Before I took a few weeks off for Christmas, I posted a Tip about FileLocation in web packaged pieces. I looked high and low for one piece of information to go into the Tip, but I was unable to find it. Apparently the exact location of the web player on different operating systems with the two browsers is not documented anywhere.

You might need to go to the player's directory if you want to check to see if, for instance, your u32's and other assets are being downloaded. So, this information can be pretty important. One way to discover FileLocation on a system for troubleshooting is to create a perpetual response that will display FileLocation on the screen. Another is to use budapi to create a shortcut on the fly that will open Windows explorer to FileLocation.
 

You can pass values into an Authorware by appending them to the end of the file name in the src parameter of the Object and Embed tags. If you add a question mark (?) between the file name and the values, the additional information at the end of the string will be ignored by Authorware as it looks for the .aam file, but will be passed into your web packaged Authorware piece as part of the FileName variable.

For instance, you might use "myfile.aam?coursename=underwater%20basket%20weaving&length=2%20hours" for the src parameter. The FileName variable would hold "myfile.aam?coursename=underwater%20basket%20weaving&length=2%20hours", so you might parse out the extra data like this:

variables := Substr(FileName, Find("?", FileName)¬
+ 1, CharCount(FileName))
variables := Replace("%20", " ", variables)
coursename := Substr(variables, ¬
Find ("coursename=", variables) + 1,¬
Find("&", variables) - 1)
length := Substr(variables, ¬
Find ("length=", variables) + 1,¬
Charcount(variables))
Text := "Welcome to the "^¬
Capitalize(coursename)¬
^"course. You will spend approximately "¬
^length^" in this course."

In case you were wondering where Tip of the Week has been the past few weeks, I took a few weeks off to enjoy the holidays and move from Texas back home to Mississippi. With a little luck and a lot of help from my friends and family, the move went smoothly.

I was able to spend a leisurely Christmas and New Year's with my family, and that is something I've missed living 600 miles from where I grew up.

Yes, the pets all made it fine and are thrilled to be back in the house where they grew up (some of them were born here).

I have to say I was favorably impressed with the customer service at BellSouth. When there is a long hold time on their automated phone system, you can punch in your number and they will call you. And, when the local cable company dropped the ball on installing my cable modem, BellSouth mailed me out a DSL modem immediately. Kudos!