For the benefit of customers upgrading from earlier versions, here are the details of the major changes made in the most recent versions prior to this one.
New in v8
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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. |
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. |
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. |
Topics | You can now set one or more topics covered by your publication and questions can be assigned to those 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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
Drag Constrain | Constrain dragged objects to the frame which contains them. Ideal for creating sliders or simply controlling the extent of dragged objects. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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New in v7
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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. |
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. |
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. |
Blur Effect | Apply a blur to an object with control of horizontal and vertical strength and quality. |
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. |
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.
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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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
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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 | In addition to kerning you can set the overall spacing between characters to tighten text. |
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.
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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 |
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New in v6
New in v5.5