Creating a Course
When you first load up the authoring tool, you'll see the dashboard; a display showing every course that's been created. You can organise the view of courses using the onscreen filters and search controls.
Also notice the button to create a new course in the dashboard's sidebar.
The shared courses section will give you a list of courses others have created and shared within the system. In addition to being able to view these courses, you can also edit them (depending on your user account privileges).
To make a course you've authored yourself viewable in this section, you must enable the relevant configuration setting.
To begin, click the "Add new course" button on the dashboard.
Give the course a title and description, choose who it should be visible to, and give it any appropriate tags. These details can be edited after the course has been created.
Once the course has been created, it should show up on the dashboard. Double click the course, or click the gear icon and then choose "Edit".
Each course has several different types of settings. They can be found under the Global Settings heading on the sidebar on the main editor page.
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Project settings: contains the same settings used when creating the course.
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Configuration settings: contains course-wide settings such as language, the weighting of each question and accessibility settings.
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Theme settings: contains the available themes for the course and allows one to be chosen.
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Manage extensions: contains a list of all the extensions available in the builder and allows them to be turned on or off for this course.
There are also buttons to preview the course in the browser, and to publish the course to a .zip folder.
Add a sub menu to the course by clicking the "Add sub menu" button. sub menus in this column will appear on the main page. There can be any number of sub menus, and sub menus can also be contained in other sub menus. Edit the sub menus by clicking the gear icon, then clicking "Edit". It contains the following settings:
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Page Title: use this to set the name of the sub menu/page in the editor.
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Display Title: use this to give the sub menu/page a title that will be displayed on the actual site.
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Page body: use this to give a description of the sub menu/page.
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Graphic Alt: use this to provide alt text if the image doesn't load.
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Graphic Src: use this to set the image that will be displayed for this sub menu/page.
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Link Text: use this to set the text on the button to enter this sub menu/page.
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Classes: use this to add CSS classes to this sub menu/page.
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Duration: use this to set how long this sub menu/page should take to complete. If left empty, no duration tag will show.
Click "Save" in the sidebar to return to the course editor. Click the sub menu once to open it, then either add another sub menu by repeating the instructions above, or add a page by clicking "Add page" in the second column. A sub menu can contain any number of sub menus or pages. The page can be edited in the same way as a sub menu as they share the settings above.
Once a page has been created, content may be added to it. To do this, double click on the page. A page must contain at least one article, block and component. Start by clicking "Add article". The article can be edited by double clicking on it or by clicking the gear icon, then "Edit". It contains the following settings:
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Title: use this to set the name of the article/block in the editor.
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Display Title: use this to give an article/block a name that will be displayed on the actual site.
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Classes: use this to add CSS classes to this article/block.
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Body Text: use this to give a description of the article/block.
Blocks share the same properties as articles. When the article has been created, add a block by clicking "Add block" and edit its settings.
Next, a component must be added to the block. A block can take either one full-width component, or two half-width components (one to the left and one to the right). Click the "Add component" button, select the component you want, then select its size/position and click "Save" in the sidebar.
Edit the component by double clicking on it or by selecting the gear icon, then clicking "Edit". Components share the same general properties as articles and blocks, but also have a "Component properties" sub menu that contains properties unique to each component type.
Once the course contains at least one page with one component, it can be previewed from the sidebar.
