Writing & Editing

Question Files

At some point, you are going to need to edit a question file. This may occur either because:

The MicroTest program did not export the question file in a form that can be read by AppletQuiz.
You need to add images (or color, style, size, or font information - some fancy stuff) to a question.
You don't have a MicroTest test generator program.

What to Use:

Here's the deal:

USE THE SIMPLEST TEXT EDITOR THAT YOU CAN FIND!

On the Mac, use SimpleText, or (if you are a programmer), the text editor you use to write code. For the IBM world, I have no specific suggestions. Sorry.

How to Use It:

If you are forced to use a "fancy-schmancy" word processor like Microsoft Word or ClarisWorks, be sure that you save your question files in "text" format. You will have to use "Save As..." and change the file format to "text" before saving the file. Also, do not use fancy fonts, styles, colors, or formats (AppletQuiz can change fonts, styles, and colors, but not this way...) in your question files.

AppletQuiz will NOT be able to read and interpret question files that are saved in any format other than "text". If you are having trouble getting AppletQuiz to read your question files, this is probably the problem.

Note for MicroTest Users:

When you edit a question file produced by the MicroTest program, you will run across tokens in the separator lines that you won't recognize - things like "C 4" and "Q 27". Although these tokens are not used by the AppletQuiz applet ("C" stands for "Chapter number", and "Q" stands for "Question number", and there are several others...) they will not confuse the applet. You can leave them as you find them, or you can take them out. The operation of the applet will not be affected.

last update May 12, 1999 by JL Stanbrough (jstanbro@venus.net)