Lectora Online Release Notes

Lectora Online 7.0 Release Notes

Released on:

September 29, 2024

Feature Improvements:

Object Alignment Guides: Precision Tools for Perfect Layouts

Introducing our brand new Object Alignment Guides in Lectora! These essential tools help you position objects precisely on the canvas, ensuring your design is always neat and professional. As you drag objects, visual indicators appear when they align with the center, sides, or middle of other objects, promoting perfect consistency and symmetry in your layout. With this innovative feature, enjoy a flawlessly cohesive and polished design every time.

Guides Per View

The new Guides Per View feature in Lectora allows authors to set distinct guidelines for different device views, such as phone portrait and tablet landscape. This ensures precise alignment and layout customization across various screen sizes, helping create a seamless and responsive learning experience on any device.

Describe your custom variables

The new feature in Lectora allows authors to add descriptions to user-defined variables, making it easier to track and manage variables throughout a project. This enhances clarity and organization, especially in complex courses, by providing quick reference notes on the purpose and use of each variable.

Transparent button improvements

The latest improvement to transparent buttons in Lectora introduces a new "Discoverable" property, which is enabled by default. When discoverable, the button will be part of the tab order and will change the cursor on mouse-over, as usual. If this property is unchecked, the button becomes hidden from sighted and non-sighted learners. This feature is ideal for authors who need hidden buttons for technical support or testing without making them discoverable by students. Additionally, the style tab for transparent buttons is now fully disabled to streamline functionality.

Object Insert Order

A new improvement ensures that when adding objects, such as text blocks, to a page with the page object selected, they will now be layered at the top of the visual stack. Previously, new objects were added behind existing ones, requiring manual adjustments. This update streamlines object placement, ensuring they appear on top of other content, but only when the page itself is selected. Copy/Paste and Drag/Drop behaviors remain unchanged, as does the layering when other objects are selected.

Paragraph spacing

The latest enhancement allows authors to set individual paragraph spacing within a single text block. This provides greater control over formatting, enabling more precise and customized text layouts to improve the visual presentation and readability of your content.

WebM video format support

Lectora Online now supports the WebM video file format. When inserting a WebM video, Lectora will seamlessly recognize the format without any warnings or conversion prompts, offering the same integration and functionality as MP4 files. This includes support for actions, synced events, and closed captions using the mediaelement.js player.

Benefits:

• WebM video supports transparency (alpha channel), enabling more creative possibilities.
• It is widely supported across modern browsers and platforms.
• WebM offers efficient compression, often resulting in smaller file sizes compared to other formats, optimizing performance without sacrificing quality.

Other Enhancements:

Collaboration improvements

Authors can now view fields that open additional dialogs without needing to check out the project or object. This enhancement improves workflow by allowing collaborating authors to review settings across different areas of a project without disrupting others or checking out the content.

Maximize New windows

We’ve added a new Maximize option in the New Window Properties dialog box under the Window Size section. This option, available exclusively when selecting New Browser Window from the Window Style dropdown, allows users to easily maximize the size of a new window when needed. This enhancement provides more flexibility in controlling how new browser windows are displayed.

See your CSS 

Lectora Online now supports the application of simple custom CSS classes in both edit and run modes, allowing users to see their enhanced content style in both Edit and Run modes.

Variable Name 

To enhance usability when creating new variable names in Lectora, we now automatically replace spaces with an underscore ("_"). This ensures variable names remain valid without interrupting the user’s workflow, helping you create variables more efficiently and without errors.

Bullet Colors

When applying bullets to highlighted text, the text color is now automatically applied to the bullets, ensuring consistency. For further modifications or overrides, use the bullet list properties to adjust the bullet style. Additionally, the project design text color is automatically applied to bullets, streamlining the design process and maintaining uniformity across the content.

Numbered Lists

In Lectora Online, custom fonts defined in the project, such as Source Sans Pro from the Google Font Library, are now fully supported for the numbers in numbered lists. This ensures a consistent and cohesive design throughout your content.

Accessibility Support Updates

We’ve enhanced accessibility in Lectora by making the progress bar fully accessible to screen readers, ensuring that all users, including those with visual impairments, can track their progress effectively.

We’ve made significant accessibility improvements to the menu object in Lectora. The menu is now fully accessible, with or without status indicators applied, and the accessibility check no longer flags it as non-compliant. Status Indicator text is now configurable through Publish Strings, and the menu correctly implements ARIA roles, updating appropriately as needed. Additionally, the keyboard behavior follows accessibility guidelines, ensuring a more inclusive experience for all users.

Lectora Online 6.2.3 Release Notes

Released on:

March 10, 2024

Enhancements:

Lectora Online 6.2.2 Release Notes

Released on:

December 3, 2023

Improvements:

• LO-8409 - XLF file exported with no content when certain HTML control characters were included in the project text.
• LO-8414 - 109: Repository error (VersionException) occurred upon update of an HTML Extension object in a shared project.

Lectora Online 6.2.1 Release Notes

Released on:

October 20th, 2023

Improvements:

• LO-8396 - Issue selecting radio buttons in radio button groups after switching views, ie from desktop to mobile and back.  
• LO-8397 - Improvement to Page Preview of inserted AI Pages

• LO-8403 - Video inserted from the Asset Library now has fullscreen or speed control set

Lectora Online 6.2 Release Notes

Released on:

October 14th, 2023

Enhancements:

AI Page Creation

Have a course started? Add a page with AI Wizard. Type your subject and go!

SVG as Lectora Images

Incorporate SVGs directly into Lectora Online projects to maintain your high-quality resolution at any size. 

Convenient Image Search

Searching and inserting Asset Library images is much easier!

Greater Control of Table of Contents Navigation

Table of Contents objects now offer three navigation modes: Free, Restricted, and Locked.

Media Playback Speed & Full Screen Control

Now students are able to adjust the speed for media playback. Authors have the option to remove the speed control and full-screen button from media controller.

More Scrollbar Options in Web Windows

Now authors can include tall pages in Web Windows and use scrollbars to access the content.

Improvements:

• Replacing an image from the Image properties ribbon now respects the existing image size. The new image stays confined to the original image boundary, keeping the correct aspect ratio.
• Closed Captioning maintains the user selection throughout the course
• Copy and Paste an Action’s Conditions and they are appended to any existing conditions, before it would remove any existing conditions
• Keystrokes triggers now work when Seamless Play Publish and Protect Contents are enabled as publishing options
• Sunday maintenance issues mentioned in the community are resolved ! 
• We added a warning for Rank/Sequence Questions into the Accessibility Checker

Lectora Online 6.1 Release Notes

Released on:

August 6th, 2023

Current Version:

Lectora Online 6.1 (192)

Enhancements:

Powerful PowerPoint Import Updates

We rebuilt the PowerPoint import.  Now it supports importing all PowerPoint versions. You will find more options for how content is imported and in general it has better support for importing text, tables, shapes and images. The underlying technology is much more robust. Please send us any feedback or requests you have!

New Action Triggers: Scroll into view / Scroll out of view

These triggers allow you to transition items in and out as the student scrolls down the page. They allow for any Lectora action to be run when an item comes in to view so this can be used to create some exciting interactions.

Disable Seek Ahead on Audio and Video

This feature allows you to keep users from skipping parts of audio or video. This is helpful for compliance courses where you need to ensure someone watches all the content. You can re-enable seek ahead if the student is coming back to a page for review.

More information on this feature is at this article: Lectora Disable Seek Ahead on Media

Improvements:

LO-8238 SCORM saving of bookmarking and status variables is greatly improved.

LO-8263 Text To Speech CC file now keeps punctuation.

LO-7435 In Accessible projects images and shapes will have “Empty Alt Tag” selected by default when they are inserted.

LO-8274 In Accessible projects inserted buttons will not have “Always on Top” selected by default.

LO-7687 In Accessible projects “Empty Alt Tag” will be unselected if an action is added to a shape or image.

LO-7899 An accessible focus highlighter now shows when tabbing through Table of Contents

LO-8065 Updated the WCAG checker for the latest compliance level.

LO-7441 Changing the text of a button will update the button name in the Project Explorer, this saves time and makes identifying your text buttons easier.

LO-7342 Matching Questions connecting lines have been improved so they line up better with the objects being matched.

LO-8264 New pill shapes have a modern look (gradient removed)

LO-7303 Removed the “Convert to short names” HTML publish option and instead always publish using short names.

LO-7392 The all-in-one share button was made more secure.

LO-7410 Internal jQuery (triv$) was updated to version 3.6.1.

LO-7585 Project Explorer improvement that allows you to select Lectora Objects and Lectora Pages at the same level. This makes copy / paste and creation of Library Objects easier.

LO-7740 Improved bottom/right positioning of Checkbox and Radio objects.

LO-7769 Button text shows properly for RTL languages.

LO-7901 Page properties Inherit Control shows the appropriate status.

LO-8200 Using transitions no longer hide shadows on images and shapes in run mode.

LO-7930 The focus action now can be used inside a text block hyperlink.

LO-7943 Youtube video controller support improved.

LO-7947 cmi5 startup improvements based on customer feedback.

LO-8151 Audio can be played with the speaker icon in run mode.

LO-8241 Project search/finder is more friendly.

LO-8280 Focus action now works with an On Show trigger.

Many many more UX and polish improvements we know you’ll love!

Lectora Online 6.0 Release Notes

Released on:

June 10th, 2023

Current Version:

Lectora Online 6.0 (164)

Enhancements:

Introducing the AI Course Wizard!   ⭐ See the blog post for more info!

This marks the first major enhancement leveraging Lectora's integration with Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. Say goodbye to writer's block and hello to accelerated content creation!

Simply enter your desired topic, click "generate" and overcome creative barriers.

We value your input and strive to continuously improve our products. That's why we invite you to check out the AI Course Creation Wizard and share your thoughts in the ELB Learning Community. We are eagerly monitoring your feedback and suggestions as we shape the future evolution of Lectora's AI capabilities.

Lectora Online 5.2.9 Release Notes

Released on:

April 30th, 2023

Current Version:

Lectora Online 5.2.9 (188)

Issues Fixed: 

LO-8023: Replace Pendo Components such as Tutorials and In-App Guide

LO-8149: Upgrade datatables.net package

Lectora Online 5.2.8 Release Notes

Released on:

April 9th, 2023

Current Version:

Lectora Online 5.2.8 (185)

Issues Fixed: 

LO-8137: PEN Test Fix

LO-8061: Error message (error 101) when creating XLF translation file for newer courses

Lectora Online 5.2.7 Release Notes

Released on:

March 26th, 2023

Current Version:

Lectora Online 5.2.7 (181)

Issues Fixed: 

LO-7976 - Update LO Upgrade/Subscription tab to use Portal for upgrading - remove Stripe

LO-8108 - PEN Test issues to resolve

Lectora Online 5.2.6 Release Notes

Released on:

February 24th, 2023

Current Version:

Lectora Online 5.2.6 (177)

Issues Fixed: 

LO-8046 - Adding one of the TTA subscriptions to an org in portal changes the number of seats in that org in LO 

Lectora Online 5.2.5 Release Notes

Released on:

January 29, 2023

Current Version:

Lectora Online 5.2.5 (175)

Issues Fixed: 

LO-7944 - Sunset SOM in Lectora Online

LO-8022 - Unlimited Disk Quota for Portal orgs

Lectora Online 5.2.4 Release Notes

Released on:

December 3, 2022

Current Version:

Lectora Online 5.2.4 (172)

Issues Fixed: 

LO-7954 Output of XLF export no longer working for German vowel mutation characters a.k.a. Umlauts

LO-7972 Updating the CourseMill field in Lectora Online is not fully saving and reverts back to the default setting

Lectora Online 5.2.3 Release Notes

Released on:

Oct 15, 2022

Current Version:

Lectora Online 5.2.3 (151)

Issues Fixed:

• LO-7888 Saba Publisher Online has no ReviewLink tab in the user's Preferences window so they can't change RL email or password
• LO-7940 CLONE - Update AICC publish to copy files in the CRS folder to the root folder when publishing
• LO-7834 LO/RL Platform Upgrades
• LO-7889 User cannot select text in published projects  regardless of the Protect content option checked
• LO-7900 Illustrated Cut Out Characters cannot be downloaded from LO
• LO-7928 Preferences, Apps, ReviewLink, Cannot remove password from field plus old value comes back.
• LO-7935 Audio Closed caption text appears in wrong place up the page from the closed caption black box
• LO-3338 YouTube closed captioning does not display via LO, does display via LD.
• LO-7892 Publish to RL - Account Settings button not working right
• LO-7925 Closed caption background flag is not correct if importing PKG from LD

Lectora Online 5.2 Release Notes

Released on:

Dec 12, 2021

Current Version:

Lectora Online 5.2 (86)

Enhancements:

Publish to The Training Arcade Activity List

Publish your Lectora Online SCORM content as an activity within your arcade, such as a Task, Mission, or Journey. (requires an Arcades® subscription)

Publish to Rockstar Learning Platform

Publish Lectora courses directly to your platform.  Don't have a platform? Contact us for a free demo!

Publish to Docebo

Enjoy easy integration with the Docebo LMS. Publish your Lectora courses directly to the Docebo Content Library in a few clicks.

Add CenarioVR content.

Drop in your zipped scenario in a few clicks
Trigger an event when the scenario completes (on-done)

Upon completion of the CVR content, the following 3 variables are set. 
Duration
Result (passed, failed, & completed status)
Score

New Focus Action to set the keyboard focus to any Lectora object

Focus an element on the fly to improve the navigation experience for screen reader learners. (Coming soon to Desktop!)

Issues Fixed:

LO-7682 Fonts are now retained when importing a Question/Test CSV 
LO-7676 Video controller buttons no longer overlap with RTL (right to left) languages

Lectora Online 5.1 Release Notes

Released on:

Oct 22, 2021

Current Version:

Lectora Online 5.1 (126)

Enhancements:

Training Arcade Integration

Allows Authors to insert Training Arcade Games directly into their Lectora Course and retrieve user interaction information from the Game object

• • Insert a Training Arcade Game directly into a Lectora Online course
  • Training Arcade Game variables provide information to the Lectora course on the Learner's interaction with the embedded Training Arcade Game (where xxx is the numeric ID of the object)

Duration (in seconds from game beginning to end)

Variable Name: Object_Name_xxx_Duration

Result (passed, failed or completed - set after end of game)

Variable Name: Object_Name_xxx_Result

Score (percent correct, not the game score)

Variable Name: Object_Name_xxx_Score

Points (points accumulated in the game)

Variable Name: Object_Name_xxx_Points

• • New "OnDone Playing" trigger for Training Arcade Games

Issues Fixed:

LO-7672 Textbox formatting lost when switching content

LO-7686 The auto start media tap/click page now uses a play button for better appeal. The play button is always visible, providing a better user experience, even for taller pages or smaller devices.

LO-7678 Older style Legacy Lectora buttons and shapes have no icon