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Jeff Achter - ANS_BOX

Jeff Achter - ANS_BOX

by Arnold Pizer -
Number of replies: 0
inactiveTopicANS_BOX topic started 3/10/2002; 3:25:29 PM
last post 3/10/2002; 4:49:26 PM
userJeff Achter - ANS_BOX  blueArrow
3/10/2002; 3:25:29 PM (reads: 748, responses: 1)
Hi. I've been trying to have students enter long answers using an ans_box. Unfortunately, as often as not it seems that their responses aren't stored. Is there anything particularly squirelly about answer boxes?

I notice that the code for ans_rule seems somewhat more intricate than that for ans_box, but I can't pretend I fully follow what's happening here.

Any advice would be gratefully accepted. Thanks.

--Jeff achter@math.columbia.edu

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userMichael Gage - Re: ANS_BOX  blueArrow
3/10/2002; 4:49:26 PM (reads: 949, responses: 0)
Hi Jeff,

Using formatted text mode ans_box and ans_rule appear to behave identically in terms saving the students' answers between sessions at least on my machine.

In typeset mode however the answers in ans_box aren't updated. For typeset mode this updating occurs somewhere within the displayMacros.pl (or perhaps processProblem8.pl itself). This is necessary because the student's page is cached in typeset mode. We'll have to look in to this and figure out a fix.

The updating in "formatted text" mode takes place within the PGbasicmacros.pl package and appears to work properly (at least OMM).

If the assignment is past the due date or if the number of permitted answers has been exceeded, then the answers are "sticky" from one submission to the next, but they are NOT preserved from one session to the next. Saving data from one session to the next is done somewhere in processProblem8.pl. It works fine in "formatted text" mode. I couldn't determine in a hurry whether or not it works in "typeset" mode.

The temporary solution is to use "formatted text" mode (also known as HTML_tth) while we diagnose the problem and figure out a fix for typeset mode.

You can set HTML_tth to be the default mode in the webworkCourse.ph file.

$htmlModeDefault = 'HTML_tth';

Thanks for the report. We'll try to get to this soon.

-- Mike

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