quizmaster.pl:
STEP BY Step Directions
The links to form elements in these step-by-step instructions point to
Carlos'
Forms Tutorial. You may want to take a look at Carlos' quick
reference if you are a little rusty on forms.
Now let's get started! To use quizmaster.pl to create and
implement a quiz from your DCN web pages, all you have to do is the
following three steps:
1. Create a directory for your quiz
From the UNIX prompt of your DCN account, create a new
subdirectory under your public_html directory that will hold the
HTML files associated with this quiz.
First, login to wheel. Next, get to the UNIX prompt. Then, change
directories to your public_html directory by typing:
- cd public_html
Once you are there, create the new directory for the quiz with the
mkdir command. If you wanted to call your new directory
"firstquiz" you might type:
- mkdir firstquiz
2. Write your quiz form
Create a HTML file using your favorite editor and your own
personal style for your quiz. In the file, put a form
that uses the POST method and refers to quizmaster.pl with the
ACTION element. The beginning tag of your form should look like this:
- <FORM METHOD="POST"
ACTION="/cgi-bin/quizmaster.pl">
The first VALUE element passed from your form (as explained in the overview) needs to be the partial path to your quiz
directory. Since you don't want the user to see this part, you should
use a hidden
form element. Since this is the first thing we want to go to the script,
we should number the NAME element "1".
- <INPUT TYPE="HIDDEN" NAME="1"
VALUE="jsmith/public_html/firstquiz">
Next, let's ask our question. You can use checkboxes,
select
boxes,
scrolled
lists, and radio
buttons with quizmaster.pl. For this example, we will use a
radio button question. Since this is the second thing passed to the
script, we'll number the NAME element "2". Note that each
radio button tag will be numbered the same because only the one selected
by the user will be passed to the script.
-
What is two plus two?<BR>
<INPUT TYPE="RADIO" NAME="2"
VALUE="wrong.html" CHECKED> 3<BR>
<INPUT TYPE="RADIO" NAME="2"
VALUE="right.html"> 4<BR>
<INPUT TYPE="RADIO" NAME="2"
VALUE="wrong.html"> 5<BR>
Notice the VALUE elements we used. These will be explained a little
later. Last, we need to end our form with reset and
submit buttons. The end of our form might look like this:
-
<INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT"><INPUT
TYPE="RESET"></FORM>
3. Write the results you want displayed
Remember the VALUE elements we used? We were specifying the
filenames of the files to be displayed by quizmaster.pl
depending on the answer selected by the user. Now, we need to create
those files and put them in the directory we created and specified in our
form.
For example, the file "wrong.html" (which would be displayed
if a user of our form chose three or five) might look like this if you
were a minimalist:
-
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Your Quiz Results</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Sorry!</H1>
Your answer was incorrect! Please use the BACK function of your browser
to try again.<P>
</BODY>
</HTML>
We also would need to create a file like this called
"right.html". Be sure these files are readable by anyone, and
are in the directory you created in step 1 and specified in step 2 (for
this example, the directory was firstquiz).
That's all! We've created a working quiz using
quizmaster.pl! Whenever you create a quiz with
quizmaster.pl be sure to test it yourself before making it
public, to make sure you didn't make any errors in spelling the
filenames, or some other mistake.
Examples of the files we might have created in these step-by-step
instructions are available on the examples
page.
Go back to DCN Web Tools:
quizmaster.pl
quizmaster.pl was written by Christian Sandvig. If you are interested, the source code is available.
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