This paper
is about the production of a CD following the 2004 IYNC conference. Although the majority of the discussion is to
do with ways of using the Conference-CD software, there are several general
points that may be of help when presenting information on CDs.
The
modified template files are available for download here.
All of the
papers and presentations had been converted to PDF format prior to the start of
the project. In addition several Word
documents had been produced to act as “menus”.
As a general comment this is not the most efficient way to use
Conference-CD which is designed to use the directory structure and filenames to
automatically generate menus. However
most people are very familiar with Word and it does enable greater flexibility
in the production of some of the navigation pages.
The clients
also wanted to have standard navigation links on every page to allow quick
navigation around the CD. As both these
points have wide applicability this paper explains the steps involved.
The
critical step with projects of this type is to plan the directory structure
well. Conference-CD will use the
directory names and file names when it generates the navigation menus and this
can save a lot of work later on.
With the
Conference-CD Professional licence it is possible to
modify the templates (basic.htt file). Each template is stored as a set of files in
its own folder. The default location is in :\Program Files\PHD\ConfCD\template\Standard. To create a new template copy one of the
folders then edit or overwrite the files within it.
The buttons
in the left margin were put in as a series of <FORM>s as:
<FORM
action="Technical%20Program/confcd.htm"><INPUT TYPE=submit
value="Technical Program" style="width:150"></FORM>
where the
action url is defined relative to the root of the
project (i.e. final CD) and the buttons are forced to line up nicely with
style=”width:150”
For this
project the standard GIF image in the top left corner of the template was
replaced with a SWF Flash animation.
This was produced very simply using www.powerbullet.com The size was defined as 150 pixels, the same
as that used for the buttons in the left margin, to avoid ugly gaps or
mismatches in some browsers.
As well as
the <OBJECT> and <EMBED> tags for the SWF file it also needs to be
added to the list of files to be copied to the confcd
directory (defined at the top of the template file).
As well as
the background JPEG these are the buttons that are used for the various menu
options:
|
Top of
page (search, contact, help etc) |
basicblo.gif, basicbhi.gif |
|
Open file |
basicup.gif, basicdn.gif |
|
Open sub
menu |
basicfup.gif, basicfdn.gif |
Each of
these has an alternative image activated by a JavaScript routine when the mouse
hovers over the button. These are easy
enough to do by taking an image then “brightening” it with a graphics
application.
If the
documents are to have hyperlinks defined within them then it is vital that the
documents stay at the same location relative to the documents they link
to! It is possible with Conference-CD to
have one HTML document called intro.htt in each
directory and this document will be integrated into the navigation page
(confcd.htm) above the links to documents or other navigation pages.
This is
easily done in Word by highlighting the word to be made into a hyperlink
(double clicking on it) then Insert, Hyperlink and choosing the file. If there are a number to do it is much easier
to use the keyboard Alt I, I, etc.
When all
the links have been defined save the document in HTML format (File, Save As Web Page). This is
a rather complicated HTML format but it isn’t too large. The main problems can be blank lines that
have an underlined space put into them (<u> </u>) or tables
that prescribe the coordinates in pixels which don’t make sense once the
document is integrated into the confcd.htm (This web page was produced by this
process!)
After you
have saved the document in HTML you will need to change the name to intro.htt so that Conference-CD will recognize it. You can still edit it with Word by right
clicking and choosing Open With Word, this should render it pretty much in its
original form (unless there was anything very fancy).
The
penultimate screen in the Conference-CD wizard has a tick box to run in Test
Mode. This enables some ActiveX controls
when the confcd.htm pages are opened in Internet Explorer that allows the
navigation menu options to be amended.
Work your way through all the navigation pages altering the order,
changing the descriptions or hiding items.
As mentioned before this process is much easier if the layout and
file/directory names are thought out in advance.
For some
complex directory structures the ActiveX system does not always produce the
desired result. In these cases you will
need to manually edit the project file (normally saved in My Documents with
file type .CCD) you can carefully edit this with a text editor.
The format
for controlling the appearance of items on the navigation menu pages (confcd.htm)
is under the [Files] section with each line following the format:
Path,
Alternative Title, Position, x if not to display
i.e.
TechProg,Technical Program, 1
would
show folder “TechProg” top of the list described as
“Technical Program”
or
Sponsors/image001.jpg,,,x
would
hide the file “image001.jpg” on the menu page generated for the folder
“Sponsors”
Once you
have got the layout as you want it you will need to re-run the Wizard with the
Test Mode option de-selected. This will
produce the navigation pages without the ActiveX buttons.
For this
project is was required that the standard help file be
slightly modified. The generated page is
stored in the ImageDirectory\confcd\info.htm
the relevant part of the body of this file can be edited using a text
editor. It is a good idea to save just
the edited part of the file somewhere else so that it can be copied back over
the default text if the image needs to be regenerated. (If you copy the whole
file then any changes to the template will be overwritten).
An
additional complication was the need to have a dropdown list of several
contacts and this also had to be done by overwriting a part of the default
generated page. ImageDirectory\confcd\contact.htm
To do this
replace the <INPUT TYPE=text NAME=”eaddr”> with
a select box
<SELECT
NAME="eaddr">
<OPTION
VALUE="name1@xyz.org">Technical Program</OPTION>
<OPTION
VALUE="name2@xyz.org">IYNC 2006</OPTION>
<OPTION VALUE="name3@xyz.org">General
IYNC</OPTION>
</SELECT>
Again save
just the bit you have changed elsewhere.