VISITview Lesson Builder Tutorial

This is a short tutorial on using the VISITview Lesson Builder Tool.  Please be sure you have looked over the overview  information before going any further.

Installation

After you have install the VISITview Lesson Builder, it's easy to start it. From within the directory you installed the visitpack.zip file, running the batch file:

               visitbuild

will bring up the primary screen.  If you've not seen it, here's a look at the various parts and controls.
 

Start with an existing lesson

Learning the mechanics

1. Click on the File menu, and select  Open Lesson

 
2. When the File Choice Dialog appears, select the file buildexample.zip

 
3. As the information is being read, notice the "progress bar" that appears in the lower left corner of the window

 
4. Once the lesson is loaded, you should experiment some with the buttons:

 
• click on page 4 -- notice the magenta colored border that appears around the image to indicate it is selected
• click on the image again.  Note that a full-size picture appears.  Dismiss this by clicking anywhere on it.
• Notice the "View Pages" and "View Frames" buttons just below the Lesson Images. click on View Frames.
• You are now looking at the 3 frames that make up Page 4 of the Lesson.
• Select Frame 2 by clicking on it.
• Locate the Edit Menu in the upper left corner; click on the Delete.  Notice Frame 2 is now gone.
• You may 'undo' this by again using the Edit Menu, but this time clicking on undo.

 
5. Return to the Page View by clicking on the View Pages button.

 
• Drag or click on the slider to get Page 7 in view.
• Note the label above the image -- Page 7 (20) -- that means there are 20 frames for this image.
• Switch to Frames view by clicking on the View Frames button
• You'll find that you an "animate" the frames by rapidly moving the slider back and forth while looking at the left-most image.  It's crude, but may tell you if something is out of order.
• If you want to change the page label,  just type the label in the text field above the little images. You do not have to enter a Page number.  One is computed for you when you save a lesson and prefixed to the label you type.  As will all Page Labels in VISITview, do not use commas or quote marks in your labels!   Don't forget to press <Enter>after typing your label!

 
6. Return to the Page View by clicking on the View Pages button.  Now let's move a page.

 
• First, select the page to be moved....say, page 2...by clicking on it (the magenta border appears)
• Now, click on the Edit Menu item move.  Notice the "hint" in the lower left corner
• Now, click on Page 4, and you'll notice that the radar/IR images have been moved to page 4's position.
• You may undo this change using the Edit Menu's undo selection.

 
7. Now, let's browse an image (hopefully you have some spare GIF or JPEG images on your disk!!!)

 
1. click on the Browse Directories button
2. when the File Choice Dialog box appears, locate and select an image file
3. Notice that it appears in the little window, and now a list of all other potential images appears in the List box next to it.
4. Just for fun, select a Page in the lesson (by clicking on it's first frame), and then click the Insert button for browse images.

 
8. Do more experimenting

 
9. And more...

 
10. Finally, you're ready to save your lesson, so from the File Menu click on Save Lesson.  The File Choice Dialog that appears wants you to name a location and filename to save this "revised" lesson.

 
• use the .zip extension
• do not overwrite the file from which you loaded the lesson

What do you get?

• all the images
• a viewmaster.html and viewstudent.html
• a visit.bat, visitm.bat, and visitlocal.bat files
• all the Java .class files
• the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) for Windows machines (in the bin/ and lib/ subdirectories)

If you have any questions, please send email to


 

Return to VISITview home page.