VISITview Lesson Creation Instructions
12/2/98
Creating a lesson for students to download and use
This page has been replaced by the
on-line tutorial.
Please go there for details about creating lessons...
(Please note: in a couple of places you are instructed to edit text
files; please use an editor that preserves the "end-of-line" characters
of the original file -- such as notepad in Windows.)
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First create a directory on your machine; this will hold the entire
contents of the lesson. (Note: if this lesson will be taught remotely
(that is, some or all of the students will use Netscape/IE to participate),
then be sure this directory is accessible by the Web server on your machine!)
-
In that directory, get and unzip the "visitpack.zip" file
from this site.
This will give you:
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viewmaster_template.html = a sample HTML
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enh.tab = a default enhancement table
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visit_template.bat = a sample "go" file for the user/student
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visitlocal_template.bat = a sample "go" file for stand-alone use
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several files with .class extensions -- these are the Java files
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the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) in the bin\ and lib\ directories
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Put all your images for the lesson in the same directory you just
unzipped into
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Rename the viewmaster_template.html template file into
a different filename (with a .html extension). For example:
rename viewmaster_template.html
master.html
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Edit the master.html file to reflect your files; click
here
for
for a further explanation of the HTML. Here is a checklist:
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Text at the top
-
Labels
-
filenames
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no PORT # (unless you need to - use "group" instead to keep groups
separated)
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<PARAM name="group" value="your_group">
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<PARAM name="enhance" value="your-enhancement-file">
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portal stuff, if used (see
specifics of HTML for information about this)
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Text at the bottom
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any other .html or .gif you may need for the HTML
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Copy the master.html file into a file named student.html
(or whatever filenames you want). Then edit the student.html
file
and replace the:
<PARAM name="Master" value="true">
with:
<PARAM name="Student" value="true">
If all your students have good Internet connectivity, you can run this
lesson using the remote mode. In this case, you need only
complete steps 1-5, and make sure that the directory into which you put
all the files is accessible from the Web. In this case, just tell
your students to point their Web browser to the HTML file you just created
for them.
Otherwise, some or all of your students will have to use local mode
and need to get a snap-shot of your directory (with all the image files)
put together in a way that's convenient for them to download put onto their
own machine (step 6 and beyond...).
-
Rename the visit_template.bat file to something else (like
visit.bat,
for example) and then edit the file to reflect the name of
the HTML file and the server you chose for the students to connect to.
E.g.,
.\bin\jre -cp .\ VisitFrame student.html
www.ssec.wisc.edu
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Rename and Edit the visitlocal_template.bat file
to reflect the name of the HTML file for the master . This
file may be used by someone who wants to run through the lesson on their
own computer without wanting to involve anyone else. You will notice
that it starts its own VISITview server in order to accomplish this.
-
Test your stuff -- on a Windows machine, just type:
visit
<enter>
and, after closing that session, test the stand-alone mode by
typing:
visitlocal
<enter>
-
ZIP everything up into a single file. Since you must also
include the bin\ and lib\ subdirectories in order to bundle the JRE, you
must
use the recurse directories option in either the command-line version
of zip or the recurse folders option in WinZip. If you're
using WinZip, do not "Save Extra Folder Info".
If you're using WinZip and have a "make exe" in the Action pull-down,
then you can just make an exe file that they can just run instead of having
to unzip manually. If you do make an EXE file, then be sure to set
the default directory to unzip into to either your intended directory
or (better) to .\ so the files will be unzipped into the directory where
the EXE file was placed.
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Post the .zip (or .exe) file in a place on you machine where folks
can get at it using their browser.
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Then send a message to the students that contains Installation
Instructions similar to what you find here.
You
may just want to copy this page and change the
titles and directory and file names.
You've just created a snap-shot of your lesson files. These will
be used by students with poor Internet connectivity. In this case, they
will not use their Web browsers to participate in the session, but
instead must use the Java Runtime Environment to run an application that
emulates what their browser does with the VISITview applet (but without
the security restrictions).
In addition, since all the files will reside on their machine, they
may run the lesson independently if desired, using the alternate batch
file, visitlocal.bat.
If your students need to install the Java Runtime Environment, they
can look here for instructions. Only those
who have to use local mode (and thus cannot just use their Web browser
to participate in a session), have to have the JRE on their machines.
If you have any questions, please send email to
Return to VISITview home page.