Comments on: JProQuiz: Javascript Quiz Software

By: Patrick Wyman

Patrick Wyman — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 01:16:05 +0000

I think I’ve solved the problem. I stumbled across an item on the Web somewhere that says you can’t use a JSON file with PHP. My site has PHP on the same box as ColdFusion. I don’t know jack about PHP so I assumed this to be true. As an experiment, I changed the JSON extension to .TXT (and in quiz.js) as well . . . and what do you know, all of the sudden it works. Take that for what it’s worth. I don’t know what the ramifications of using it this way would be.

By: Patrick Wyman

Patrick Wyman — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:52:07 +0000

Thanks for the quick response. It doesn’t work on Firefox either. Debugging brings up line 118 of quiz.js — “this.__questions.size is not a function.”

This is rather strange since as I said, it works locally.

By: nick

nick — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:53:08 +0000

Hey Patrick,

Sorry you’re having trouble with the script. Are you using IE? I’d try running through it in Firefox with Firebug installed and see what sort of debug info you can get.

I believe the JSON config file does need at least read permission by the web server, so I’d make sure that was in place.

I’ll see if I can’t run through your issue tonight and see if I can recreate your issue.

By: Patrick Wyman

Patrick Wyman — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:25:22 +0000

I was trying to use your quiz script on my site. When I couldn’t get it to work, I tried the total simple example which you include in the zip file.

It works when I test locally. When I try to put it on my site, I get “Score 0/ ” and the error “Line: 119 Char: 3 Error: Object doesn’t support this property or method.”

My theory is that the JSON file needs a specific permission level that it does not have. Any ideas? Thanks.

By: nick

nick — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:16:44 +0000

Patrick, thanks so much for fix! It’s frustrating how small problems like that can bork the whole thing. I should have been more careful.

Glad you found the quiz software useful. If you ever get a live version going, definitely shoot me the link. nickbart (at) gmail (dot) com.

By: Patrick Wyman

Patrick Wyman — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:11:20 +0000

Sorry. It looks like you have it dropping HTML. I didn’t think of that.

Change the open span AFTER id=”total” to be closed and that will fix it.

By: Patrick Wyman

Patrick Wyman — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:08:20 +0000

The IE problem is simply that you have a span open.

Change:

To:

(so that the second “span” is closing)

and your problem goes away.

Nick, this is just what I was looking for. Nice job!

By: nick

nick — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:32:58 +0000

Hi Edward,

Thanks! I have to shamefully admit, however, that I didn’t test it in IE6 or 7. If you find a solution I’d be ever so grateful if you posted it here. If not, definitely let me know and I’ll see if I can’t write some patches for you so we can get it working. I’d love to see this used practically in the real world.

Most of the IE/FF discrepancies I find lie in the way each handles the scriptaculous libraries. I actually prefer JQuery to Prototype/Scriptaculous mainly for these reasons.

By: Edward Vermillion

Edward Vermillion — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 03:03:12 +0000

This is a really cool set of scripts, except for one problem. It seems to blow up IE (6 and 7). On a project I’m working on I’ve got it all going fine in FF and Safari, and it will run through once in IE. But if I try to reload the page, in IE, it will pop a box that says the page can’t be loaded. If I close IE and load the page again, it will run once and then I’m back at not being able to reload the page.

I came back here, in IE7, to try the example to see if it’s something I did (I’ve modified the code some to work with my project), but the example doesn’t work at all. The page loads, but there’s no link to start the quiz.

Really I’m just commenting to let you know what I’ve run into. I’ll do some digging and see if I can find a solution, most likely a problem in the underlying libraries but I have no experience with either scriptaculous or prototype so I can’t say for sure. If I can find a solution I’ll be sure to let you know.

By: nick

nick — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:20:43 +0000

Hi, Eric. Absolutely you can use the script. Sorry you seem to be having some trouble with it. JSON can be a bit hard to diagnose because if there’s a syntax problem it will just fail silently. First thing I’d check was that the syntax is correct. Make sure every comma and quotation mark is in the right place.

Feel free to post your JSON file so we can all take a look at it.