LiaScript courses

LiaScript is a Markdown dialect for interactive courses: quizzes, surveys, animations, code you can run, text-to-speech, all written as text. In ulams a LiaScript course is a versioned Markdown document (plus its images and other assets) that you play in a lesson with a LiaScript topic.

The LiaScript library

Courses → LiaScript (/courses/liascript) lists LiaScript courses with their title and current version, with Edit and Delete per row. Deleting removes the course with all its versions and assets.

Create a LiaScript course

1. Click New LiaScript course.
2. Enter a Title, or leave it empty to take it from the first heading of the Markdown.
3. Either click Create to start with an empty document, or Upload .md or .zip:
   • a .md file becomes the first version;
   • a .zip must have README.md at its root; the other files in it (images, audio) become the version’s assets and keep working with relative links such as ![](img/grinder.png).
4. The editor opens.

Uploads are limited to 128 MB by default and go through the same checks as SCORM packages (no paths that escape the folder, no symbolic links, no zip bombs).

Edit and version

The editor (/courses/liascript/<id>) has the Markdown source on the left and Versions on the right.

• Save as new version stores the text as a new version; add an optional note in What changed. Nothing is overwritten: every save, upload and restore adds a version.
• Show on a version compares it with the current text, line by line (removed lines in red, added in green).
• Restore makes an old version current by copying it into a new version (“Restored from v3”).
• A text-only save keeps the assets of the previous version.

The editor warns when the Markdown uses remote import: macros. They would load code from another site and are blocked by the player’s security policy, so copy what you need into the document instead.

Note

There is no live preview of unsaved text yet. To check a version, save it and open a LiaScript topic that uses the course in the learner front.

Use it in a lesson

1. In the program, add a topic and choose LiaScript.
2. Pick the course in LiaScript course; the list shows each course with its current version. Use Edit the course to jump to the editor, or New LiaScript course to create one.
3. Save the topic.

The topic always plays the current version, so a new saved version reaches learners immediately.

Playback and completion

The learner front asks ulams to launch the topic; ulams publishes the player and the current version on the tenant’s content origin and opens it in the lesson. The player reports slide position and status back to ulams.

The topic completes when the learner reaches the last section of the course (each heading outside code blocks is a section) or when LiaScript reports the course as completed or passed.

Caution

Playback needs the LiaScript player build on the server and a content origin. Without them the learner sees an explanation instead of the course; ask your operator.

Course export does not include the LiaScript document itself yet; see Import and export.