Getting Started Building VISITview Lessons

1. Before getting started with VISITview, please review the terminology of the components of a lesson (particularly, "page" and "frame")
2. If you are not running on Windows, you may need to first download a copy of the Java Runtime Environment. Please refer to this page for more information.
3. Please have a look at the overview of the controls, etc. of the Lesson Builder.
4. Then, get a copy of the How To Make a VISITview Lesson lesson (it's an audio+annotation recording, so you'll need a machine with a sound card). Play this lesson as an introduction to VISITview....then...
5. When you're ready to work with the software, you need to get a copy of the package.
   • If you're running on Windows, just get this auto-install file, put it into a temporary place and run it. You will be guided through installing the Lesson Builder. This process will create a folder and put shortcuts there for the most common tools.
   • If you are not running Windows, then:
     1. create a directory on your machine that will hold the essential tools for developing all your lessons. chdir (ch) to that directory.
     2. Next, download and unzip the visitpack.zip file from this site.  After you unzip (unpack) it, your directory will be populated with VISITview core routines and the Java Runtime Environment for Windows.
6. Then you should go through the on-line tutorial, which shows you how create a lesson using the VISITview Lesson Builder.
7. In the VISITview installation directory is a text file named default.properties. This is a list of default values used by the Lesson Builder whenever you construct a new lesson, and you may change any of the values to suit your needs.
8. Note, if you need to customize the 'viewmaster.html' file, you must currently do it after an initial creation since the "new lesson" template is built-in.  If you find you need to do this, please let us know so we can consider putting this into the Lesson Builder!
9. After you have then saved your lesson into a ZIP file, you may edit it or build a completely different lesson.

Important note: Lessons created with the VISITview Lesson Builder are put into ZIP files using mixed compression modes; you must be using WinZIP version 6.4 or later (or Info-Zip 5.32 [1997] or later) in order to work with these files outside of the Lesson Builder environment...

Other important note: Do NOT use GIF images that contain a transparent background - this will have undersireable effects on the display!
 

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