Tutorial Users Guide
There are two types of frames presentations provided. The first is a simple
two frame setup where a navigation bar is provided at the top and the tutorial
text is at the bottom.
The navigation bar has a link to the index, another to this page, and finally
a mailing link for you to provide me with comments and bugs (please help
me to get this tutorial improved).
The second frame set has a navigation bar plus three frames. The left frame
contains the tutorial text, the left right one contains the VRML world
and the right bottom one provides a form where you can enter the field
values for the node. When using the right bottom frame there are two buttons
provided: Update VRML, which updates the world taking into account the
new parameters in the form, and Show Source, which provides the source
code for the world presented. When you pressed either of these buttons
there is no communication with the server. JavaScript was used to create
the contents locally, therefore avoiding waiting for a new VRML world to
be loaded from the server.
The navigation bar at the top has two extra buttons which modifies the
frames configuration. 'Hide VRML' provides the user with a single frame
to see the tutorial text, useful when there is a lot of text. The 'Hide
Tutorial' on the other hand hides the tutorial text providing more space
for both the form and the VRML display.
When the user presses 'Hide VRML' the buttons are changed to: 'Show All',
which goes back to the original configuration, and 'Show VRML' which hides
the tutorial and shows only the form and VRML frames.
Similarly when pressing the 'Hide Tutorial' the buttons are changed to:
'Show All', which goes back to the original configuration, and 'Show Tutorial'
which displays only the tutorial text.
Know Problems
In MicroSoft IE, the Source code does not appear properly formatted, in
Netscape it works OK. However when you resize the source code window the
text loses its format, pressing 'Show Source' again solves this problem
(Only for Netscape). Also in Internet Explorer when you try to update the
VRML world what appears is the source code and not the VRML as in the Netscape
browsers. If you know how to solve this problem please let me know.
When changing the frames configuration using the navigation bar buttons
and pressing reload the browser shows a message saying it can find a file,
and it won't display the VRML file again. Pressing 'Update VRML' creates
the VRML world again, solving the problem.