Question Object

We have completely overhauled our question and scoring system so making quizzes and test is now fully-automated but remains fully-customisable and thereby still lets you use the full power of Opus when you need it.

The core of this change is the new Question Object which allows you to create a container for the content of your question, tell Oopus what kind of question it is and let Opus do all the scoring for you.

Introducing the Question Object

Question Actions

Triggers and actions specific to the new question and scoring system have also been included. Most obvious and useful is the ability to indicate a particular answer and to confirm or submit answers.

Introducing the Question Triggers

Introducing the Question Actions

Question Variables

Specialised question variables have been included to keep track more aspects of scoring automatically. You can now access the total number of questions, how many questions are still to be answered, the possible score the user might achieve even if they answer all the remaining quesitons correctly and much more. These are distinct from the standard scoring variables and all have Q_ at the beginning of their name to distinguish them.

Question Variables - Glossary

Topics

You can now set one or more topics covered by your publication and questions can be assigned to those topics.

Using Topics

Critical Pass

For competency assurance in tests you can set specific questions to be topic critical or course critical which means the user MUST get these questions right or they will fail the topic or the course whatever score they get for the rest of the quiz.

Resize Mode

A new resize mode allows you to rescale groups of objects easily – even the font is rescaled.

Resize Mode

YouTube embedding

You can now embed YouTube video in your publication (including Flash publications). You can set the video to display with or without the YouTube controls. Obviously your user requires an internet connection to view the videos when the publication is run.

You Tube Video

Screenshot Image

Grab an image of your publication screen at any time and save it as an file. Note that Flash does not support file saving so this function will not work in Opus Flex publications - use a single instance of the Snapshot Gallery features below.

Actions: Save Screen as Image

Screen Snapshot Gallery

Set your publication to save snapshots of each page and then save or print a gallery of those pages. Ideal for letting pupils keep a visual record of their progress.

Save Screen Snapshot

Print Snapshot Gallery

Button Up/Down Trigger

You can now trigger actions specifically when a button is up or when it is down – primarily to make it much easier to use checkbox and radio style buttons.

the Button Down trigger

the Button Up trigger

Access Master Page Objects

You can now access objects on a Master Page with actions on other pages allowing you to show, hide, enable and disable objects on Master Pages. Ideal for setting different navigation options for pages without having multiple masters.

Shuffle Positions

Set objects to shuffle their positions. Ideal for randomising the position of multiple-choice questions.

Shuffle Positions

Drag Constrain

Constrain dragged objects to the frame which contains them. Ideal for creating sliders or simply controlling the extent of dragged objects.

Drag and Drop

Drop Alignment

Dropped objects can now be set to align on top of each other or alongside so multiple dropped objects can still be seen.

Drag and Drop

Store Drag and Drop

Opus will now allow you to restore the state of a drag and drop page when it is revisited allowing users to come back to a page and change their drag and drop objects without having to start all over again.

Drag and Drop

Reset Dropped Object

This also means that, at times, you will want to force the drag and drop objects to be reset. A new action has been provided to facilitate this.

the Reset Dropped Object action

Replace Dropped Object

This setting means that if there is already an object in the drop zone it will be replaced when a new object is dropped onto the zone. The replaced object will return to its original location.

Drag and Drop

Radio Buttons

A vast array of ready-made radio buttons are now provided. Basic ones are provided on the Button toolbar whilst more variations are provided in a Component Gallery.

Checkboxes

A similar collection of checkboxes are also provided in the Checkbox component gallery.

Sliders

We’ve now included several slider objects including a linear slider and a radial slider.

Tween Animation

The major additoin in v7 was the tween animation object. This means you can now create tween animations simply by setting a start and end to an animation. Opus will then create the frames in between. You set an object’s position, colour, rotation and transforms at two or more keyframes and Opus generates a smooth animation between.

A new timeline interface is provided to let you tweak the position of keyframes and control the length of the animation. You can have multiple objects in a tween frame and even nest tweens inside other tweens or the whole tween frame can be animated as well.

Tween Object - Overview

Node Tweening

The tween function also includes support for node tweening meaning you can morph the shape of an object by editing its nodes at each of its keyframes to create fluid and sophisticated animation.

Node Tweening

Pause/Resume Audio

You can now set an action to pause an audio file or to pause all audio on the page. There is a corresponding Restart Audio action.

the Pause Audio action

the Resume Audio action

Blur Effect

Apply a blur to an object with control of horizontal and vertical strength and quality.

Blur Effect

Blur Transition

You can now create a range of stylish checkboxes and radio buttons quickly and simply by applying a new range of special borders to the default/mouseover/mousedown states of buttons.

Enable/Disable multiple objects

The enable and disable actions now use a multiselect checkbox list so that you can select a variety of objects to enable or disable with a single action.

Initially Disabled

Objects can now be set to start up in their disabled mode.

Play/Stop Multiframes

You can now program a trigger to play or stop a multiframe.

Introducing the Multiframe Actions

Quick Publish

Publishes uses the settings and location you used last and therefore avoids going through the Publish Wizard when you do not need to change any of the settings. Saves significant amounts of time when testing your publication.

Quick Publish and Test

Quickly publishes in the same way as Quick Publish and then immediately tests the publication as though you clicked the Test button at the end of the Publish Wizard.

Reverse Score

You can now reverse a mark which has already been registered with the inbuilt Opus scoring variables making it much easier for a student to revise a question they have already taken.

Reverse Score

Drag Select Zoom

You can now zoom into a specific area of your page by dragging a selection rectangle around an area. Click and drag the zoom tool to create a selection bounding box around the area and Opus will zoom in to the appropriate magnification level (up to the maximum zoom level of 1600%).

QuickBuild Rename

When adding numbers to objects renamed using QuickBuild you can set reverse object order.

QuickBuild Insert Placeholder text

Designers familiar with the need to illustrate blocks of text without having the final text available will love this quick build option which allows you to quickly fill a text box with faux latin in the time-honoured fashion of Lorem ipsum dolor.

Insert Placeholder Text

Vista Program Data Variable

System Variable support for Vista Program Data Directory. You can now specify file locations for launch file action to the Vista Program Data Directory using a dedicated system variable.

Preset and System Variables

Direct Flash Player support

Opus now uses the Adobe Flash player directly to replay Flash movies. Keeps your Flash playback capability up to date and there’s no need for Quicktime.

FLV support

Opus now supports FLV both in Flash output and other publication types.

Border Line Styles

The Opus line styles can now be used as borders for objects.

Report Encryption

The files created by the report action can now be encrypted so the results can be used for student test reports and remain secure.

Windows Theme Support

Buttons can now use the Windows theme allowing use of Vista style buttons automatically.

Uncompressed Player

The Publish Settings now include the option to use an uncompressed Opus player when publishing. This will increase the size of small publications quite noticeably but it allows you to use high quality icons for your output and to apply third party security settings.

Unicode Support

Opus now supports Unicode enabling you to display the full character sets and support all language scripts including Cyrrilic, Korean etc. Supported by animations and Flex. Please note that Unicode is not supported in variables.

Kerning

The version allows full control over the kerning between particular characters. A default setting is provided suitable for improving all everyday text but where designers want to make specific design choices the setting can be edited via text files allowing you to create multiple files for custom sets of kerning pairs. Supported in Flex.

Character Spacing and Kerning

Character Spacing

In addition to kerning you can set the overall spacing between characters to tighten text.

Character Spacing and Kerning

Text Layout Dialog

The dialog to change font, paragraph and tabs settings is now tabbed so changes can be made to all aspects and applied without closing and reopening dialog.

Major Improvements to Flash Support

Movie Resizing and Scale to Fit

Flex will now use the Chapter Properties to set whether the resulting Flash movie will be scaled to fit the window or a fixed size as it did with previous versions.

Right Mouse Triggers

You don’t even get this in Flash itself! Many training simulations use right mouse triggers but Flash commandeers them Flex gives you that crucial functionality back (subject to browser support).

Blend, Blur & Flare Effects

Flex publications can now use the Flare and Blend effects available in standard Opus publications, as well as the new Blur effect.

Line Styles and Caps

Flex publications can now use the custom line styles and the end caps available in standard Opus publications, including their use as border styles.

Print Action

You can now set Flash actions to print the current page and/or objects on it.

Extended Variable support

We’ve extended and improved the support for Opus System variables in Flex publications including Page Title and Publication Title.

Multiframe Support

Multiframes can now be used in Flash output

Version Targetting

Flex now allows you to publish to specific versions of Flash. Target up to v10 including Lite versions for mobile platforms.

Support for Flash Type

A huge improvement in the way text displayed in Flash files is now provided via support for FlashType with a new optional setting on the text dialog.

Improved Text Control

The new kerning functions and other text improvements are also now supported in Flash output. Combined with FlashType support the text output is our best ever.

Text Output Type

You can now specify individual pieces of text as static or dynamic to ensure text containing variables is updateable.

ActionScript Pass-through

Flash Actionscript up to v2 can be typed in an Opus script object and will be actioned when published to Flash. Note that for obvious reasons Actionscript cannot access Opus objects.

Direct Flash Player support

Opus now uses the Adobe Flash player directly to replay Flash movies. Keeps your Flash playback capability up to date and there’s no need for Quicktime.

FLV support

Opus now supports FLV both in Flash output and other publication types.

Shared Object support

The new Flash Shared Object can be access and used using an Actionscript template allowing much greater communication between the Flash movie and other applications or functions on the site.

Script Console

To help debug Flash movies you can include the Opus Script Console to watch variables and so on.

Password Masking

The option to mask text input for the input of passwords is now supported in Flex publications

Drawing Tool Scripting

Pro versions of Opus now include commands to draw lines and shapes within you publication. There are functions to draw lines, rectangles, polygons, ellipses and even sine waves and arcs. You can add or remove points or you can move points to new positions. There’s also a DrawClear function to erase the drawing.

External DLL Support

It is now possible to load DLLs and call functions in those DLLs from OpusScript. This allows Opus to be extended in the specific directions you need for a particular project without bloating all projects. As an example we have provided a simple DLL which allows you to use a standard Windows Colour Selector to allow the user to choose a colour. This function is also useful for using standard Windows’ Message boxes to provide messages to your user and respond to the button they press in response. Further details are provided in the Script Help.

Update Publication

Publications can now be updated quickly and easily. Supply or download new pages or chapters to a specified location and the Update Publication action will update the publication with those pages. The Publishing process has now been changed slightly to facilitate this update process. You can choose whether to update the whole publication, specific chapters or individual pages.

Modern button styles

The default look of button object in Opus has been updated to a modern Windows XP style. Two new styles are available, plus the original Opus button style. There is also a range of border styles to allow you to convert buttons (or any other objects) to Vista-style buttons.

Checkbox styles

You can now create a range of stylish checkboxes and radio buttons quickly and simply by applying a new range of special borders to the default/mouseover/mousedown states of buttons.

Text can be modified for object states

This powerful new feature allows you to change the style of text – or even the text itself – for each state of a text item (mouse over, disabled, etc).

QuickAnim

Easily add a range of fun ready-made animation actions directly from the Actions dialog in the Opus editor. Includes many new presets such as Penguin Waddle, PulseBeat, Kaboom, Slow Boat etc.

3D Flip Transitions

Additional 3D transitions to open objects as though turning over a card or photograph. There are several additions to our existing range including a superb set of transitions and text animations from Graphics in Action.

Exclude from Random

You can now exclude pages from the list of pages used by the Go to Random Page action. This means you no longer have to put the random pages in a separate chapter and link to it from elsewhere, which prevented the first page from being picked at random.

Go to Random frame in a MultiFrame action

Jump to a random frame within a MultiFrame object. Repeated calls on the same frame will not repeat until every frame has been viewed. This is very useful fro creating random quiz frames without the need to create a new frame for each question.

QuickBuild Rename

The QuickBuild Rename function makes it easy to do the donkeywork of keeping your objects named with something more memorable or descriptive than the default labels. Now Rename can include additional representing the type of object.

QuickBuild Index

The QuickBuild Create Menu option now allows you to create the links using text and/or rollover objects as well as buttons. This makes the function even more versatile and means it’s easy to create index or contents pages for your publication.

Change Transparency

Set the transparency of an object via an Action.

Multiframe Labels

Now when using the Go to Specific Frame Action the name of the frame you have chosen is displayed next to the index for easier identification.

Organiser Highlight Colours

Assign colours to Publication, Chapter and Page entries in the Organiser view. Ideal for differentiating parts of large publications or marking sections as complete or in progress.

Line Cap Scale

The size of line caps can be scaled independently of the line itself allowing you to vary the size of arrowheads or match other line caps more accurately to the line thickness.

New Line Styles & Caps

Additional line styles are now included and a special arrowhead linecap has been added for marking dimensions.

Variable Watch Window

Watch the values of variables during the editor preview. Makes debugging complex publications simpler.

E-Portfolio/Workgroup functions

You can distribute your publication to colleagues, mentors, teachers or examiners for them to view and comment on your work in progress without Opus. They can add comments anywhere on your pages and these can be emailed back to you to be read in situ.

Publication evaluation time in minutes

Limit the total amount of time an evaluation publication is allowed to run before expiring. In addition, the publication evaluation period can now be up to 999 days.

Import/Export Variables

Page and publication variables can be exported to a file for easy import into other publications.

Multiple Monitor support

The monitor used on a multi-monitor system can be specified for the main publication window and any chapter windows. Useful for in person training materials where the trainer can view a separate chapter to the trainee or anywhere there needs to be a control chapter and a display chapter.

Font Usage Tool

An editor based tool which allows you to identify the fonts being used in your publication and which objects are using them. This can be useful for checking that you have changed all instances of a font or that your use of fonts has been consistent.

Ornamental Fonts

We have now provided a set of specialised symbol fonts providing an extensive and versatile selection of multimedia symbols including fast forward, rewind, stop and play in several versions, mute, home, exit and so on.

As a font you can either type this onto buttons as text captions or you can type as text and then convert to vector graphics using the Convert to.. option on the right mouse menu.

Change Master Page

A function within the editor to quickly swap instances of a particular master page with another. This is useful where you regularly use the same presentation in a different range of styles or colour schemes – perhaps to match client colours or to set a different tone. Each page can be kept in the publication and swapped in and out easily.

Set Initial Chapter Window Position

Script functions are now provided allowing you to set the initial position of a new chapter window from within the publication.

Optional mouse wheel action in editor

The Opus editor used to default to rotate the selected object when the mouse wheel was used. This is now optional.

Secure Web Post

The Web Post action supports secure (HTTPS) mode.

INI File write function

SetINIFileData() script function to write to INI files (complements existing read functions)

System Key State functions

Read and set the state of the Caps Lock, Num Lock and Scroll Lock keys from script functions.

Report actions

Report actions have been improved to allow up to five report files to be opened at once, to allow multiple types of data to be collected easily.

All XE features

In this version we also merged Opus pro and Opus Pro XE and v6 included all the features previously reserved for XE including security and evaluation features.

Report actions

Actions to write information to a log file – particularly based on activity in the publication. By default the log action writes the current trigger, object name and time to the file.

These can be used in educational publications to record a student's progress through a publication or can track the progress through a sales presentation so that the meeting with the customer can be reviewed afterwards. These functions can also be used for any kind of background logging.

Comment object

Add "sticky note" style comments to pages. These are particularly useful for reminders and notes between authors when multiple people are working on a project collaboratively. There are editor functions to import and export comments.

DVD Hotspot Images

DVD hotspots can now be simple images, instead of an outline rectangle. The best way to use these images is to set the hotspots on empty frames next to the menu items, rather than setting the hotspot on the item itself.

DVD Chapter points

Chapter points can now be set within DVD video pages. These can be marked interactively using the Time Marker Dialog during a preview and copied to the chapter points when publishing to video.

Additional Script templates

Additional script template functions (available via QuickBuild?Script Templates) providing useful functions for modifying text and performing perspective calculations for simulated 3D.

Automatic Master Pages

New option in Tools ? Options ? More to automatically use the first available Master Page in the current chapter (or publication if there is no master page in the chapter) for new pages.

GetTrackLength() script function

GetTrackLength() script function added to the CD Audio script object. Returns the length of a given Audio CD track.

Sample Browser

Sample Browser available from the File Menu. Allows direct instant access to the supplied samples from within Opus itself.

QuickBuild toolbar

QuickBuild tools are now available in the toolbar Customise options.