The more idiot proof you make something the better class of idiot you find.

Kevsoft RISC OS Software MyQuiz

Kevsoft RISC OS Software

The Kevsoft QuizEngine

Current Version

The current version of the Kevsoft QuizEngine is 1.02

Downloads

You will only need to download the Skeleton application for the first time using it, the Quiz Engine download will be if and when the quiz engine gets updated that can be downloaded then copied into your working application.

How to make your own quiz application.

Unzip the MyQuiz/zip and copy it somewhere on your computer. Which should look something like the image below.

Inside of !MyQuiz

Rename !MyQuiz to what you want ot call your quiz keeping the exclamation mark at the beginning, for example change from !MyQuiz to !AcornQuiz

Load the following four files into your text editor of choice !Boot, !Help, !Run and !RunImage and do a search and replace with MyQuiz to what you are calling your quiz application. In the image below we will change MyQuiz to AcornQuiz.

Replacing MyQuiz with AcornQuiz

With !Sprites and !Sprites22 delete kevsoft and kevsoftsm and put your own logos in those 2 sprite files. Also delete !myquiz sprite and put your own application sprite in there.

The files ccode and pics are related in which your image files live inside pics and ccode is what you call the individual sprite. One name per line on ccode. So for example if you are doing a quiz on computers produced by Acorn, then you had a sprite called bbcb in pics, then on ccode you would have bbcb on one line and another image of an Acorn Electron called elct then the next line on ccode would be elct and so on, until you have every image matched with a line on ccode.

You may have some images that are so close to other in looks that it would be unfair to have them come up as options on the same question, that is where the file dup comes in. For example the RISC PC610, 710 and Strong ARM machines look the same from the outside.So if we called them rispc610, rispc710 nnd strongarm we would change the following, from the dup file which you would load into your text editor and see image below

Duplicate what to change

Then change it with what is shown on the image below

Duplicate what has changed

What that does is basically when it finds an answer that has more than one possible answer it will stop those answers being an option.

The misc file is where you change certain items about your quiz application, the following do:
logo1 is the logo that appears when the opening banner is displayed and that lives in !Sprites and !Sprites22
logo2: is where the name of the smaller logo and is displayed on the main quiz window.
web: is the URL of where to get more information about your quiz application can be found. Clicking on the logo2 in the main window will open your browser to there.
quest: is the number of question you want the quiz to ask.
ibar: is if you want text to appear under it‘s icon on the iconbar with N or for no and Y for yes.
version: is the version of your quiz application how you number that is up to you.

Contents of the misc file

The Lang directory contains the language files in sub directories, inside each of those directories are 3 files called Help, message and Name. These 3 files are all message files. The Help file contains the text that appears when some one uses an interactive help application and needs very few changes, which will be changing MyQuiz to what your application is called and .... to what you want to put their. The Message is where the text for the window titles, icons and menus appear and the same changes to be made here. The file called Name which is blank must contain the same case and codes used in ccode with the wording of the answers. For example if you are doing a quiz on Acorn computers you could have:
rpc610:RISC PC610
rpc710:RISC PC710
stronarm:Strong ARM RISC PC
bbcb:BBC Model B
And so on. One point to note is that the last line in a message file is not read by the computer so put a blank line or something that will not be shown.

This will need to be repeated for each of the languages you wish to support.

Before Releasing Your Quiz Application.

Before you release your application into the wild you must make sure your application name is unique. To do so you will need to download the Allocate application from RISC OS Open and follow the instruction on that page. Also test it before hand.

Good luck in designing and releasing your own quizzes.