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Anyone want to try these?

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    Anyone want to try these?

    Have an opportunity to get some publicity by putting a few free resources on the BBC educational website.

    It would be very helpful if anyone could try these educational interactives out and let me know if there are any major problems. As they were originally written to run in webbrowser from disk they do need a few adaptations for internet, eg a "Please wait" sign while it downloads/ resizes to screen, some layout changes (view full screen is best) and the "back to index" left pointing buttons goes nowhere.

    These are meant for primary school children so no porn I'm afraid! Ta in advance for any comments.

    Butterfly food

    Food chains

    Making keys

    #2
    any comments

    > Ta in advance for any comments.

    Phew, and I though for a second I needn't bother checking

    1) Does not work in Firefox (butterfly matching) -- but I will let you off this time :rolleyes

    2) Just how the feck would one know which bloody plant those flying worms eat?!?!

    3) Clicking back hand results in 404 error - page not found
    (tries to get www.gatekeeperel.co.uk/bb...ndex.html)

    4) When score says 0 points it unnecessarily bloody red

    5) LOL, select creature and then select the other that eats it?

    6) LOL scrary face "not on the list" appears in left top corner

    --

    Conclusion: its solid stuff xog - congrats, but I think you could do with a wee bit of style. You see, images are okay, think its the fonts that need to be made a bit more stylish.

    Do you plan on keeping these pages available on public web? IF so you need to rethink titles as they are very important from search engine optiisation point of view. Don't just call it "keys", use extra words to describe shortly what package it belongs to. Then again if this is not meant to be on public internet then its okay.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: any comments

      Ta for amazingly un CUK like sensible comments atw.

      Bummer! You're right! it don't work in firefox! Long list of not defined errors in javascript console. Will certainly need to sort those. Bloddy firefox! Usually just a simple case of replacing various objects references with getelementbyid tho.

      I can fix those technical probs. As for fonts, that's more difficult. I seem to be tastically challenged when it comes to general appearance of things anyhow. Somebody did tell me that kids like big text and I suppose there may be some pikey dimwits, ooh sorry, deprived children with special needs, who access it. I will have a look at what other people do on BBC webtulipe.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: any comments

        No scrollbars on NT4 IE 6.0.2800.1106
        (Office Box)

        Will try at home later.

        Nice flappy wings.

        Surely if it's meant for kids it should have a monty-python stylee boot to stamp on the flutterbies...?

        Comment


          #5
          Re: any comments

          Bugs - yeah it's full of 'em

          Problems I found..
          Butterfly matching - as mentioned no scrollbar and it didn't fit this 1024x768 display - I managed a peek at the top line of the names of the weeds by dragging it out the top of the screen.

          Are you sure about those brimsones? We get shedloads of them (sort of yellow cabbage white - yes?) and although our garden is full of weeds (sorry - we maintain a nature garden) I dont recall seeing any Buckthorn...(whatever the rest of the name is if any).

          I only scored 5 - this is likely to upset the kiddiewinks - you should give them 500 points at least for managing to click the mouse.

          That goddam flying butterfly I'm supposed to click to exit kept hiding below the bottom of the window but I swatted the little sod eventually.

          Food chain.
          Same sizing problems - I don't think I got all ouf the pictures.
          You'll get sued for frightening the little darlings with that "got it wrong" thing.

          Making keys
          didn't really cotton on what this was supposed to be teaching - possibly because I didn't install the activex control.
          The little darlings will love it because it accepts lots of rude words (discovered from frustration trying to work out what it is all about)

          Comment


            #6
            Re: any comments

            This is really useful feedback. Ta chaps.

            Couple of queries.

            Spod. No scrollbars. The butterfly and food web exercises are not supposed to have any as they should fit on the page. Did they not? Or did you also mean there was not one on the key exercise? That should have one.

            Spod/fiddle. Re fitting on page generally. Are you referring to just going off the bottom ie curable by view full screen to remove toolbars? or do you mean major parts of picture were missing at right and bottom? The native size is 1152x864 and it should resize to your screen res. If it's not doing that it should be pretty obvious. On butterfly thing over half of the eighth butterfly would be off screen at right on 1024x768.

            If problem is just due to toolbars etc, might be easier to fit to client size rather than scale to screen size. Trivial change.

            I was not sure my zombie was quite suitable. If I had my way rude words would count double. Those are the rules we always use in Scrabble.

            Comment


              #7
              Re: any comments

              I took a screen dump and realised the likely cause of the problem - I use the google toolbar - I guess when you get the window properties you are either not using the right source field or there is a bug and it's forgetting the toolbar. I think there are loads of different "helper" toolbars out there ( most being spyware ) so it may be worth investigating - either that or just decrease by a default kludge value assuming that won't mess anything up

              IE 6.0.2800

              fullscreen page (shrunk 50% in PSP)...



              Bad news is I probably did get all the piccies but was just too thick to work out what ate what

              Comment


                #8
                Re: any comments

                Firstly, well done. I enjoyed trying to feed the wrong food to those butterflies. Maybe it would be better if they eventually died or flew away in a huff if you do it too often.

                I agree with AtW about the fonts. Try changing to a sans seriff (sp?) font, it will be easier on the eye.

                The click the flying butterfly to close is good. It's hard enough to be funny when watching people try to do it. However, it really DOES close the page. Bye-bye site, no chance to click try again or try another option. I would get tired of having to re-open my browser every time I feed the insects.

                I got sizing problems (I use the Google toolbar too) there seems to be a problem if the browser is not opened full screen when you visit the page, and you then maximise it once there.

                I couldn't fully test the food chain one as I could reach all the pictures.

                How about a "click here to find out more about this butterfly/plant etc." option?

                The text in the 4th button on the making keys screen appears to say GOLF HEAL. I'd steer clear of putting text in pictures that small, use the Alt tag or text under/over the picture.

                You may want to include something to re-assure people that Mead Co's ScriptX won't steal their credit card details and impregnate their wives (unless it will in which case, well done).

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: any comments

                  Ta for ss, Fiddle. That's a relief! The resizing works, just needs bit of adjustment to cope with toolbars/status tray which I don't have when it runs in webbrowser in pants uk. Since I will never know what tbs/browsers people will be using I will change code slightly to fit into to whatever size the client window is. Hopefully will solve all cannot see text/pictures comments.

                  Cheers eddie. Closing page etc is something I will have to sort out when put on BBC page. I assume they will have some sort of rules to follow. Agree the scroll button (self heal) is crap and needs replacing. All buttons on that one too small.

                  Still all in all encouraging that there are no major probs so far, ie things that simply don't function at all.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: any comments

                    Oh yeah - in that screenshot you'll see the image toolbar created by the Spawn of Satan in Seattle and shown unless you change the default settings (which I haven't bothered with at work because the bastards keep remotely updating the box to add patches and reset the bloody things to defaults) - to get shot of it just add the following metatag....

                    Code:
                       
                    meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="no"
                    (with the < and > obviously)

                    *edit even without them ezboard managed to balls it up until I unchecked convert links >:

                    Comment

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