Hi List: I'll post some comments here as there's no other conatct address on the xerte home page. We got one of our team to try xerte out and his comments here might be useful to others, including the bug reports (Of course, some of these may already have been addressed, as I see there've been new xerte releases in the last few days...) ----Evaluation report follows------------------------ 2.1 Overview Xerte is an xml editor and run time engine that is used to create and deploy interactive learning objects. The user can choose from a range of media to include in a learning object. This includes text, images, video (FLV format only), and sound. Besides, the user can include built in components e.g. drawing editor, interaction, decision etc. The user can also insert scripts. The documentation says that the users of Xerte need to be familiar with ActionScript or JavaScript. One of the project team members Xerte had this to say on Xerte forum: 'I think it's unlikely that your average academic would download Xerte, make sense of it and start producing interactive multimedia, unless they have some experience of flash, or JavaScript. There are other tools more suited to non-technical users, and that's not what we're trying to do.' 2.2 Advantages Any learning object developed in Xerte will automatically include accessibility options like colour and size change options and text to speech. Though the size change option does not work properly. 2.3 Drawbacks The tool is in its Beta version and hence not stable. Further, the information in the help section is inadequate and a new user does not have an idea where to start. Besides, there are some basic features which are not user friendly. For instance, when the user wants to insert an image, the path of the image to be inserted needs to be typed manually rather than from a 'file browse' dialog box as is the standard. Similarly, colour code of text needs to be specified manually rather than from a colour palette. There are other functions in the programme which do not work properly. They are as follows: Only those properties of an icon can be deleted which are in the drop down box. User defined properties cannot be deleted. Preview command, when selected from the View menu, does not work. Changing the position of text and images did not take effect some times. Drag and drop activity requires the user to calculate coordinates of drop target which is not user friendly. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Regards, Tony ____________________________________________ Tony Delahunty E-Learning Development Co-ordinator College of North West London 020 8208 5460 Tony.Delahunty@xxxxxxxxxx <mailto:Tony.Delahunty@xxxxxxxxxx> P - B505