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[XPOST] [REQ] open source multimedia authoring tools? In python maybe?

Kevin Ollivier kevino at tulane.edu
Thu Nov 6 13:27:03 EST 2003 
Hi,

I'm working on just what you are asking for. =) It's called
EClass.Builder and it basically is for creating HTML-based e-learning
modules for delivery via Internet/CD-ROM. It's built using wxPython,
and while it currently does the basic stuff (lets you add
audio/video/etc. into web pages), it has some nice features like
full-text indexing and basic auto-grading quiz support. In the future
I want to move more into Internet-enabled courses that leverage
PHP/MySQL.

Best of all, it's extensible - if you wanted to add a 'plugin' for
building photo albums (or maybe a 'slide builder'), you could. If you
wanted to build a theme for your courses, you could - all without
editing the main program. I'd love to hear from the techies about the
program - currently I am working on it myself for the most part. (My
end users are currently mostly professors, no Python programmers!) It
is a work in progress, but the core is there - mostly it needs more
plugins, better HTML editing support (it uses Mozilla/wxMozilla as a
rich text editor using the Web Page plugin) and support for more
advanced templating.

Check it out at:

http://www.eclass.net

BTW, if you don't mind playing with the latest and greatest software,
you can get the latest beta at:

http://www.eclass.net/Downloads/eclass-builder2.5b3.exe

The documentation is a bit sparse and outdated, so I'd encourage you
to explore the program and try some things. =) Please let me know what
you think! I'm working on a redesign of the site and documentation
which I will post in the next couple weeks or so. You can sign up on
the eclass-users at lists.sourceforge.net mailing list if you're
interested in being kept up to date.

Thanks,

Kevin

On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 23:50:58 +0100, stefanogaburri
<StefanoZAP.THIS at gaburri.net> wrote:

>This is crossposted to comp.lang.python & comp.multimedia; if there is a 
>better place to go please tell me :)
>
>I've been asked to build a quick-and-dirty prototype of a simple 
>computer-based training application. You know, those multimedia thingies 
>with text, some videos, a bit of speech and quizzes at the end of the 
>unit...
>
>I've been proposed to build a new reusable architecture using Macromedia 
>  Director: the reason being, Macromedia Authorware costs too much. 
>Well, I found on the web a lot of tools that cost $100-200 and probably 
>allow me to build such a simple app with a wizard or something like 
>that; but what surprised me is the lack of an open source toolkit or a 
>set of classes to help in the definition of a task that has become very 
>trivial (at least in simple cases like mine). I know the varios GUI 
>toolkits, but they're too low-level; I would have to build the system 
>more or less from scratch.
>
>So, what i'm asking is: Am I missing something? Is there a fabled "Zope 
>for CD authoring" I never heard about? If it's indeed missing, i could 
>start building some simple classes and share them with, like, anyone 
>interested :)
>
>I could use something like, say, PythonCard and ZODB, trying to define 
>clearly an high-level framework to allow the rapid construction of 
>simple multimedia e-learning apps. That is, if you don't point me to the 
>guys that already did it, of course...
>
>thanks a lot to everyone reading so far,
>Stefano
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