I have to do a college project, where I have to do an LMS, and one of the requirements is to allow the import of SCORM files. However, when I went to research I saw something about SCORM using the flash player, which ended support this year. Can anyone answer the question if SCORM really needs the flash player to work?
No. The only hard technical requirement is a JavaScript environment (or an environment that sufficiently mimics a JavaScript environment) which is why SCORM is very often considered a browser based specification. "Browsers" and therefore JS environments are finding their way into all kinds of places.
To elaborate a bit more on Brian's answer, take a look at the following resources.
SCORM1.2 Golf Examples
https://scorm.com/scorm-explained/technical-scorm/golf-examples/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=natural_search
SCORM Run-Time Reference
https://scorm.com/scorm-explained/technical-scorm/run-time/run-time-reference/
Rapid E-Learning Dev Software
Articulate
Captivate
Lectora
I have experience in all three software's listed above; however, I have standardized all training development in my team to use Lectora because of its flexibility and ability to add JS, jQuery, CSS, etc. to my content. You are really limited by your own skills at that point and if you have the computer programming skills then you can exploit Lectora to it's fullest potential.
Using Lectora, I can use Actions to modify any/all SCORM variables using the run-time reference listed above as my guide.
Related
Microsoft Media Foundation (MF) was introduced as the successor of DirectShow in Windows Vista. I have mostly ignored it, but it has some features (such as decoding of WMV AC-1 files) which are hard to implement in DirectShow. Media Foundation is also a more modern API so it would seem logical to make the switch.
However, the online teaching resources and official documentation seem greatly lacking. There is only 1 book covering the topic (published by Microsoft) and it is no longer available for normal prices. (People charge $500,- or more for second hand versions.)
As far as I could find there are no other books. While other techniques from Microsoft are usually covered in multiple books by multiple publishers.
The official Media Foundation blog has not been updated in since 2011. In the two years that it was active only 10 technical articles were written, 5 of which covering error logging/tracing instead of actual functionality.
The StackOverflow tag ms-media-foundation is only used with 328 questions, of which 142 are unanswered. In contrast there are 1641 DirectShow questions of which only 496 are unanswered.
So what happened to Microsoft Media Foundation? Will the new API ever take off and replace DirectShow or has even Microsoft forsaken MF in favour of going back to the old and rusty (trusty?) DirectShow. Or is there maybe another, non Microsoft framework, that has taken over?
Firstly I don't know the answer and am someone who has spent way too long trying to get even basic Media Foundation scenarios working; at times it feels more like a quest in search of some long lost secret scripture than programming.
My suspicion is that Microsoft does want to make MF the standard media API for the Windows platform and perhaps the best indication is the Windows Universal App Samples where there are 7 instances of "mfapi.h" but zero instances of "dshow.h". Also the relatively new WPF MediaCapture and MediaElement controls do hook into the Media Foundation APIs so it seems safe to say that for all new work Microsoft are using MF instead of DirectShow.
Wow I see what you mean about Polinger's MF book! I have the book (which I'll now shortly be selling at that price) and can assure you it's definitely not worth it. I've never really found it much help despite re-reading it numerous times. It's pretty much the same as the online docs in that it sticks to a small number of specific scenarios (in fact a number of chapters in the book just re-print the SDK samples) and as soon as you need to do something outside those you are on your own.
In regards to the official MF blog there was a thread on the MSDN forums griping about thing and to which one of the Microsoft guys responded saying they have switched blogging platforms (it obviously would be nice if they could put a note indicating that). Apparently a number of the Microsoft MF devs are still blogging. This seems to be the most "active" one.
Update: If anyone happens to get drawn here due to the Polinger book reference note that the companion code can be downloaded from here (the original link quoted in the book is http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink/?Linkid=229072 which at the time of writing redirects to the aforementioned page).
For me, Media Foundation is really a very nice API to do multimedia programming.
What I can blame, is that Media Foundation's releases don't apply to Windows 7, currently the most popular OS in the world.
Media Foundation has a lot of competitors (DirectShow, Ffmpeg, Gstreamer, etc...). So, more choice, less developers, less tutorials and so on...
I try to promote this API as i can, so here is my work on Media Foundation : MFNode
I cover a lot of scenarios, and you have to check source code to learn.
You will find :
audio/video player (win32)
custom media session
sequencer source
audio/video capture
screen capture
kinect V1 capture
wave audio mixer
http streaming (winsock)
jpeg encoding (Gdiplus)
dxva2 technology
cuda decoding
directX9 renderer and shader
COM technology
different kind of mediafoundation Source, Sink and Transform (mpeg2, flv, a52, vp6...)
mp3 to wave transcoder
EDIT
More MediaFoundation code here : github mofo7777
I suspect one reason for MediaFoundation not being used as much is that it limits you to encoding in WMV format only, and limits your ability to decode too (you can decode more than just WMV, but even the old VFW from Win 3.1 days allowed you to select a compressor of your choice)
The even rustier and older VFW (video for windows) is simpler than all of them latest and greatest, and allows multiple compressors - so I am wondering if MediaFoundation will ever be updated to allow more compressors and decompressors (or encoders and decoders) than the very limited selection they offer.
MediaFoundation API's, although interfaces, seem pretty low level still, and requires lots of boiler plate code just to get basic things working - powerful for WMV production, as they give you plenty of tools - but, a little bit hard to use for doing basic tasks (best is to download wrappers around the API, which to my surprise, not many exist.. these API's are not so popular as you would think).
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I've spent a few hours already studying some CMS solutions for one of my customers' new business...In the end, I've taken in consideration these two: DotNetNuke and Composite C1.
I know all of these have a lot of features, a lot of capabilities etc.
What I would like to know:
is overhere any .NET guy who have worked with both of these? (if yes, can you please share your opinion - PRO and CONS?)
if for some reason I do need to add some new ASP.NET code (for some custom things), which of these two is better for this?
You should definitely go with Composite C1. I have been using DotNetNuke for many years and been very frustrated due to its limitations.
Below I have summed op what I think is best/worst for both CMS products (note: it's been two years since i set up a DNN site, so I do not know if there has been any improvement):
PROS for DNN
List item
VERY simple administration interface.
It is possible to edit pages directly by simply clicking on content when you are signed in.
Huge user/developer base - many extension modules available. Many of them for no charge.
CONS for DNN
The simplicity in DNN is basically the root for all cons;
Hard to extend - you have to develop packages for DNN with your specialized code or generate user controls in .NET (.ascx) files.
Difficult to skin
A lot of overhead related to webforms AJAX files (100+ kb without compression)
No build-in nice urls (but easy to find extensions enabling nice urls)
Relies on SQL-database ( = additional costs)
PROS for C1
Easy installation and setup.
Can run on file system only (and easily be upgraded to SQL support).
Build-in package manager with easy to install extensions.
Support for MVC, XSLT, Webforms and the best: Razor syntax!
Specialized code can be developed easily due to great API.
Great templating support. Can be made very simple and very advanced depending on your skills.
Nice URLs in the 3.0 releases.
Easy to set up multi-site support.
Supports Windows Azure out of box.
CONS for C1
Based on XML for data storage (can cause problems if server shuts down unexpectedly etc. - I have not experienced this)
THe many features in the backend can be a little overwhelming.
Backend takes quite a while to load because it is build like a webapp.
Not as large user base as DNN
Bottomline; Composite C1 is far better than DotNetNuke. Specially if you want to add custom code/functionality.
If you want even more functionality and a more mature CMS than Composite C1 you should take a look a Umbraco. It is open-source just as C1 and of course developed by great Danes ;)
I have quite some years of experience with DotNetNuke.
Avoid it at all costs. I'm serious.
Edit: Since I'm being asked about my reasons for this bold statement, I'll try to provide them.
The company I worked for had around 300 clients on DNN. Many of them were rather large corporations. I have a lot of epxerience with DNN.
First of all, DNN is riddled with bugs. Bugs that are never fixed. Instead, the guys behind DNN seem to be concerned more about introducing new features than providing stability. I've personally submitted a boatload of bug reports to their tracker. How many were fixed? Virtually zero. In most cases I even took the time to provide a patch! To no avail. When they made the switch to C#, they simply closed most of the open issues because their laziness began to bite them in their ass. "In order to better manage and assess issues for fixing, any issue that has not had any activity logged previous to January 1st, 2011, will be auto-closed. " (See here)
I've been bitten by so many bugs in those years. It was a rather frustrating and unsatisfying experience.
Secondly, new features are usually problematic and faulty. DNNCorp also often decides that these new features are not that important and subsequently abandons them for new features. For instance, their taxonomy module has some serious issues when you set up multiple portals and try to use system-wide vocabularies. To my knowledge this hasn't been fixed yet. Their MetaData / ContentItem / ContentType API had some serious problems for a long time and probably still has. It's not even really used for anything, even tho it could alleviate some of the problems that I describe later down (architecture).
Thirdly, their documentation just sucks.
More importantly, I think DNN's architecture is rather outdated. It carries a lot of old baggage. Their tab / module approach makes it very hard to create structured content and make relationships between content items. As soon as you try to create complex web sites, it falls flat on its nose. Not just from a programmer's perspective, but also from the perspective of a content administrator.
The overall impression is that these people are a) not very good programmers and b) don't know what they are doing.
I have worked with both CMS systemes (and many others) and I would recommend you to use Composite C1.
It is in my experience much easier to learn and much faster to be productive in Composite C1. The UI is much better (prettier and eaiser to understand). They have lots of good resources on their website. In my POV the most powerfull feature of Composite is that you don't have to bother about the datalayer - you just create your datatypes as classes or in the GUI and a 'ORM' just make the whole thing happen. That is if you even need datatypes (changes are you don't if it's a simple website).
They're both free and open source. DotNetNuke have a lot more modules that you can buy from third party developers, but Composite C1 still have a lot of what you need.
It's easier to develop new modules in Composite just because of the whole 'ORM' concept.
Only downside I can think of when I compare these to systems is that extranet functionality (logged in users that are not admins) is built into DotNetNuke. This is a module that you have to buy from Composite or develop yourself.
Composite C1 is the best out there for custom functionality and high flexibility. I've been using it for a few weeks and my site will finally be up and running because of it. Short learning curve (speaking for myself) but still very robust and flexible. Love it because you can use Razor with it.
DotNetNuke is still using WebForms and even though it's got a huge user base, but it is somewhat outdated.
The DevExpress XAF does much basis work for you, it creates a database based on your business objects, and dynamically generates a UI based on these, with basic functions like add, delete, sort etc. already present.
This leaves me wondering how to go about properly designing and modelling an application built on this framework. I could only model my business objects, or I could identify functions provided by the framework and include them in a details model down to sequence diagram level, but so much is being done by 'external' calls that I feel I would be wasting valuable time.
I am hoping someone with experience modelling application designs for this specific framework can give me some advice on what areas I should focus on.
As for DC, as Leon mentioned above, it has many benefits compared to the regular persistent classes. If all goes according to plan, we will release the Domain Components technology in the near future, and resolve all the remaining issues with it.
If you feel that it is hard to learn, please let us know the most difficult parts you experienced. We will be glad to review them and possibly make the things easier for you and other users.
P.S.
I apologize for the delay in responding; I was on sick leave. You will receive more timely responses if you post your questions in the DevExpress Support Center.
#ProfK:
Am I correct that you are looking for something like visual designer for your business models?
If so, then I am afraid that XPO (XAF) does not currently provide such a functionality. However, you can use free third-party tools for modeling, such as Liekhus ADO.NET Entity Data Model XAF Extensions
I hope you find this information helpful.
I'm using XAF for almost two years now and I'm very happy with it. Developing an app is very quick, nice architecture, both Win and Web the same time and great UI. As with all frameworks, it has a learning curve, but if your already familiar with DevExpress controls that it's not very hard.
As Dennis mentioned, most behaviour can be overriden or extended. Regarding your modelling question, if think an important choice you have to make is whether or not you will use their Domain Components technology. Basically they have 2 ways: the old fashion way by inheriting from the XAF or XPO base classes or by using DC. DC allows a clean separation in modules and allows multiple inheritance. They can do that by generating classes runtime, but it still has some issues.
And the framework comes with a Business Class Library, a set of common classes which may be useful.
When I get stuck or cannot find the answer myself, I always use their fantastic Support Center. Most issues I ran into were already asked and answer on that site.
Briefly, each XAF application consists of Modules. There can be standard (system) and extra (user-defined) modules. Each Module can contain business objects, so-called Application Model customizations, Editors, Controllers, and Actions to provide additional business logic, customize UI and provide interaction between framework parts. You can model and customize your application on each level listed above, including but not limited by the underlying framework's metadata and data store ones. You can find more information about the framework's architecture here:
http://documentation.devexpress.com/#Xaf/CustomDocument2559
I should emphasize that it is possible to override behavior of almost every part of the framework. For instance, create your own editors for detail and list forms, override certain standard controllers, etc.
If you experience any further difficulties with our framework, feel free to contact us through our Support Center. We will be always glad to not only answer you questions, but advice a certain technical or design solution, provide some example code, etc.
I've been working in ASP.NET for several years now (since the 1.0 days!), but I've never been formally instructed. I'm fully capable of doing pretty much anything I want and I've built several production-level, data-driven sites, including one that does over a million in sales a year (according to the owner). But I'm starting to get the feeling that the holes in my knowlege are dragging my productivity down. I read a lot and try to learn wherever I can to try to stay up with all the new technologies, but sometimes I just don't get it, and I think it's because of my lack of formal training.
Does anyone have any ideas on the best way to fill in these gaps without having to rehash the fundamentals?
Thanks
1) Read the Code of popular Open Source Projects. There are a few that have some really good practices in place.
I recommend checking out BlogEngine.NET. Also if you're more ambitious, I'd suggest looking at the code for ASP.NET MVC 1.0.
2) Sometimes you need to "get back to the basics" when you've been working with a particular framework since a much earlier version. In this case, it can be really useful to pick up a book that covers some of the newer features.
Here's a good book that shows of some of the new features in C# 3.0:
C# 3.0 Design Patterns
3) It may seem odd, but reading up on other languages/platforms (such as Ruby on Rails) will help you in the way you design your classes and code by taking tips of the good and bad of different platforms and combining them.
4) Read some books on general best practices and development methodologies.
Some of these books I recommend are:
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World
Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
I'm in the same boat; been a .Net developer for 6 years. While I do have a CS degree, I don't have any formal training in ASP.Net; I learn it on the job as projects come up.
I found the best way to figure out what to learn is to keep your eye on .Net developer blogs. Some I follow:
David Hayden http://www.davidhayden.com/blog.aspx
CodingHorror.com (you might be familiar with it ;-)
Scott Hanselman http://www.hanselman.com/blog/
Usually from reading their blogs, I pick up on what the latest .Net solutions that are out there and point me in the direction of new tech I should look into further.
Overall though, I can only give you the advice I give junior devs at my company; realize you can't possibly be expected to know everything but always be eager to learn. Good luck!
I can absolutely identify. I've been programming since 1997 and really don't have any formal training to speak of. With regards to ASP.NET, everything I've learned has been through open code (Community Server, BlogEngine.NET, the other ASP.NET Starter Kits), books, LearnVisualStudio.net, and constantly being thrown in the fire.
I have a MASSIVE inferiority complex as I'm always wondering "did I do this the smart way or the inexperienced way". All I know is that my customers are happy, the errors that occur are few and are fixed quickly, and I keep getting work.
Luckily I have a passion for my work and that's what drives me to keep improving (slow though it may be).
If you're a "people person" then I think user group meetings are a great resource. I'm a bit of an introvert and unless someone who's smart reaches across and shakes my hand, I pretty much rely on the speaker's presentation to teach me something new. Probably not the best way to go and also probably why I don't go that much.
But again, I would stress the open projects, especially Community Server.
Seek out people better than you and learn from them.
Take some classes or join a user group.
If you are looking at conferences, consider finding a local Code Camp. These conferences are often very low key, but have excellent information content. They involve local presenters and attendees so you can build up your contacts and a set of people you can run things past when you need help. In addition, you might want to find (or start) a local .NET group where you can learn together. These can be hard to get off the ground, but when done well can be an excellent source of community learning.
Look for interesting ways to break your established patters - even at a loss of productivity.
Otherwise, it sounds like you are already in a pretty good spot. You can deliver on current requirements and sound like you can pick up new tricks when needed.
Really, the best way to learn new techniques is to work on a different project - even if that means changing jobs. If you have relevant and continuous experience since 2001, you should be able to pick your projects.
I've been coding PHP on a current project and it's been an interesting break from webforms. If anything, I'm getting good perspective on both models and really looking forward to doing some work in MVC.
I'll probably get some -1's for this, but as a fellow ASP.NET developer I don't think you really need to learn ALL that the framework has to offer. The reason I say that is that over the years my LACK of knowledge of all the cute little conveniences of ASP.NET has caused me to write better performing and more robust web apps for Windows. Balanced design patterns (separation of concerns) WITHOUT OVERDOING IT will make more of a "better" ASP.NET web app than using all of the controls and tools that come with the framework.
Case in point is the ajax stuff you get with ASP.NET, and also data binding. Since ASP.NET was late in the game with Ajax, I started off with my own ajax wrapper (based on an early ajax book) and then moving to jQuery. My co-workers all swear by the UpdatePanels and 3rd party controls, and quite often the user experience ends up worse and more confusing than a regular post back (and then we have to inject javascript to make it perform better and more seemlessly). As far as data binding, I've yet to find a canned control (from Microsoft or any 3rd party) that handles 2-way binding better than the framework Rick Strahl came up with back in the 1.1 days. We built a framework on top of a paper and some base classes he released, and I've yet to see something that I think handles data binding any better in ASP.NET (well...besides WPF/Silverlight...those frameworks really nailed it IMO).
So, to me, the path to upgrading your ASP.NET skills is to come up with some good ways to separate your business logic into logical components in the cleanest possible way, and learn the hell out of C# and JavaScript (and/or a JS wrapper library like jQuery). For me, coming from a LAMP background before learning ASP.NET, I absolutely love C# and Visual Studio, but I'm not such a huge fan of the high level ASP.NET controls.
This is a pretty broad question, and hard to address. I perceive myself in a similar space to you, so I guess I can elaborate on what I've been focusing on to improve as a developer which might be of some help.
I mostly write business and commerce related web apps, and my focus has been on a developing a solid understanding of separation of concerns, domain driven design, and enterprise design patterns.
Some books on general software design which I found revelatory were Code Complete by Steve McConnell and Head First Design Patterns by Freeman & Freeman.
I read SO, Code Better, DDD Step by Step, and a number of other blogs regularly.
Dissect well written code from others, and learn from them. Learn from your peers. If you're in a stifling work environment that doesn't give you the opportunity to grow as a developer, consider looking for a new job.
Learn a new language in a completely different framework - I've been teaching myself Ruby on Rails at home and it has given me an interesting perspective on the ASP.NET work that I do commercially.
Given that you're an ASP.NET web developer, learning MVC.NET will certainly help you to think about front-end development in a new, refreshing way.
If you can afford the money and time (or can get your company to pay for it), take a course at DevelopMentor. They have courses across the country and all year round. They are generally a week long and are in depth.
I was using a CASE called MAGIC for a system I'm developing, I've never used this kind of tool before and at first sight I liked, a month later I had a lot of the application generated, I felt very productive and ... I would say ... satisfied.
In some way a felt uncomfortable, cause, there is no code and everything I was used to, but in the other hand I could speed up my developing. The fact is that eventually I returned to use C# because I find it more flexible to develop, I can make unit testing, use CVS, I have access to more resources and basically I had "all the control". I felt that this tool didn't give me confidence and I thought that later in the project I could not manage it due to its forced established rules of development. And also a lot of things like sending emails, using my own controls, and other things had their complication, it seemed that at some point it was not going to be as easy as initially I thought and as initially the product claims. This reminds me a very nice article called "No Silver Bullet".
This CASE had its advantages but on the other hand it doesn't have resources you can consult and actually the license and certification are very expensive. For me another dissapointing thing is that because of its simplistic approach for development I felt scared on first hand cause of my unexperience on these kind of tools and second cause I thought that if I continued using it maybe it would have turned to be a complex monster that I could not manage later in the project.
I think it's good to use these kind of solutions to speed up things but I wonder, why aren't these programs as popular as VS.Net, J2EE, Ruby, Python, etc. if they claim to enhance productivity better than the tools I've pointed?
We use a CASE tool at my current company for code generation and we are trying to move away from it.
The benefits that it brings - a graphical representation of the code making components 'easier' to pick up for new developers - are outweighed by the disadvantges in my opinion.
Those main disadvantages are:
We cannot do automatic merges, making it close to impossible for parallel development on one component.
Developers get dependant on the tool and 'forget' how to handcode.
Just a couple questions for you:
How much productivity do you gain compared to the control that you use?
How testable and reliant is the code you create?
How well can you implement a new pattern into your design?
I can't imagine that there is a CASE out there that I could write a test first and then use a CASE to generate the code I need. I'd rather stick to resharper which can easily do my mundane tasks and retain full control of my code.
The project I'm on originally went w/ the Oracle Development Suite to put together a web application.
Over time (5+ years), customer requirements became more complex than originally anticipated, and the screens were not easily maintainable. So, the team informally decided to start doing custom (hand coded) screens in web PL/SQL, instead of generating them using the Oracle Development Suite CASE tools (Oracle Designer).
The Oracle Report Builder component of the Development Suite is still being used by the team, as it seems to "get the job done" in a timely fashion. In general, the developers using the Report Builder tool are not very comfortable coding.
In this case, it seems that the productivity aspect of such CASE tools is heavily dependent on customer requirements and developer skill sets/training/background.
Unfortunaly the Magic tool doesn't generates code and also it can't implement a design pattern. I don't have control over the code cause as i stated before it doesn't have code to modify. Te bottom line is that it can speed up productivity in some way but it has the impossibility to user CVS, patterns also and I can't control all the details.
I agree with gary when he says "it seems that the productivity aspect of such CASE tools is heavily dependent on customer requirements and developer skill sets/training/background" but also I can't agree more with Klelky;
Those main disadvantages are:
1. We cannot do automatic merges, making it close to impossible for parallel development on one component.
2.Developers get dependant on the tool and 'forget' how to handcode.
Thanks