While the default color scheme for Mallard remains black text on a white background with blue links, there are several ways to set different color schemes on your material and quizzes. This is very useful for "color coding" different types of material to give students an added sense of organization.

How do I set the color scheme in my course material?

• on the Lessons Page
• in <link> tags linking to the material from another document
• in <hint> tags linking to an inline hint from another document (such hints are considered "course material" that is parsed on the fly)

You can indicate the color scheme you wish to use in three ways:

• Inserting standard HTML body arguments into the link tag.
  There are currently seven tags recognized:
  • bgcolor - sets the background page color
  • background - sets the background image for the page
    Note: the image must be uploaded into Mallard before it may be used.
  • text - sets the default text color for the page
  • link - sets the color of all unvisited links on the page
  • alink - sets the color of active links on the page (the color you see while pressing on the link)
  • vlink - sets the color of already visited links on the page
  • bgproperties - in IE2 and above, a value of "fixed" indicates that you wish the background image to not scroll with the text.

• Indicating a type for the material in the link tag. The types are predefined in the material.reg file. Each type specifies defaults for:
  • the name of the material type (Lecture, Story, etc)
  • default HTML body arguments as given above
  • an icon to be placed on each side of the title on the material page and to the left of the entry on the lessons page
  • whether you wish to have the material type appear automatically with the title on the material page and lessons page

• Doing neither of the above.

  Doing nothing causes the type field to default to default. This results in black text on a white background with blue links, what most Mallard users are used to.

You can also use both the type and html body tags. In this case, the specific body arguments you supply will override those given in the type, with the rest of the arguments defaulting to the values in the type.
Note: specifying body arguments only is essentially specifying body arguments along with a type value of "default." Hence, specifying only "text=green" will give you green text, on a white background.

What colors are available for me to use?

You can specify colors in two ways:

• The hexadecimal RGB color specification. This is case insensitive.
• The standard name of the color known to your browser.
  (Unix users can find a list of the color names in a file named "rgb.txt".)

For example, the following two lines are equivalent:

	<link src=myfile title="My File" link_text="file" bgcolor=red>
	<link src=myfile title="My File" link_text="file" bgcolor=FF0000>

What background images are available for me to use?

You may use as a background image any image previously uploaded to the Mallard image directory for your course. This means that:

• Background images are not treated separately from other course images.
• If you are running multiple courses on your server, you will need to upload the background image separately to each course area before you are able to use the image for that course.

Background images are not used to color in buttons and checkboxes in forms (such as the "submit" button on Mallard quizzes). These elements will appear drawn in the background color. Therefore, when specifying a background image, it is a good idea to also specify a background color that harmonizes well with the image.

How can I create my own material types?

When you have fifty spiffy lectures that all need to have yellow backgrounds, MidnightBlue text, and red links, it can be a hassle to specify that information in every link to every one of those lectures. The solution is to use a course material type. The simple type= field is a shorthand way of specifying not only the color scheme for your material but also the icons used with the title and even whether the type of the material will appear in the title of the material.

You will need to meet with your Mallard administrator to set up the different types of material that will be available for your course. It is a good idea to set these up at the same time that you arrange the grading policies that you will be using for the quizzes in your course.
(Note: In the future you will be able to set up the material types yourself from the Mallard course homepage.)

Each material type has five components which must be set:

• The type code.

  This is the value that you will use in the type= tags. It is usually an abbreviated version of the type name, if not the type name itself, such as "lect," "ex," or "digression."

• The type name.

  This is the full name of the material type, such as "Class Lecture," "Practice Exercise," or "Digression." It will be used in Mallard whenever the material type is referred to. It is the default title for material of that type when no title is specified in the link to that material. You may choose to have the full name of the type appear automatically in the titles of material (see below).

• The type icon.

  The type icon appears on each side of the title on the material page itself, and to the left of the link to the material on the lessons page.

  If you wish to use an icon that does not come with the standard installation of Mallard, you will need to have the Mallard administrator upload the icon to the Mallard icons directory.
  (Because there is one icons directory on the server, the Mallard administrator will only need to upload the icon once for you to be able to use it in all classes run on that server. Note that this differs from course images, which must be uploaded separately to each class in which they will be used.)

• The body arguments.

  These are the HTML body tag arguments used to specify the color scheme for the material. There are seven of these:

  • bgcolor - sets the background page color
  • background - sets the background image for the page
    Note: the image must be uploaded into Mallard before it may be used.
  • text - sets the default text color for the page
  • link - sets the color of all unvisited links on the page
  • alink - sets the color of active links on the page (the color you see while pressing on the link)
  • vlink - sets the color of already visited links on the page
  • bgproperties - in IE2 and above, a value of "fixed" indicates that you wish the background image to not scroll with the text.

  Any body arguments that you do not explicitly specify will be left to your browser's default, except for the background color, which defaults to white.

• Whether to include the type name in the title of all material of this type.

  If this field is set to "yes", the type name will be included in the title of all material of this type, both on the material page itself and on the lessons page. If set to "no", it will not.

  If the full type name is "Class Lecture" and the title (given in the "title" field of the link) is "Rules of Tennis", a value of "yes" will result in a title of "Class Lecture: Rules of Tennis" while a value of "no" will result in a title of "Rules of Tennis".

  Note that if no title is supplied in the link, the title will default to the full type name (in this case, "Class Lecture") regardless of the value of this field.

The Mallard administrator specifies the values of these fields in a file named "material.reg" in the course subdirectory.

What about the color schemes used in my quizzes?

The color schemes and type names for quizzes are set in the Grade Policy.

Unlike course material, you may not override the color scheme or type name (homework, quiz, Heinous Test, etc) set by the grade policy chosen for the quiz. The only way to change the color scheme or type name of a quiz is to change the grade policy used for it. Note that it is certainly possible to have more than one grade policy available for a course, and to have multiple grade policies that differ only in type name and color scheme.

In the future you will be able to set the color scheme and type name part of the grade policy from the Mallard course home page. Currently, you must ask your Mallard administrator to do this.

Previous users of Mallard should note that a new field has been added to the grade policy: use_name_in_titles. This functions identically to the analogous field in the material types.

Examples!

For the following examples, assume that there is a material type Lecture defined as follows:

• type code = "lect"
• type name = "Lecture"
• type icon = "Lecture.gif"
• type body arguments = "bgcolor=yellow background=barley.jpg text=MidnightBlue link=red"
• use_name_in_titles = "yes"

Examples:

1. <link src=tennis title="Basic Tennis Rules" type=lecture link_text="read about tennis rules" window=popup>

   This will create a link "read about tennis" in your document which when clicked opens a pop-up window containing the file "tennis", printed in the color scheme defined in the "lect" type - on a background image of "barley.jpg", with any buttons or checkboxes appearing in yellow, midnight blue text, and red links. Links you have followed will be in the default color for them that your browser uses, as a color for them was not specified in the material type explicitly with the "vlink" field. The title of the page will be "Lecture: Basic Tennis Rules". The title will have icons "Lecture.gif" on each side.

2. <link src=tennis title="Basic Tennis Rules" background = "" bgcolor=pink type=lecture link_text="read about tennis rules" window=popup>

   This will create a link "read about tennis" in your document, the same as the first example, only on a pink background and with pink buttons instead of yellow.
   Note: if your material type has a background image specified and you wish to override it, you must either specify a different image or use the empty field background="". Specifying a new bgcolor will change the color of the buttons (which are always drawn in the background color) but does nothing to override the background image.

3. <link src=tennis title="Basic Tennis Rules" bgcolor=pink link_text="read about tennis rules" window=popup>

   This will create a link "read about tennis" in your document which when clicked opens a pop-up window containing the file "tennis", printed on a pink background with black text and blue links (the default text and link colors when no material type is given). The title of the page will be "Basic Tennis Rules". The title will have the default course material icons on each side.
   (Note: If you omit the title, the title will default to "Course Material" in the case that no material type is specified.)