Use Variable Description

approg
approg Community Member Posts: 258 ♪ Opening Act ♪
When creating a new user variable allow a description to also be included with the variable (so those of us that come afterwards can know what a variable is meant for).

Comments

  • klaatu
    klaatu Community Member Posts: 986 ☆ Roadie ☆
    You should always provide a descriptive name for the variable that will provide for its meaning. You can also, if needed, add a note (Tools menu) on the page the variable is assigned a value. Notes can only be seen in edit mode.

    Darrel
  • approg
    approg Community Member Posts: 258 ♪ Opening Act ♪
    That's fine if there is only handful of custom variables but in titles with numerous custom variables a descriptive name won't necessarily be unambiguous e.g. is the custom variable "usersname" the user's full name, just their first name, in the format last name comma first name...

    Lectora already provides a dialog box to manage variables. Surely having a text box to add a description for a variable is less error prone and more sensible than any other way?
  • timk
    timk Community Member Posts: 1,242 ✭ Legend ✭
    Should be possible, there's a Description field for Reserved variables as well.

    You can of course use Darrels suggestion or just write all your infos to a normal textfield and keep it outside the stage. Then you can use all the normal formatting and inheritance options, so it should be more easily maintainable than a description field in the variable manager.
  • jvalley4735
    jvalley4735 Community Member Posts: 1,310 ♪ Opening Act ♪
    Great suggestion! I've brought it up to the development team.
  • web-foley
    web-foley Community Member Posts: 62 ✶ Headliner ✶
    I love this suggestion for user-defined variable descriptions and really disappointed that it has not need implemented by now. Extremely useful for multi-developer projects or where different developers share work with different teams. I'm a bit concerned that the development team has been told this and instead have opted to spend time on things like Lectora F21 Palm-Pilot black and white GUI circa 2001 and not this.
  • tasiala
    tasiala Moderator Posts: 55 eLearning ROCKSTAR Stage Manager
    @web-foley we will have this in our soon to be released v21
  • approg
    approg Community Member Posts: 258 ♪ Opening Act ♪
    Just noticed this in v.21. Thanks for adding it.