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how to use javascript and shockwave

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the shockwave multiple choice quizzer
The shockwave quizzer is a versatile web page tool that can re-purposed to build your own collections of multiple choice quizzes. It reads in all of the content for a quiz from text files, so you can create new quizzes just by creating new data files. It features a scrolling menu of different quizzes that you can make available.

saw The Shockwave quizzer does what it can to make each quiz seem different. For each quiz data file, the questions are presented in a random order, and the answer choices are also randomized. Each answer choice can have customized feedback messages. Unlike our JavaScript counterpart, the answer key is not accessible, as the names of the quiz data files are encoded by a mathematical key, and the data files are not a part of nor linked to the web page.

You can create as few or as many questions as you like. The quizzer is set up to score the first answer the user clicks. At the end, they see a raw score and a percentage, as well as a list of what question topics they missed. They can then re-take the quiz (which again is randomly scrambled).

Because the data files look pretty cryptic, and the complex method we've used to encode data file names, we have created a graphical desktop program that you can use to create and modify your quiz data files. It will also compile the sets of tests you want displayed, and then create the HTML page needed to display the shockwave. For this one, you need never touch the HTML!

quizzer examples
We have a demo example that includes short quizzes on Multimedia, Mathematics, and Geology.

what you will need
You will need to download a small archive of two Shockwave files. One is the menu part and the other is the quiz part. Note that to run a Shockwave enabled web page from your desktop computer, the files must be inside a folder called "DswMedia" (note that your files can be several folder levels inside).

In addition, you will need to get a copy of our QuizMaker program, available from the sites below:

how to

  1. Launch the "QuizMaker" program. [full-size screen image]
  2. Click the new quiz file button.
  3. Type a name to describe your quiz in the indicated field. [full-size screen image]
  4. Click the edit questions button. The program by default creates 5 blank items for you.[full-size screen image]

    QuizMaker Screen

  5. Now you will see the question editing screen.
  6. Type a topic name for each question in the top field.
  7. Type the quiz item question in the green box.
  8. Type the four answer choices in the fields provided. For each one clicked, you can also edit the yellow feedback field. The order does not matter since the program will shuffle the order.
  9. The last step is to SHIFT-click on the answer choice that is the correct answer.
  10. Use the next and prev buttons to navigate between questions.
  11. Click the new question button to add a question to the initial set of 5. Likewise, you can remove questions with the delete button.
  12. Click the save button when you are done editing. You will be prompted to locate the "quizzer.dcr" file that is part of the download package. This is done so the quizzer knows where to write the quiz data files. Your quiz data file will be saved as a text file of scrambled letters that end in ".swq"
  13. You can now create a new quiz, or use the open quiz file button to edit an existing quiz file.
  14. The last step is to compile all of the tests that you want displayed on your menu. Click the compile HTML button. The program will ask you to select each ".swq" file. After you have chosen the last file, click the Cancel button in the Open dialog box. The clicker will now create an HTML file that includes all of the code to embed Shockwave for NetScape or Internet Explorer browsers.
  15. Finally, test the newly created HTML file in your favorite, Shockwave enabled web browser.

what's next
Now you may select any of the other Shockwave examples from the navigation menu at the top of this page. Or as an alternative, you can compare the quiz created with Shockwave to another one you can create using JavaScript, shown in JavaScript Example 2.