In this sprint we finished the course functionality we started in sprint 31. The goal of a course is to give editors the ability to create a coherent set of AWIs in a strict order. A course can be used in onboarding processes or for learning purposes to teach a set of AWIs to a user.
After releasing the new functionality, courses will be available for users and editors to gain functionality like reorder AWIs within a course; remove AWIs from a course and edit the course properties. Details about the changes can be found below, all new functionality will be released next week.
A new version for the recorder is available after the release, see
https://www.productivityperformer.com/downloads/
The currently released course functionality showed the AWIs within a course as a list of links, this is of course not as it should be. Now the AWIs in a course are visualized using a tile with rich information like the AWI description, tags and applications, step count and the number of the AWI within the course.
Editors now have the option to remove an AWI from a course. When in edit mode, each tile has a cross in the top right corner of the tile, when clicked the AWI is removed from the course.
The order of the AWIs within the course is important for a trainer and user. The trainer can use the order to explain what will be learned in the course and show the progress during the course. For a user it shows the progress and when using the course in an e-learning scenario, the user does not have to think about which AWI comes next.
All AWIs in the course can now be reordered by simply dragging an AWI to a new spot. When dragging an AWI over an existing AWI, all AWIs will be shift left or right towards the spot of the dragged AWI. When dropping the AWI on the empty spot, the AWIs are reordered.
The image below shows the drag & drop behavior, the AWI with name ‘Add AWI to a course’ is dragged to the first spot in the course.
Editors have the option to give a course an introduction and outline. The introduction is used as short description and visualized on the course tile and within the course information pane. The outline is used to tell a user about the course content. These properties, as also the course title, can now be edited. Just open the course in edit mode and go to the course properties. Don’t forget to save the changes.
Unused courses should be deleted so the course library stays clean and the user can quickly find the course it’s looking for. As editor, a course can be deleted using the context menu on a course tile.
Courses are not visible for users so they can use the functionality to learn about specific subjects. Users have the ability to open the course library, open a course and use the AWIs within the course. To improve the user experience, we have made several changes:
A bug was found in the recorder, the entire recorder crashed when a secure screen was presented by Windows. An example of a secure screen is the UAC window when an application is started as administrator. This scenario can happen during a recording, for example when an AWI is created to show how a VPN client can be installed. The new version of the recorder will not crash when the secure screen is shown. To inform the editor about the secure screen, a step is added to the AWI with a message that no instruction could be created.
Coping a username in the login form mostly resulted in an unsuccessful login attempt. Cause was whitespace in front of the username copied with the username itself. The whitespace in front and behind the username is now trimmed so coping a username is possible.
Investigating possible performance improvements, a bug appeared. The image cache within the API wasn’t used anymore which resulted in slower loading of instruction images within the AWIs. The image cache is restored so often used images should load faster.
