Forum LAMS for Tech-Heads - General Forum: Re: Re: Customizing User InterFace

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Hi Zhong,

OK, one thing that you need to do when you change the defaultTheme.xml is to clear your Flash cache. Unfortunately, when you clear your browser cache that doesn't clear Flash's cache... so when you reload author the defaultTheme.xml is not being downloaded as Flash has it cached.

So go to Flash Website Storage Settings panel and delete the cache for your LAMS server. After that, reload Author again and you should be able to see the changes you've done.

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Here's an example of some quick changes to the defaultTheme.xml and the funky colors you can get

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Zhong Long

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So much Thanks for your help , Ernie!

i've already got what i wanted with your notice except one thing : the tooltip. i found that i can't change the font size of the tooltip by changing the defaultTheme.xml file.

and i checked the source code and found the text format of the tooltip was hard-coded in the org.lamsfoundation.lams.common.ToolTip class,am i right? i am using Chinese language,Chinese characters don't display well in the tooltip ,cause it's font size have been set to 11,it usually requires 12 or bigger for Chinese characters to display well.i have no idea if you know it or not,but i think you should think about it in the future designs.:)

also,i can't compile the flash source codes,many error comes out when i was trying to compile. i did set the right source path .it seems the classes didn't handle the import packages and classes well,and made the conflict of the class names.i got the source codes from cvs,using the lams2_3_4 tag,by the way. what kind of mistakes i may took?

thinks and wishes. :)

Posted by Zhong Long

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Mitch is now looking at adding some extra attributes for the tooltip in the defaultTheme.xml.

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Mitchell Seaton

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Hi Zhong,

To compile the flash source code if it recommended to use Macromedia Flash MX 2008 (version 7.2). Trying to compile with a different version of Flash may produce errors/conflicts.
Were you trying with a different version?

regards,
Mitch

Posted by Mitchell Seaton

By: Zhong Long

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Hi Mitch,

i installed Macromedia Flash MX2004(version7.2) and tried to compile the flash source .and it worked, thanks.

i am looking forward for the 2.3.4 version now,cause i do think it's time to using flex/flash(as3) instead of flash(as2) as the whole interface.is there a roadmap of that?

Posted by Zhong Long

By: Gaynor E

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Hi All

I'm having a lot of trouble trying to edit and compile the flash source files using Flash 7.2. I could really do with a basic run through of how to edit the flash icon images (which flash files etc) then where to place the files and how to compile them without getting errors, can anyone help me with this?

Many Thanks
Gaynor

Posted by Gaynor E

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Hi Gaynor,

Are you after changing the icons for the tools? If so, each of these files comes with each tool. For instance for:

Forum lams_tool_forum/web/images/icon_forum.swf

MCQ lams_tool_lamc/web/images/icon_mcq.swf

and so it goes for all tools.

To create one of this icons in swf format using flash, these are the instructions I have from Mitch:

1. Create new Flash file in Flash (i used CS4)
2. Imported vectorial image to Stage
3. Resized document to contents (usually 28x28)
4. Exported image as .swf

Replace the file and voila!

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Gaynor E

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Hi Ernie

Thanks for your response. To be more specific I would like to edit the flash author interface (such as the icons you have shown above plus the bin image), the preloader page progress bar and the monitor lesson interface (such as the buttons and tabs).

So for example, once you have created and replaced the icon images as you mentioned above and rebuilt LAMS as you normally would then re-run LAMS are you supposed to see the new icons in the flash interface? I tried this and didn't see any change.Do you have to edit the lams_authoring.fla, lams_monitoring_main.fla and preloader.fla flash files at all?

Thanks
Gaynor

Posted by Gaynor E

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Hi Gaynor,

Ah, I see... I think the loading images (for author and learner) can be change by replacing these files with your own logos:

learner.logo.swf
preloader.logo.swf

Find these files in jboss-4.0.2/server/default/deploy/lams.ear/lams-www.war/images/

As for some of the images in the buttons and bar at the top, they might be hardcoded in the lams_authoring.swf file.

Once you replace the icon images it should work. However, it might be that at times Flash caches the images. Flash has a different cache than the browser, you might need to clear the cache manually though. See here:

http://is.gd/dY3Zu

Thank you,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Gaynor E

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Hi Ernie

Thanks for this. I changed the learner.logo.swf and preloader.logo.swf images ok in jboss-4.0.2/server/default/deploy/lams.ear/lams-www.war/images/.

However after creating new swf files for the icons as per your instructions e.g. \lams_tool_gmap\web\images\icon_gmap.swf, clearing all caches (flash - on the same url you provided and in my browser, and in LAMS) and rebuilding LAMS and re-running it the icons didn't update. I even deleted the instance of the icon in the temp folder in jboss (the only place I could locate the file) e.g.\jboss-4.0.2\server\default\tmp\deploy\tmp62469lams-tool-lagmap10-exp.war\images but after I rebuilt LAMS the existing icon was reinstated.

Is it possible I've done something wrong here?

Thanks for all your assistance with this.
Gaynor

Posted by Gaynor E

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Hi Gaynor,

I've just did exactly the same thing as you did and found that I was having the same problem.... the icon for the tool that I have changed was still showing as the old one.

So I opened another browser, clear the browser cache clean and attempted to open LAMS author again and it works (see that the Forum icon is now the same icon as Gmap... I copied the same to forum just to check).

It seems that the cache to clear is also the browser one.

Just so you are absolutely sure that the image is in the right place, go to your jboss-4.0.2/server/default/deploy/lams.ear/ folder and copy the lams-tool-XYZ.war tool to another directory. Open the file with unzip and look for the .swf icon image... verify it is the right one.

Clear the jboss-4.0.2/server/default/tmp and also the work directory.

Restart LAMS and this will work (make sure you clear your browser cache as well please).

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione

By: Gaynor E

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Hi Ernie

Thanks for your response. I've been trying out updating the tool icons as you suggested. I did the following:

1. Created the new swf files as instructed and placed them in the folders e.g. lams_tool_gmap\web\images.

2. Cleared all temp jboss folders and browser/flash caches as stated.

3. Checked the war files in jboss-4.0.2\server\default\deploy\lams.ear - these were not updated with the new icons after rebuilding.

4. I then directly edited the war files e.g. lams-tool-lagmap10.war - I replaced the swf icon and created a new war file to replace the existing one. However this edited version of the war file made the build fail.

Do you know why the war files would fail to be updated with the new icons?

Thanks
Gaynor

Posted by Gaynor E

By: Ernie Ghiglione

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Hi Gaynor,

Sorry about the delay...

Let me see if I get this right, you have replaced the icon in the lams_tool_gmap code folder and then recompiled the tool to generate the .war, correct?

if so, the new .swf file must be the one on the new .war. You can explode the war to check this.

In #4 you said that you edited the war file and replace the swf icon. I assume you mean that you unzip the war and replaced the .swf with the new one, right? Alternatively, you can use the "explode war" ant task to do this and then if you do any updates to do .war you can use the sync-deploy task to update the deployment.

Hope that helps.

Thanks,

Ernie

Posted by Ernie Ghiglione