TOOL BOOK

Toolbook is a Windows based object oriented multimedia programming environment developed by the Asymetrix Corporation. It offers a Windows graphical user interface and programming environment for building multimedia projects, called books, to present information graphically as drawings, scanned color images, text, sounds, and animations. The books, created with ToolBook can range from a simple collection of information to an interface with another application. It can be used for presentations to create an effective lecture that integrates graphics, sound, animation and text or to create interactive applications.
Toolbook is now broken into components - Instructor, Assistant, and Librarian.

Asymetrix ToolBook II Instructor is the premier courseware authoring product for professional developers, programmers, instructional designers, and trainers. It combines easy-to-use templates, wizards, and preprogrammed Catalog objects with the full-featured OpenScript programming language, and offers a powerful development environment for creating sophisticated courseware delivered over the Internet, an intranet, a local area network, or CD-ROM.

Asymetrix ToolBook II Assistant lets you create and deliver effective training and educational courseware quickly, easily, and economically. Whatever distribution method you choose -- the Internet, an intranet, a local area network, or CD-ROM -- Assistant helps you deliver online learning lessons wherever and whenever they are needed. Assistant is the solution for professionals who need to provide training and exchange knowledge through interactive learning applications and want to create them using the same techniques they use when creating standard office documents. Using Assistant's intuitive drag-and-drop interface, trainers, educators, human resource managers virtually anyone with information to convey can author effective courseware.

Asymetrix Librarian 6.0 is an advanced learning management system for centrally controlling all your learning activities, including course delivery, learner access, collaboration and performance tracking. Because Librarian is built on an open architecture, it can manage a variety of learning materials, including online learning courses, traditional CD-ROM courses -- even offline content, such as instructor-led classes or book assignments. Asymetrix Librarian is server-based software that runs in combination with Web and database servers. It is available for both Windows NT and UNIX.

Basics
A Toolbook application consists of one or more books each consisting of a number of pages which in effect become screens of the application. You're either using a book or building one. That's why there are two working levels - reader and author. At reader level you run the book's scripts, and at author level you create new books, create and modify objects on pages and write scripts.

A book is divided into pages and is stored as a Windows/DOS file. First you create the pages. They can contain text fields, buttons, and both drawn and bitmapped graphic objects. Then you assemble a book from pages and link the pages together. The interactive and navigational tasks are then performed by the ToolBook's OpenScript programming.

Hot words in text fields can have a script attached; these hot words provide a hypertext feature in ToolBook to connect related information that appears in different places throughout a book, or other books that can be opened. Clicking a hot word makes the word respond like a button. ToolBook offers linking options for buttons and hot words, so you can create navigation scripts by identifying the page to go to. There is also a script recorder feature to record actions and translate them into OpenScript statements.

ToolBook II uses a WYSIWYG page metaphor. The Visual Basic-like interface uses prebuilt components, called Widgets, that you drag and drop from a tool palette. You set each Widget's features through a Properties dialog and through scripts. You can script by hand, or by using ToolBook's easy-to-use AutoScript option, which gives you dozens of ready-made scripts for such actions as playing a .WAV file and creating wipe effects.

You can see Asymetrix products: ToolBook II Assistant and Instructor.

Learning curve
ToolBook is designed for those who are not computer programmers but want to create their own applications, or books. Simple multimedia applications can be created without any knowledge of OpenScript using Toolbook's auto script facility which provides a number of pre-defined commonly used scripts.

The use of OpenScript however allows sophisticated, fully featured custom applications to be developed. To an experienced programmer, ToolBook gives the opportunity to extend OpenScript by writing additional functions and Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs).

Delivery
ToolBook lets you deploy apps on disk, CD-ROM, LANs, and/or the Web. You can let users jump from a desktop-based application to a Web site by simply clicking on a hyperlink.
Toolbook offers a particularly innovative Internet delivery mechanism that uses Java and HTML, thus bypassing the need for a plug-in. The newest additions to Version 5.0 include an HTML export option, hyperlinks to URLs, automatic creation of Java applets, Internet-centric Widgets, and support for .JPG and .GIF files. You can upload an included FTP utility to your site or control it programmatically to send automatic updates to an application. Also, you can publish native ToolBook files online with Neuron, a Netscape plug-in.

Neuron is a browser plug-in or ActiveX control that enables a Web browser to play a ToolBook II Instructor or Assistant file (TBK file). Using Neuron and a Web browser, you can take advantage of the full feature set available in TBK files over the Internet. Distributing native TBK files over the Internet using Neuron and a Web browser is one of the multiple distribution options provided with Asymetrix authoring products. Neuron works with both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

Databases
Multimedia ToolBook allows you to integrate your project into databases and includes built-in Paradox and dBASE database engines. For more extensive connectivity with other databases, the ToolBook Database Connection allows easy access and integration with all ODBC-compliant databases.

System Requirements
Assistant: Instructor: