Monday, May 28, 2012

Pasting content into a slide quiz question


QUESTION
When I copy an image from a pdf file (of a math equation, expression, etc) and paste it in the Slide of the test design module, the preview window shows the image correctly, however the actual slide (as it will be displayed during the testing) does not display the graphic.  It shows a symbol <i>.  For some reason I can’t get it to display the correct image even though I see the correct image in the little window (where one inputs the text) to the right of the main slide display.  What am I doing wrong?  Are any of my setting incorrect (bitmap, etc)?

I also tried to upload and insert bitmap files of the math images that I want.  This is a very cumbersome process, requiring 20 or so individual bitmap files to be made and uploaded for just 1 test, instead of quickly copy-and-pasting individual images from the Windows Clipboard.  Also, another problem is, when an image file is uploaded, there’s a lot of white space (empty space) while the actual image is tiny and unreadable

ANSWER
The site does not support copying content from the clipboard and pasting into a slide.
You should successfully be able to copy and paste plain text, but not much else.
Before uploading images, you should edit the image with an editor.
There are many free editors available.  We can recommend two:
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/  (full featured - any OS)
http://www.xnview.com/en/download.html  (easier to use - Windows only)
Save the image as type png, jpg or gif, not as a bitmap.
In the image editor you choose, you should crop the image so that the interesting part of the image fills the entire space.  If you choose the gimp software and become adept with it, you can learn how to create images with a transparent background so that the image blends in perfectly with the background color of the test.

If you have rich content (an entire pdf file) that you want to include in a test, you can always link to a page on another website.  If you paste a link (like  http://www.gimp.org/downloads/  ) into the quiz, it should be navigable at test time.

We do not allow pasting in content from the clipboard for security reasons.  Most non-text content you paste is simply stripped out when the test is saved.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

How to log in with a username instead of an email

QUESTION
How do I log in with just my username, not my whole email?  My colleague only has to log in with his username and his "Account Info" screen looks exactly the same as me.


ANSWER
Older accounts were able to create login names which were not email addresses.
Accounts created today use an email address as their login.  You cannot convert an email address account to a non-email-address account or create a new account whose login is not an email address.