference number. The XML file is an HTML fragment with HTML tags and text content. A single XML file contains a single instruction element which has the HTML markup with message reference identifiers for the text strings. The convention is for labs and instruction elements to be numbered with the number matching. For example, emle_instructions_1.xml has the instructions for Lab1 (emle_lab_1.xml).
The text message elements for a language are all contained in a single message file by language (emle_lang_en.xml and emle_lang_es.xml). These message text elements are used in lab, equipment text, and instruction elements.
lab 1
title
msg lab-1-title
equipment 17
instructions 1
equipment 17
title
msg equipment-17-1
value
pretext
html:p
msg equipment-17-2
graphic
-graphicType EMLE_GT_RECTANGLE
-segmentation EMLE_GST_SOLID
-height 101
-width 250
value
control
-enable EMLE_CET_PROPER_FRACTION
-order EMLE_COT_ASCENDING_BY_COMPONENT
numerator
-min 1
-max 1
denominator
-min 1
-min 8
value
pretext
html:p
msg equipment-17-3
graphic
-graphicType EMLE_GT_RECTANGLE
-segmentation EMLE_GST_SOLID
-height 101
-width 250
value
control
-enable EMLE_CET_PROPER_FRACTION
-order EMLE_COT_ASCENDING_BY_COMPONENT
numerator
-min 1
-max 1
denominator
-min 1
-max 8
Modified 7-Jun-2009.