Content Authoring with Guides

Introduction

Codio Guides is a powerful authoring tool creating rich tutorial and instructional content as well as assessments. Here are a few of the key features.

Each page of content can control the layout of the IDE
Open and close files, terminal windows and html page previews
Launch commands from the content page and pipe terminal output into the content page
Create manually and automatically graded questions and assessments
Manage a table of contents

Where is it?

You can launch the content authoring from

The menu, Tools->Guide->Edit
The button at the top of the file tree as shown below

Start Authoring

Project, course assignment or book?

Before you start to author content you should be aware of the three different places you can create content using guides. Let's look at each of the three ways to create content and why you might choose each one.

Projects

A project is simply a standalone Codio box. It may or may not have guides content. Projects are to be found in the Projects page on the main Codio dashboard.

My Projects

You would want to choose a project as the place to create your content if you have individual, ad hoc assignments or examples that do not constitute more extensive coursework or are not part of a larger series of associated projects.

A project can be assigned to a course at any time. All the students in that course will then be able to access that project and its content.

There are drawbacks to using projects to assign to students. If you have related projects and the number of projects grows, it can be hard to quickly find a project you want to assign to a course. There is also no way to arrange your projects into chronological order. Courses and books offer excellent solutions to this organizational problem.

Assignments

An assignment is essentially the same as a project. The only difference is that your project assignments are located in the courses area in the main Codio dashboard and accessible to other teachers who can edit the item and to students in the course. Assignments are very easy to locate as they are tidily organized within the course module they belong to. You can also arrange your assignments within a course module.

Courses

You would typically use an assignment if either of the following apply.

You have a logically related series of projects that you want to assign to a student that form a course module.
You have a collection of assessments relate to a course that are used for homework, lab assessments, projects etc.

A course allows you to subdivide your course into modules and then chronologically arrange your assignments within your modules. When you create a course, you have to create at least one module. A module does nothing special other than contain assignments and are simply a nice way to group your assignments.

There is one minor drawback to project based assignments that you should be aware of. If students are working with a project assignment and want to look at tutorial content that is contained in another assignment, they have to switch assignments. This can take several seconds and can be irritating during a revision phase when they want to frequently switch assignments. For this reason, we created the book, which we will look at next.

Book assignments

A book is intended to replicate a hard-copy book. It contains a lot of content, often an entire course of content. Let's look at the case of a course called Introduction to Java. If this was a regular book, it might contain 500 pages. If you used project assignments to create this content, you might end up with a very large number of assignments, say 50. As we mentioned above, when students are revising and want to randomly move between different assignments to review content, the can get frustrated by the time it takes to switch assignments.

A book addresses this issue by offering sophisticated table to contents management with nested chapters and sections. As a result, you can put all of your content into a single book, with a single box running in the background.

However, faculty will still often want to teach a course based on a book. To do this, you use a course but rather than creating a project assignment, you create a book based assignment. This allows you to point to any parts of a book for that assignment.

Books

Book or project assignment?

It can still be a little confusing whether you should use a book based assignment or a project assignment, so here are some typical use cases.

Project assignments - use when you have a collection of assessments with no or minimal tutorial content. Best used for homework or lab type assessments. If a student is not going to regularly switch assignments in a single session.
Book assignments - use for tutorial content, examples and non-critical assessments.

Note that you can mix both book and project assignments in a course.

Author and student views

The experience when authoring differs from that of a student. Students are not able to view the authoring tools. When they start a assignment or project, if there is content present, it will automatically be shown. The author can also specify whether the student is able to close the content or not.

If you are an author, you will often want to view the content as a student will see it.

Editing

Only an author is able to edit the content. Students and users with read-only rights will not be able to. Click here for details on page editing.

Preview

You can press the preview button in the top right area of the edit pane. This will switch to preview mode. You can then switch back to editor mode by pressing the Editor button.

You can also start the preview mode from the Tools->Guide->Play.

Finally, there is also a button at the top of the file tree that launches the content.

StartGuides

To simplify the educational process for students, the top menu can be customized to remove options from students that they cannot override.

Please note that only students will see this. Teachers previewing the assignment will not see the customization. If you wish to check this, the test student accounts can be used

Through a .codio-menu file, a teacher can specify what menu items should be hidden. Example:

{
    "Logo": false, // hides the Codio logo
    "Codio": false, // hides the Codio menu dropdown
    "Project": {
         "Permissions": false // hides the Permissions option in the Project menu dropdown
    },
    "Help": false, // hides the Help menu dropdown
    "Run": false, // hides the Run menu dropdown
    "Preview": false, // hides the Preview menu dropdown
    "Debugger": false, // hides the Debugger menu dropdown
    "Status": false // hides the Status icon, user Avatar, user name and exit button
}

Be aware that if setting Status=false, students will need to use the 'Back to Dashboard' button shown on the last page of the guides to return to their dashboard area

Setting up .codio-menu file:

EditorMode

Menu items that the student will see:

PreviewMode

Students will not see the .codio-menu file to be able to edit/change it.

Player Options

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When the content is rendered to a student, various options can be controlled

The Collapse table of contents button allows the user to collapse the content pane to provide larger working area if required. This option will not show if the page layout is One Pane
Navigation Buttons allows the user to navigate forward/backward in the guide.
Settings allows the user to view the assignment as a teacher (e.g. show solution information hidden to students) change the Theme (light/dyslexic), Mark as Complete, change the font size, reset both the theme and fonts and to restore the current files (see below). See Dyslexia Support section
Show/Hide Section List Hamburger Icon allows the user to show/hide the section list.

Restore current files

The Restore Current Files feature is a great way to reset/restore any files on that page to its initial state after hacking sample code around. Files can be restored from the menu as shown below.

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Table of contents management

Once you are in the Codio IDE, you are able to create and manage content. There are two ways to access the Codio Guide.

Press then right arrow at the top of the file tree.

startauthoring - From the menu, select Tools->Guide->Edit.

Editing page content and actions

Please refer to the following pages for details in how to edit page content and control page actions.

Page Editing for details on how to edit a pages content using markdown or HTML, hiding folders and other actions.
Settings and page actions : Opening and closing files, panel configuration and other settings

Editing content

The image below highlights the main components of the editing page.

Edit Book

Accessing the table of contents

To open and close the table of contents, press the Hamburger Icon at the top right. From here you can add and organize content.

Chapters, sections and pages

A guide is comprised of pages organized into chapters and sections. A chapter is a top level item only. Sections can be placed at any location and nested to any depth.

You can add a new chapter, section or page by

right clicking on the appropriate location within the table of contents.
by first selecting the item in the table of contents below which the new element should be added and then pressing one of the buttons at the top of the table of contents.

Adding content to a chapter or section

By default, chapters and sections are passive and do not have page content assigned to them. However, you can add content by right-clicking the item and then selecting Add content from the menu.

If you want to reverse the procedure, you right click and select Remove content.

Multiple selection

You can multi-select pages as follows

Select an item then shift+click on a latter item to select all pages between the two items. This only works for items at the same level.
Use ctrl+click (PC/Linux) or cmd+click (Mac) to multi select individual pages.

Drag and Drop

It is very important to understand how drag and drop works within a table of contents as it is very powerful but can be confusing if you don’t understand that drop process. Drag and drop works with individual or multiple selected pages.

What is unusual about our drag and drop support is that the destination folder location is determined by where you drop.

If you drop in the top portion of the target item, the selection will be dropped above it at the same level.
If you drop in middle portion of the target item, the selection will be dropped within it if the target is a section.
If you drop in the lower portion of the target item, the selection will be dropped below the target at the same level.

Page editing overview

To create new content or to edit existing content, go to the Tools->Guide->Edit menu option.

Use the layout modes to switch between editor, preview, and split view modes.

When in preview mode, you can quickly switch back to editor mode by selecting the Editor button:

Guides Edit Mode

Video: Editing Existing Guides Content

Anatomy of the content editor

Below is a screenshot of the editor with the main components highlighted. overview

Editor settings

Editor settings gives you access to the key functions:

Page

Layout allows you to specify the panel layout you want to choose for this section,
Show Folders allows you to define specific folders in your project that you wish to be visible when the current section is displayed,
Close Tabs allows you to close all tabs open from previous section,
Set Section as Chapter allows you to set the section as a chapter in your content,
Teacher Only allows you to show content that only teachers are able to see.
Content Type allows you to write your content in either Markdown or HTML

Open Tabs 

This allows you to specify:

which files you want to automatically open when the current section is displayed,
Preview (including external websites),
Open a Terminal window (including running a terminal command),
which lines (if any) you wish to highlight within each file.

Assessments 

This allows you to set up assessments.

Media 

This allows you to play audio files within your project.

Global 

Global Settings

Scripts allows you to point to one or more .js files in your project (usually you would have this somewhere within the .guides folder) that is run when the page is shown. This is especially useful when interacting with a button in a page of content.
Theme allows you to select the default theme for people viewing the content. We currently have a light theme and will be adding a dark theme shortly. Dyslexic users can also choose a special theme from the Settings drop down in the content player.
Lexicon Topic if you use this option, an icon will appear in the toolbar that will load the Lexikon window with the selected topic automatically selected. Students can still access the Lexicon from the Tools>Lexicon menu (unless of course you are restricting the top menu available to them)
Suppress page numbering allows you to suppress the section page numbers when in Play Mode.
Hide Menu allows you to hide the main Codio menu items in the IDE (Codio/Project/File/Edit etc) when the assignment is run in a course.
Allow guide to be closed allows students to be able to close the content. It can be restarted by selecting the Start icon in the file tree:

StartGuides

Use submit buttons see Student submission options for more information
Use mark as completed see Student submission options for more information
Collapsed on start starts the assignment with the guides pane collapsed. Students can show the content clicking on the hamburger icon on the right
Hide Section List hides the sections list in your content for the students.
Hide Back to Dashboard button hides this button that would otherwise show on the last page of the guides.
Protect Layout prevents students from closing files in tabs.

Authoring guidelines

Here are some guidelines for creating good quality content.

Markdown

The best way to author content is using markdown. It is extremely easy to write content that renders very nicely and without having to fiddle with HTML. You can embed HTML snippets into a markdown as well where you need full control.

We have a Cheat Sheet project that you can use to see the full capabilities. To copy this starter pack into your own account, please click here. You should select the Use Pack option to create the project.

Courses and Books

We strongly recommend that when you are creating content at scale then you have a thorough understanding of the differences between projects, course assignments and books before starting.

Media assets

When creating a book or a guide, you will often be working with images, video and other media. We recommend the following.

Images should be placed in the .guides/img folder. You can create sub-folders for organizational purposes.
Videos should be hosted on a 3rd party platform such as YouTube or Vimeo. You can embed these using regular HTML embed tags as available from those platforms.
Web based media such as Google Doc documents can be embedded using regular HTML embed tags as available from those platforms.

Callout blocks

Our markdown supports the use of special callout blocks. These provide icons and highlighted backgrounds for various concepts such as : Important, Info, Challenge, Topic, Definition, Meetups, Headline, Hackathon, Create, Calendar, Growth Hack, Debugging, Cross Discipline and more.

Please refer to the Callout section of the Books Cheat Sheet. If you have not done so already, copy this starter pack into your own account. You should select the Use Pack option to create the project.

Don't make pages too long

Again, this depends on your intended audience but try to keep each page reasonably brief. If the topic is a long one, you may want to break it up into several pages. This prevents lots of scrolling and allows students to digest information in manageable chunks.

Hidden folders

Your content will often want to show code samples. Codio's recommended approach is to put each set of code samples into a dedicated folder. Then, using the page settings, you can specify this folder with the consequence that all non-specified folders are hidden from view in the file tree (if you choose to show it).

The benefit of hiding folders is that the student is not distracted by folders and files that are not relevant to the topic you are explaining.

Click here for more details on folder hiding.

Assessments

Codio offers a range of manually and auto-graded assessments. When used as a part of content, assessments are a very important way of giving students challenges and exercises that help internalize what they have been learning.

When used in a course situation, assessments are extremely helpful to the teacher as all assessment results are fed automatically through to the teacher course dashboard, allowing them to monitor students' progress across a Course.

Many of Codio's assessment types (code tests, multiple choice questions, text, fill in the blank and list-based) are auto-graded, saving teachers considerable amounts of time and can also offer students instant feedback on the correct answers.

You can also use the free-text assessment type for answers that require a typed answer that can be manually graded by faculty. The free text type also support Latex, so math questions can be answered and graded.

Assessments you create can be saved in your own library for use in other assignments. See here for more information on this. We also have an extensive library of assessments that you are free to use as you wish. See here for more details

Layouts

The editor lets you create different panel layouts for your guide content and the layout can change from section to section.

Click here for more information on panel layouts.

Markdown content editing

Cheat Sheet

Please refer to the Callout section of the Cheat Sheet. If you have not done so already, copy this starter pack into your own account. You should select the Use Pack option to create the project.

Content can be written in

Markdown - the recommended option and described on this page
HTML allowing more detailed control but requiring more time; described on the next page.

When you are in edit mode, you can select a section by

using the navigation buttons in the header area
selecting a section from the section list

editnav

Renaming the Section

You can rename your section by clicking on the section title in the header area.

Writing content

You can then start writing your content in the main content area.

Markdown

For those of you not familiar with Markdown, it is an extremely easy way of writing content without having to worry about HTML.

When in Play Mode or as you preview, your content is rendered as students will see it. You can also override the default CSS styling if you wish. Go to Tools->Guide->Add Custom CSS

Guide CSS

'Reset Custom CSS' will restore the default CSS styling

Click here for details on how to insert images, videos and hyperlinks.

Here is a summary of the Markdown formatting codes

Headers/Titles

To display a header or title, you can use the # character at the start of the line. The more # characters you add, the smaller the font.

# Big title
## Smaller title
# Even smaller title
## etc.

Bold and Italic

To create bold or italic text, you use ** and * either side of the respective words.

I want to say that **this is really important**, you know
I *really* like chocolate

Bullet Lists

To create a list of bullet points, you start the line with a -

- Bullet 1
- Bullet 2
- Bullet 3
- etc

Numbered Lists

To create a numbered list, you start the line with a 1. The numbers are automatically calculated for you.

1. Item 1
1. Item 2
1. Item 3
1. etc

Code Blocks

If you want to show some code, styled with the courier font, in a box and with syntax highlighting applied you surround your code block with three backticks ```. For example, the following javascript snippet

var i;
for(i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
   document.write(i);
}

is written as

```js var i; for(i = 0; i < 10; i++) { document.write(i); } ```

Note that you can specify a language type after the top 3 back ticks. Entering python after the backticks would apply syntax highlighting for python. Many languages are supported. See a full list of supported languages here. You should search for your language and then use the alias shown.

Code Segments

If you want to insert a piece of code inline with the rest of your text, then you use a single ` (backtick) character either side of the text. For example,

We can define a variable var x; if we like

... is written in markdown as

We can define a variable `var x;` if we like

Indented Lists

If you want to indent a list, then indent just 2 spaces and it will indent.

  - Bullet 1
  - Bullet 2
  - Bullet 3
  - etc

Callout Blocks

If you want to show a callout block a number of options are available and others can be easily added if required

important
info
warning
topic
definition
challenge
guidance
meetup
hackathon
create
calendar
growthhack
xdiscipline
debugging

e.g.

|||info
# My Title

Some text

|||

calloutinfo

The Guidance callout block is only visible in play mode to designated teachers within a course. It is not visible for students.

Hyperlinks, Images, Videos & iframes

We describe these in this section.

HTML

You can include HTML tags

Latex / MathJax

Latex is supported using MathJax. For example

When $a \ne 0$ there are two solutions to $(ax^2 + bx + c = 0)$ and they are $x = {-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac} \over 2a}$

and for multiple lines we do the following

$$
y=x^2
y=\frac{x^2}{x+1}
$$

Click here for more details on Latex and Mathjax.

MathJax

Inline math equations are encapsulated in a single $ like this: $\omega = d\phi / dt$.

Collapsible Content

In writing content, it is sometimes useful to provide information for the student, but to keep this hidden until they are ready.

This can be achieved with collapsible content and the <details> <summary> elements. The content is treated as HTML and as such a mix of HTML and Markdown can be required.

Notes

All code block starter lines, e.g. ```js must be preceded by a blank line.
The closing block ``` tag must be followed by a newline.

Example

CollapsibleContent

To achieve this result, the code is comprised below (in 3 code blocks to ensure all presents correctly)

## Example Collapsible Content

<table><tbody ><tr><td><details><summary>
    There are some <b>Special Numeric Values</b> which are part of the number data type. For each of the variables <code>a</code> <code>b</code>and <code>c</code> print out their data types and values.
</summary><hr>

The result of any mathematical operation will produce a value of type `number`.

1. Variable `a` contains a value of `infinity` which represents mathematical infinity.
2. Variable `b` is assigned a value where the left-hand operator looks like a `string` however JavaScript tries to convert it into a number which is successful.
3. In the case of variable `c`, the string can't be converted and the operation returns the value of `NaN` which means _not a number_. If this is then used in susequent operations the value cascades and the result will also be `NaN`.

<h6>Code Block</h6>

```js `
const name = {
        first: 'John',
        'last name': 'Doe',
        dob: {
            year: 1970,
            month: 'January'
    }
}

</details></td></tr></tbody></table>

Cheat Sheet

Check out our Cheat Sheet and Use Pack to create the Cheet Sheet project in your Codio account.

Previewing content

Preview mode

You will regularly want to switch from editing your page content to preview it as users will see it. The best way to do this is to press the preview button in the top right of the content window. When the guide renders, it would open at the current page you were editing.

To return to the edit mode, press the Editor button and you will be returned to edit mode on the page that you were viewing in Play mode.

Split screen

Another approach that works for the current page is to switch layout mode to split view mode by selecting the 2nd from left button in the header bar.

Play

You can start the Guide player from the Tools->Guide->Play menu or selecting the '>' icon in the file tree

HTML content editing

We do not recommend this setting unless you have very specific reasons. It is much harder to use and maintain than markdown but for those who want ultimate control over appearance it is a good option.

Setting HTML

You can specify that an individual page be authored using HTML from the content Settings. You will find the Content type dropdown where you can switch between HTML and markdown.

CSS header and footer

In order to style your content properly, you should use the Edit HTML header and Edit HTML footer settings. These can be found in the main Settings area on the Global tab.

The header and footer information wrap the HTML content for your page. Below is a typical example of a header.

<html>
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <title>bjlo2e_ch04-1</title>
        <link href=".guides/content/css/my-style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
        <script src="https://codio.com/codio-client.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
        <script src=".guides/content/script/my-script.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    </head>

<body>

And here is the footer.

</body>
</html>

Support functions

In a page authored using Markdown, you are able to create buttons and other actions. We provide some javascript functions that support the same functionality.

Important : if you use any of the functions listed below then you must load https://codio.com/codio-client.jsin the HTML Header as shown in the example above.

codio.run(command, callback) - Run a command on the box. callback will fire once executed and should be used to communicate back to the user.
codio.runAndShow(command, outputElementId) - Run a command on the box. All stdout will be displayed in outputElementId.
codio.open('file', path, panel_num) - Opens a file located in path in the panel_num panel, where 0 is the first panel from top left
codio.open('terminal', command, panel_num)- Opens a terminal window and executes command. panel_num specifies the location of the panel, where 0 is the first panel from top left.
codio.open('preview', url, panel_num) - Opens a preview window at url. panel_num specifies the location of the panel, where 0 is the first panel from top left.
codio.goToNextSection() - Moves to the next page in the guide.
codio.goToPreviousSection() - Moves to the previous page in the guide.
codio.switchUnit(unitId) - Changes to a different assignment. The assignment ID is found by opening the assignment and getting the ID from the URL.
codio.goToSectionTitled('Section Title') - Switches to the page whose title is "Section Title'.
codio.assessments.check(assessmentId) - Executes the assessment
codio.assessments.reset(assessmentId) - Resets any response and score that the user may have already provided for assessmentId.
codio.assessments.get(assessmentId, callback) - Gets the result data for a completed assessment
codio.assessments.send(assessmentId, answer, points, callback) - Sends result data for a custom assessment. answer contains the custom result data for assessment and will be stored in Codio. You can use codio.assessments.get() to reconstruct the output for an already answered question.
codio.resetCurrentFiles() - Allows students to restore current files in guides within your content.

Teacher only content

Teacher only content can be viewed by teachers when:

opening a assignment within a course module in a course
viewing student code within a course

Warning

If your project is public and a user accesses this project via the public listing of your account then they will have access to the solutions.

You can make content available only to course teachers in the following ways.

Entire page

If you want a page and its appearance in the table of contents to be only visible to a teacher, then you should enable the Teacher Only slider in the page settings.

Selected content within page

If you want to hide a certain piece of information within a page from students then you should include all such content within a page within |||guidance ..... |||. An example is shown below.

|||guidance
# Solution
This solution will only be shown

- to teachers
- provided the content is published within a assignment
- if you share a project normally or it is public and a student loads it, they have access to this content.

|||

Teacher only content can also be shown to teachers within an assessment question. This allows an question's answer rationale to be shown. Please refer to the assessments section for more details.

Custom Buttons

Custom buttons are a powerful feature that let you insert a button into your guide content that when pressed can carry out any custom action.

There are a number of ways to use a custom button

To jump to a page in the content

This will jump to a specific page in the guide

{Button Text | go-to-section-titled}(section title)

e.g.

{Go to Section: LTI | go-to-section-titled}(LTI)

To launch a process

This will launch a process and execute a terminal command.

{Button Text}(command paramater1 parameter2 parameterN)

Launching a process in a terminal window

There are cases where you will want to launch a command in a dedicated terminal window. A typical example is when student code requires input from the user. Codio cannot handle standard input through the guides window, so use the following button command.

{Button Text | terminal}(command)

Launching a debugger configuration

You can launch a debugger configuration as shown below. It is important to specify the configuration name exactly.

{Button text | debugger}(debugger configuration name)

To restore current files in guides

Students can restore current files to the default setting from the setting menu but you can also offer them a button within your guides content as well.

{Button text | reset}(optional commands to run)

Writing a custom event handler

This offers you the most flexibility and allows you to write your own custom button press handler. A common use case is executing tests on user code.

To do this, you should use the following format for your custom button.

{Button Text|custom}(myId)

If you wish to use a custom event handler to allow students to restore current files and handle other functions, you can do so but you will need to include this code in your custom script

window.addEventListener('codio-button-custom', function (ev) {
  if(codio) {
    codio.resetCurrentFiles()
  }
});

Loading Scripts

You should point your content page to a script file to load javascript scripts. You can do this from Settings>Global>Scripts.

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Event Listener

The event listener is able to execute your custom task. It will display a custom message area beneath it into which you can write your own results data. The message data can be a custom message that a test might return and can be plain text or HTML.

For the event listener to run you should include in Settings>Global>Scripts:

https://codio.com/codio-client.js (where your account is running on codio.com)
https://codio.co.uk/codio-client.js (where your account is running on codio.co.uk)

The icon that appears in the top left of the message area can be controlled from your event listener, as shown in the example below.

window.addEventListener('codio-button-custom', function (ev) {
  console.log('id:', ev.id, 'cmd:', ev.cmd, ev);
  if (codio) {
    codio.setButtonValue(ev.id, codio.BUTTON_STATE.PROGRESS, 'Checking');
    codio.setButtonValue(ev.id, codio.BUTTON_STATE.FAILURE, 'Bad Job :(');
    codio.setButtonValue(ev.id, codio.BUTTON_STATE.INVALID, 'Internal error');
    window.setTimeout(function () {
      codio.setButtonValue(ev.id, codio.BUTTON_STATE.SUCCESS, 'Extremely well done!');
    },1000);

  }
});
console.log('test.js script loaded');

ev.id is the contents internal id for the button.
ev.cmd is the myId text you specified in the button with {Button Text|custom}(myId). This is typically used to indicate the id of the test you wish to run or just the specific button that is being pressed.

The available button commands are

codio.setButtonValue(ev.id, codio.BUTTON_STATE.PROGRESS, 'Checking..');
codio.setButtonValue(ev.id, codio.BUTTON_STATE.SUCCESS, 'Good job!');
codio.setButtonValue(ev.id, codio.BUTTON_STATE.FAILURE, 'Bad Job :(');
codio.setButtonValue(ev.id, codio.BUTTON_STATE.INVALID, 'Internal error');

The 3rd parameter can contain any text to display in the button's attached message area. It can be plain text or HTML.

Adding media

You can insert Audio, Images and Videos into a page.

Audio

You can insert and play audio files within your project.

On the page you wish to play Audio, go to the Settings area where you can define the source audio file along with any actions the should be triggered at specific times during playback.

authtoken

Source Name - select the source file either from .guides/media folder if already uploaded to the project or upload directly from your PC where it will then be stored in the .guides/media folder.
Add Action - specifies actions that are triggered at specific times during playback. The following options are available.

Open file Close file Open Terminal Close Terminal Run command Highlight Close all tabs Pause

Images

Inserting an image is similar. Here are some examples. PNG and JPG image types are supported. Note that the 2nd and 3rd examples point to images within your project.

Generally speaking, you should put your images in the .guides/img folder in order to keep the rest of your workspace free of extraneous content for the benefit of the student.

![optional alt tag](http://any-url-you-like.png)
![](image-in-project-root.jpg)
![](.guides/img/best-place-for-images.png)

You can also drag/drop images from your project file tree into your content. They will be automatically tagged with the correct path.

For Markdown pages:

![.guides/img/displayimage](.guides/img/displayimage.png)

For HTML pages:

![.guides/img/displayimage](.guides/img/displayimage.png)

Videos

Including embedded videos are also possible using the standard <iframe> html tag.

YouTube

If you wish to embed a YouTube video, go to the Share option and select Embed to obtain the code snippet.

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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1JNhoVbmNAo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Vimeo

If you wish to embed a Vimeo video, go to the Share option and select Embed to obtain the code snippet.

authtoken

<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/110479088" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/110479088">Codio - Innovation in Computer Programming Education</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user20752628">Codio</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Hyperlinks

Creating a hyperlink on a piece of text is easy.

Go to [Google](google.com) to look stuff up.

iframes

You can embed content in an iframe using the <iframe> html tag.

To embed from Google Docs, go to File>Publish to Web and select Embed to get the code snippet

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Example Projects

https://codio.com/codio-units/java-example is a project that you can copy into your own Codio account and shows you how to create code tests and setup automatic marking. We would also recommend that you check out our Guides Cheat Sheet and Use Pack to create into your Codio account to review.

Open/close tabs from content

You can include links in your content to perform the same open and close actions as you do from the open tabs dialog.

Syntax Summary

The syntax is as follows and actions can be chained together using, separated by a ;.

[Hyperlink text](open_file file1, file2; cmd ls -al)

Opening directives

open_file file1 file2 fileN panel=0 where panel is optional, in which case the default panel (0) will be used if not specified.
open_preview file panel=0 where panel is optional, in which case the default panel (0) will be used if not specified.
open_terminal command panel=0 where command (a system command) is optional and where panel is optional, in which case the default panel (0) will be used if not specified.
cmd systemcommand argument1 argument2 argumentN
open_tutor file panel=0 to open visualiser and where panel is optional, in which case the default panel (0) will be used if not specified.

Closing directives

close_all closes all tabs in all panels, except the Guide itself.
close_all panel=0 closes all tabs in panel 0.
close_file file1 closes file1 in all panels
close_file file1 file2 fileN panel=0 where panel is optional, in which case the default panel (0) will be used.
close_preview behaves like close_file for preview tabs.
close_terminal behaves like close_file for terminal tabs.
close_tutor file panel=0 where visualiser is closed for file open in panel 0

Important - spaces and ; in file names and commands

If any of your files contain spaces in the names, then you should enclose the file name in double quotes

open_file "file name.txt"

If you use cmd and the command has a ; character in it, then you should also use quotes

cmd "cp file1 file2; cp file3 file4"

Examples

Open a file file.txt

[Click here](open_file file.txt)

Open a file file.txt in panel 1

[Click here](open_file file.txt panel=1)

Open a file file.txt in panel 1, with a code reference and highlight 3 lines

[Click here](open_file file.txt panel=1 ref="some text in your code" count=3)

Open files file.txt and file2.txt

[Click here](open_files file.txt file2.txt)

Open a file file.txt and preview of file.txt in panel 2

[Click here](open_file file.txt; open_preview file.txt panel=2)

Run a command then open a preview of file.txt in panel 2

[Click here](cmd cp source.txt target.txt; open_preview file.txt panel=2)

Open a Terminal window in panel 1

[Click here](open_terminal panel=2)

Close file.txt and open a preview file.txt

[Click here](close_file file.txt; open_preview file.txt)

Close all open files, previews and terminals in all panels, then open a file file.txt

[Click here](close_all; open_file file.txt)

Close all open files, previews and terminals, then open a file file.txt

[Click here](close_all; open_file file.txt)

Close all open files, previews and terminals that are in panel 2, then open a file file.txt

[Click here](close_all panel=2; open_file file.txt)

Hiding folders

Your content will often want to show code samples. Codio's recommended approach is to put each set of code samples into a dedicated folder. Then, using Show Folders on page settings , you can specify this folder. All non-specified folders are hidden from view in the file tree.

Latex for math expressions

Latex is ideal for entering mathematical expressions into your pages. You can also insert Latex expressions into many assessment fields. Codio uses Mathjax for the rendering of all Latex expressions, so certain macros are not supported.

Inline Latex expressions

An example of an inline expression is $\frac{x^3+1}{x^2-1}$ . When your page is shown, the Latex expression will render appropriately.

Display mode Latex expressions

You can also render one more more lines of Latex expressions in a more prominent format as shown below.

$$
y=x^2
\sum_{i=0}^n i^2 = \frac{(n^2+n)(2n+1)}{6}
$$

Latex Resources

Google is often your friend when it comes to discovering Latex syntax. However, here are two very useful references that will accelerate things for you.

Mathjax

Here is a list of Latex commands supported by Mathjax.

Stack Exchange

Here is a page on Math StackExchange that has an excellent overview of Mathjax/Latex syntax as well as explaining general concepts.

Click here :Stack Exchange

Detextify

Detextify is an excellent way of finding a Latex symbol by free hand drawing it on the screen using your mouse or touchpad.

Detextify

Important: you should not use commands that are not in the standard package. In the image above, you can see the last one has a \usepackage command. Symbols in a special package may not work.

Keys	Action
`?`	Open this help
`n`	Next page
`p`	Previous page
`s`	Search

Introduction

Where is it?

Project, course assignment or book?

Projects

Assignments

Book assignments

Book or project assignment?

Author and student views

Editing

Preview

Customizing IDE menu

Player Options

Restore current files

Table of contents management

Editing page content and actions

Editing content

Accessing the table of contents

Chapters, sections and pages

Adding content to a chapter or section

Multiple selection

Drag and Drop

Page editing overview

Anatomy of the content editor

Editor settings

Page

Open Tabs

Assessments

Media

Global

Authoring guidelines

Markdown

Courses and Books

Media assets

Callout blocks

Don't make pages too long

Hidden folders

Assessments

Layouts

Markdown content editing

Cheat Sheet

Renaming the Section

Writing content

Markdown

Headers/Titles

Bold and Italic

Bullet Lists

Numbered Lists

Code Blocks

Code Segments

Indented Lists

Callout Blocks

Hyperlinks, Images, Videos & iframes

HTML

Latex / MathJax

Collapsible Content

Notes

Cheat Sheet

Previewing content

Preview mode

Split screen

Play

HTML content editing

Setting HTML

CSS header and footer

Support functions

Teacher only content

Entire page

Selected content within page

Custom Buttons

To jump to a page in the content

To launch a process

Launching a process in a terminal window

Launching a debugger configuration

To restore current files in guides

Writing a custom event handler

Loading Scripts

Event Listener

Adding media

Audio

Images

Open Tabs 

Assessments 

Media 

Global 