Screen Inspector
 Screen Size
You can select from several screen sizes for a screen. A survey, lesson or test is sized according to the size of the first screen in the list (not counting pre-test screens). For this reason, it is a good idea to make sure the screens you compile into a lesson, survey or test are all the same size, otherwise some that are too large will have bits the user cannot see or use, while others that are too small will display in the upper left-hand corner of the screen (looking a bit odd). Editor takes its menu of screen sizes from a text file in this folder:
Style and Visual Appearance
The appearance of Buttons, Text Areas, Fields, Drags, Menus, the background image, as well as clip art for pictures, is determined by the Style setting. You can set a screen to match the overall Master Style setting, or you can choose a Style for the screen so that it does not alter its visual appearance when the Master Style is changed. Click here to find out more about creating your own style.
Background Image
You can import a background image that can be tiled or stretched to fill the screen using the Place menu.
Maximum Selections
The Screen tab of the Screen Inspector has a field called Maximum Selections. It sets the maximum number of Select buttons that can be selected at one time. If this is set to zero then it has no effect. It has no effect on True/False buttons, but it does affect the way in which the maximum and minimum for a screen is calculated if there are Select buttons in the screen.
Sounds
You can attach a sound to a screen and this will play automatically when the user views the screen. An attached sound can be in WAV, MP2, MP3 or AIF format.
Pre-test screens
Pre-test screens are screen files that are presented before a lesson, survey or test begins. If you have no pre-test screens then your lesson, survey or test will begin as soon as the user starts. Pre-test screens will not show any Select, True/False or Drag buttons.
You can include as many pre-test screens as you like. Simply click on the tick box called Is a pre-test screen to determine whether a screen is a pre-test screen or part of the survey, lesson or test itself.
Answer Field and Menus
If you place Answer Fields or Menus in pre-test screens they can be used to collect information on users. For example, if you create a field and give it a name, such as 'First Name' then users can enter a name prior to the test and this will be displayed in the results. The entry for the Field or Menu in its Results Text will be displayed in the results.
Starting the lesson, survey or test
When the user reaches the last pre-test screen a Start button will be automatically shown in the upper-middle of the screen. If you would rather create your own button you can create a picture and use the Picture tab of the Inspector window to name it StartTest (all one word — no spaces). When the user clicks on a picture named StartTest the survey, lesson or test will start. Moreover, if you have a picture named StartTest on your last pre-test screen then the Start Test button automatically shown will not appear.
Grids
You can show a grid in the screen to help you lay out your screen. If you display a grid or turn Snap on then this will affect all open screens. The Grid Colour and the Grid Width and Grid Height vary with each screen.
Results Text
The Screen Results text area in the Screen Inspector is where you can enter text you want to appear in the user's results. This text will also appear in the results collected centrally using a NetSeries webserver.
Dynamic linking. If you wish you can dynamically link text in a Text Area to results text for the screen as a whole. In this way, your results text is updated every time you change the Text Area to which it is linked. To do this just enter the name of the Text Area (as it appears in the Screen Inspector), but with square brackets either side of the name. For example, if you wished to link the text in a Text Area called Title to the screen results text, then all you have to do is enter [Title] in the space for Screen Results Text in the first tab of the Screen Inspector. Please note — this is case-sensitive.
Copying text. You can click on a Text Area using the right mouse button and copy the text to the Screen Results text area. You can also double-click on a Text Area to edit it, select just some of the text, and then right-click to copy just the selected text to the Results text area for the Screen.
Custom Ticks and Crosses
You can use custom graphics for the tick and cross used to mark user’s answers. If you do use custom tick and cross graphics then GIF files with transparent backgrounds can be useful, as this way the tick or cross will not be displayed against a white square.
Finish
The Finish menu determines how long (in seconds) the screen will remain displayed before the user is automatically moved to the next screen. You can also set Finish so that the user is moved to the next screen when a video or sound ends. However, the sound and video options only work if the lesson, test or survey is displayed using Question Tools Exam — they do not work in web pages.
An overall time limit for a test, lesson or survey can also be set, as can a fixed time limit for each screen in a test, lesson or survey. Click here for more information.
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