Knowledge Base

TOOLBOOK 2004

Currently dozens of Developers Exchange Tools are provided by SumTotal Systems.

SUMMARY OF TOOLS FOR TOOLBOOK 2004

DIAGNOSTIC

Debug Mode Toggle
List System Books & Extensions
Quiz Summary
Sound Channel Switch
Validate ToolBook File

GRAPHICAL

Convert Picture to Paint
Enhanced Color Tray
Web Graphic Placeholder Fixer

MISCELLANEOUS

Actions Editor Compression
AICC Flag Switch
Devex Configuration Utility
Launch Method Changer
Mini Catalog
Property Exporter
Randomize Quiz Utility
Reader Author Reset
Script Formatter
SSL Toggle

NAVIGATION

Find Page by Name
Page/Background Browser
Page Navigator

OBJECT

Add and Remove Multiple Pages
Background Auto Merger
Lock Position
Lock Size

RESOURCES

Batch Resource Import/Exporter
Resource Reference List
Unused Resource Remover

TEXT/FONT

Character Map
Coach Text Editor
Font Swapper
Hotword Maker
Slow Scrolling Field
Space to ANSI 160 Converter
Text Exporter

DETAILED TOOLS LIST FOR TOOLBOOK 2004

Actions Editor Compression 
ToolBook automatically generates OpenScript code for any actions written using the Actions Editor. The size limit of OpenScript code in an object is 64K. To conserve space so more actions can be saved, ToolBook provides a feature to compress the OpenScript code generated for the actions, by removing extraneous comments and formatting.

Add and Remove Multiple Pages
This utility makes adding or deleting several pages simple. With one click you can create hundreds of blank pages, make multiple copies of a page, or select pages to individually copy. Pages can be deleted by selecting a range of pages, or by selecting pages and/or backgrounds to remove.

AICC Flag Switch
This utility will enable or disable the AICC_Spec20 and AICC_Compatibility flags for one book (current book) or all books.

Background Auto Merger 
This utility will scan your book looking for identical backgrounds and merge them together, thus eliminating extraneous backgrounds. You can also force merge different backgrounds, if you so choose.

Batch Resource Import/Exporter 
This utility will permit you to import a directory full of images into the ToolBook Resource System as well as export all of your Graphic Resources too.

Character Map
Similar to the Windows Character Map, this utility will display all characters in any font on your system, allowing you to sample and ultimately choose a character to copy to the clipboard.

Coach Text Editor 
Provides access to add new, or edit existing, coach information on objects.

Convert Picture to Paint
Converts all of the picture objects in a book to paint objects.

Debug Mode Toggle
This utility will turn on or off the debug mode for DHTML export.

Devex Configuration Utility 
Normally the Developers Exchange Tools are launched from the SumTotal web site. This utility will allow you to change the default location where ToolBook looks when launching the Developers Exchange Tools.

Enhanced Color Tray 
This color tray contains two color palettes, one containing the standard 256 Web Safe colors, and another containing over 30,000 colors to choose from.

Find Page By Name
Finds pages whose name contains the specified characters. You can enter any part of a page's name to find the next match.

Font Swapper 
If you ever needed the ability to see a list of all the fonts that are in use in your ToolBook file, this is the utility for you. Not only will it show you a list of fonts in your book, it will even allow you to swap out a font that you have used in your book with an alternative font. Perhaps you used a fancy font in many places in your book only to realize later that you can't be guaranteed that your end-users will have the correct font installed on their machines. Using a more standard font such as Arial or Times Roman will ensure that your users see what you had in mind. This utility will permit you to swap out every use of a particular font with another, in a matter of seconds.

Hotword Maker
Allows you to quickly create hotwords in your application for use with the Glossary Lookup feature of ToolBook.

Launch Method Changer 
This utility will permit you to change the Launch Page (and Full Screen) settings of a fully exported book, without having to re-export the book. You can use this tool to modify the exported contents of the current book or any other previously exported book.

List System Books & Extensions
Lists the file names for all system books currently on the sysBooks stack. Also lists the file names of all Extensions in your book as well as Bound System Books.

Lock Position 
An undocumented feature in ToolBook is the ability to lock an object. By locking an object, you will be unable to manually drag-move that object while at author level. Attempting to drag-move a locked object will result in the object snapping back to it's original position when you drop the object. This is useful when you have an object which needs to stay at a very precise position and you wish to ensure that an editor of your project does not accidentally or intentionally move it.

Lock Size 
By locking the size of an object, you will be unable to manually resize that object while at author level by dragging one of its corners or sides. Attempting to resize a locked object will result in the object snapping back to it's original size. This is useful when you have an object which needs to stay at a very precise size and you wish to ensure that an editor of your project does not accidentally or intentionally resize it.

Mini Catalog
This miniature catalog contains basic objects such as Buttons, Fields, and Draw Objects, which can typically be found in Instructor on the Tool Palette.

Page/Background Browser
An enhanced page browser which also shows to which backgrounds a set of pages belongs.

Page Navigator 
Displays a list of pages in the book allowing the ToolBook author to navigate to any page by clicking on that page in the list.  This tool can remain open while authoring in ToolBook.

Property Exporter
This utility will create a text file containing all of the user properties of your selected object. You can also choose, as your object, the Page, Book or Background.

Quiz Summary 
Analyzes your book and shows statistical data about what kind of questions are in your book, how many points can be achieved, the total number of questions, and scoring information related to the Randomization of a book.

Randomize Quiz Utility
This utility will allow users to disable their Random Quiz feature that was enabled during the Quiz Specialist. It will also let you change the number of pages to draw.

Reader Author Reset 
This tool will allow your book to reset all widgets and/or every object in your book, when switching between Reader and Author. Further, you can create reset behavior for your own objects (Instructor only). For example, you can have a field be visible in Author mode and hidden in Reader mode.

Resource Reference List
Displays a list of objects that reference a specified resource. Use this utility to find, for example, all buttons whose normalGraphic is set to a specific bitmap resource.

Script Formatter
This OpenScript utility will analyze each script in your book, and reformat the scripts with proper indenting standards. Although this has no functional effect on your scripts, it does make them easier to read and debug.

Slow Scrolling Field
Ever needed a field in Native ToolBook to scroll slower than the normal scroll rate? This field object will scroll at a speed that you can control.

Sound Channel Switch
This utility turns off the sound channels that are automatically initialized in DHTML to play media clip feedback for questions. If your course doesn't use this particular feature, you may have reason to override the default initialization of these Windows Media Players. This utility provides an easy way to do just that.

Space to ANSI 160 Converter

This utility finds contiguous <space> characters in field/recordField text or Question Immediate Feedback. It also provides a way to convert each <space> to the ANSI 160 character. This is useful since contiguous spaces appear as a single space in DHTML prior to ToolBook 2004 SP2.

SSL Toggle 
This utility is used to turn on and off the security warning dialog when you launch DHTML exported ToolBook content from an HTTPS address (Secure Web Server - SSL). You will need to be using at least the SP3 version of ToolBook 2004.

Text Exporter
This utility will export all of the text within your ToolBook file into a text file. This is useful when a third party will be grammar checking your applications.

Unused Resource Remover
This utility is designed to remove Unused Resources from your book. This is handy to use as a last step before completing your project since unused resources only result in a larger sized book.

Validate ToolBook File 
This tool validates ToolBook files for broken links to external files, bad hyperlinks, invalid actions and objects off the edge of your page. Run this tool prior to exporting to HTML to locate potential problems during the export process.

Web Graphic Placeholder Fixer
This utility will convert all Web Graphic Placeholder object in your book to standard buttons thus removing the dependency on the original externally located image file.

OPENSCRIPT NOTICE The OpenScript programming examples found in many articles may need modification in order to work in ToolBook 9.0 or higher, particularly if the article was written for an older version of ToolBook. To learn more, click here.

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