Embedding eXe Resources

eXe allows you to include several different types of file or web-based resources in your content. These include images, media (video and audio clips), mathematical graphics (using LaTeX), and attachments of any file type, and are available to any iDevice's TinyMCE-based rich-text fields.  In most all cases, you have the choice of either embedding the actual file into your e-learning package, or providing an external link to web-hosted resources.

This eXe manual page will start off by describing how you can include images within your eXe content. All other media types essentially build upon the same patterns used with images, and your knowledge will evolve from there.

Including images

The TinyMCE image button allows you to include images just about anywhere within your content, in any rich-text field.

The process of including images is very simply to edit any iDevice's rich-text field, and click on TinyMCE's image button to open the image dialog box. This is illustrated below using the Activity iDevice as an example:

Within the image dialog box, you may choose to either:

•     specify the URL to an externally hosted Web-based image
•     or, click on the image file-browser button to choose and embed a local image file

Then

• click "Insert" in TinyMCE's image dialog,
• click eXe's green "Done" check mark,
• and there you have it, an image!

Including Web based images

Images which are hosted anywhere on the web may be included in your content. Such images will be linked into your content and will appear the same as local File-based images, but the image data itself will not be saved with your content. This means that your eXe project and its exported content will be smaller and more "lightweight", but will therefore require network access to the various web locations in order to view the images. Only include Web-based images into your content when you are not concerned about network access issues, or when your content is itself to be published onto the web.

To include a Web-based image within your content, simply specify the URL for the Web-based image into the image dialog's Image URL field and hit [RETURN] to load it into the image dialog box's Preview pane. The following example shows one of eXe's Flickr-hosted images:

You will usually find that the image is larger than fits within the Preview pane, but you may use the Preview pane's horizontal and vertical scrollbars to effectively pan around and see more of the image.

Now is a good time to notice the current size of the image ("Dimensions" shows 500 x 375 pixels in the above example), and to change it as necessary for your content.  Note that the original image will be retained, so you can always come back and change its size again later without any problem. Please see Modifying the Image Size below, in the Modifying Image Attributes section of this page for further discussion of the size attribute.

Notice that the image dialog has had its "General" tab active so far.  More image attributes may be adjusted in the image dialog's "Appearance" tab, as discussed in the Modifying Image Attributes section of this page.  For now, though, go ahead and click on the image dialog's "Insert" button:

Once you have clicked the "Insert" button, the TinyMCE image dialog box closes and the image itself is shown within the current iDevice's active TinyMCE rich-text field where you are returned to editing, appearing something like this:

At this point, the image is shown within the content of the iDevice that you are currently editing. You may continue editing that iDevice, possibly even adding more images if you wish. Once you are finished editing that iDevice, click on the iDevice's green "Done" check mark to "record" the content into the iDevice and switch eXe's authoring pane from edit mode back to preview mode. The inserted image should appear something like this:

 Your Web-based image has now been successfully included within your project's content!

Including Local file based images

Local image files (of type .jpg, .jpeg, .png, or .gif) may also be included in your content. To a typical user, the difference in viewing a File-based image as compared to a Web-based image would be rather unnoticeable, assuming that network connectivity exists to the Web-based image's external web host.  And it is the issues around network connectivity that really bring File-based images into play.

Unlike Web-based images, which are dynamically loaded from their external web hosts each time they are viewed, any file-based images will be embedded into, and included with, your project. While this does make for a larger eXe project file and exported content, it also ensures portability. This is especially important if your content is to be viewed (or even re-authored) in a network-restricted or offline setting. If you intend on publishing your exported content onto CD or other transportable medium for offline viewing, then you really should embed all of your images (and any other media) from local files.

The process of including a file-based image is very similar to the above steps for including a Web-based image, with the primary differences being: 

•  use the TinyMCE image dialog's file-browser button to choose and preview your image
• the iDevice's green check mark not only finishes editing the iDevice, but also does the actual image-file embedding.

To include a local File-based image within your content, start by clicking on the image dialog's file-browser button, to the right of the Image URL field:

A file browser for your operating system will then appear, with which you may navigate to, and select, the local image file of interest.

Once you select your local image file, the image will be loaded into the image dialog's Preview pane, and a temporary "preview path" will be shown in the image dialog's Image URL:

The "preview path" is only a temporary location for the image file, as TinyMCE provides to eXe a copy of the file that is to be embedded. Later, once you have finished editing the iDevice and click on the green "Done" check mark, eXe further processes the image file into an embedded eXe resource.

Note that you should not modify this preview path. Any changes to this path can render its image unembedded and unviewable in the content.

Just as with Web-based images, you will usually find that the image is larger than fits within the Preview pane, but you may use the Preview pane's horizontal and vertical scrollbars to effectively pan around and see more of the image.  Likewise, now is a good time to notice the current size of the image ("Dimensions" shows 500 x 375 pixels in the above example), and to change it as necessary for your content.  Note that the original image will be retained, so you can always come back and change its size again later without any problem. Please see Modifying the Image Size below, in the Modifying Image Attributes section of this page for further discussion of the size attribute.

The following shows how this example image might be modified to instead show as 400 pixels wide, and a corresponding height, by keeping the "Constrain Proportions" option checked:

Notice that the image dialog has had its "General" tab active so far. Just as with Web-based images, more image attributes may be adjusted in the image dialog's "Appearance" tab.  For now, though, go ahead and click on the image dialog's "Insert" button:

Once you have clicked the "Insert" button, the TinyMCE image dialog box closes and the image itself is shown within the current iDevice's active TinyMCE rich-text field where you are returned to editing, appearing something like this:

At this point, the image is shown within the content of the iDevice that you are currently editing. You may continue editing that iDevice, possibly even adding more images if you wish. Once you are finished editing that iDevice, click on the iDevice's green "Done" check mark to "record" the content into the iDevice and switch eXe's authoring pane from edit mode back to preview mode.

Furthermore, as relates to local File-based images (or other such resources), eXe's green "Done" check mark will also perform the actual embedding process, thereby including it as an internal eXe "resource" within your project.

The inserted image should appear something like this:

Your local File-based image has now been successfully embedded into your project and included within its content!