====== New in 3.13 ======

This page summarises key innovations in Xerte 3.13, released in October 2024, and particularly those features that apply across XOT and Bootstrap.  This is not a comprehensive list of innovations in 3.13; you need to go to the [[https://bit.ly/xertereleasenotes|Release Notes]] for this.

++++ Tooltips |

{{ :xerte_info.png?50}}All XOT optional properties at project and page level (within the general section) have been given tooltips to explain their purpose. Anywhere you see an orange information icon next to a property name, you can hover over the icon with your mouse to display the tooltip text.

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++++ Placeholder text |

All multi-line text fields, and many single-line text fields, within the XOT and Bootstrap templates, now contain placeholder text instead of default text. Placeholder text will be replaced with the text that you enter into the field without you having to delete it - it will simply disappear as you begin to type. This is useful as it means that these text fields are not auto-populated with text as soon as you create a new page and fewer projects will contain text such a 'Enter feedback here' or 'Enter a description for accessibility here' where an author has forgotten to override the default text. Placeholder text is displayed in a lighter, grey font than default text; if you do nothing to the placeholder text it is __not__ displayed to the learner.

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++++ Label fields  |

Many pages within the XOT contain text fields that are labelled as 'Label'. As the purpose of these fields is often unclear to authors, tooltips have been added to these text fields to clarify their purpose. Generally, there are two ways that these labels are used:

  - On pages that are tracked, these labels are often used to identify the question/answer on the results page and when tracking results, e.g. via SCORM/LTI/xAPI.
  - On pages that are not tracked, these labels often only appear in the editor's project structure panel (the panel on the left) and are not shown in the published projects. In these cases, unique and meaningful labels can be used to make questions/answers easier to locate for editing at a later date.

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++++ Font Awesome 6 |

Font Awesome 6 is included in 3.13 and has replaced the older versions used by previous versions. You may notice that some icons in the workspace, editor and within projects look a little different due to this change.

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++++ Tailored feedback |

You can create tailored feedback on the **Opinion **and **Results **pages, which means that feedback you have authored displays, depending on the bands (e.g. 0-30%, 31-60%, 61-100%) into which the learner's score(s) fall. See the appropriate wiki pages for more information: [[interactivity_opinion_page|Opinion page]], [[3.13_results_page|Results page (3.13)]]

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++++ Enhanced accessibility |

The accessibility of the project properties, folder properties, workspace properties and publish settings windows has been improved for authors:

  * All tabs and form elements are now keyboard accessible and use appropriate HTML tags.
  * Improved button colour contrast. 
  * On-screen notifications when any properties are changed. 
  * Links which open in a new window are labelled appropriately. 
  * Enhanced instructions to make the function of all controls clearer. 
  * Improved information shown in Workspace properties > My projects, including links to preview projects.

In XOT;

  * Captions can now be added to images added via editor fields.
  * All drag and drop style activities within the XOT template can now be completed by mouse clicks alone, as an alternative to drag & drop or to tabbing labels/targets and pressing the space key to select/move.
  * A number of themes have been tweaked to ensure that the colour contrast between text and background meets the expected standards.

In Bootstrap;

  * A new transcript optional property is now available when adding audio blocks to sections.
  * To ensure screen reader users can easily tell which sub-page is selected, the way navigators work has been overhauled.
  * Glossary tooltip information is easier for screen reader users to access.
  * Aria-live attributes are used to announce any changes in the page content to screen reader users.
  * Image captions show in lightboxes now use the caption text (when available) rather than alt text in screen readers.
  * A bug, where the skip to main content link did not always scroll to the first section, has been fixed.
  * The accessibility of the page menu bar, when collapsed on smaller screens, has ben improved.
  * Links are now underlined as standard, previously they were indicated by colour alone.

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