[Etoys] latest status of save/revert in bookmorphs

[Scott Wallace]

Hi, all,

Update 1071bookSaveRevert-sw undertakes to merge and bring out the  
best features of each of the two disparate schemes formerly in place.


(1)  As before, all revertibility is predicated on an explicit prior  
"save for later revert."


(2)  From the user's point of view:  when going through a tutorial  
housed in a BookMorph whose author has earlier done a "save entire  
book", the user can choose either of the following items from the  
main Book menu at any point:

        [a]  revert this page
        [b]  revert entire book.

The single-page revert discards any changes the user may have made to  
the page, and reverts it the pristine version the author has prepared  
for it.  The "entire-book" revert discards any changes the user may  
have made anywhere in the book, including page insertions, page  
deletions, edits on a page, and page-sorting, and restores the  
original list of pages in the original order.


(3)  The normal authoring procedure will be to create the BookMorph,  
get it into exactly the state you want it to be in when the user  
first loads it, then choose "save entire book for later revert" from  
the Book menu.  Except in unusual circumstances, this will probably  
be the final step in publishing a BookMorph-based tutorial.

Any pre-existing BookMorph content can be made "revert-friendly" by  
loading it, then telling it to "save entire book for later revert,"  
then republishing.


(4)  Note that when using the "short form" of the Book control panel,  
clicking on its menu icon will now bring up a "short form" of the  
Book Menu, which offers the "revert" commands and a few other things  
of general interest to non-author users of the book, such as "find."   
For the more author-like options relating to building the book,  
switch to the long form of the Book control panel.


(5)  Finally, note that the Viewer for a BookMorph now offers tiles  
for revert-this-page and revert-entire-book, so authors wanting to  
bring the "revert" feature to the attention of their users can make  
their own "revert" buttons and position them on their pages.


Cheers,

  -- Scott