Become a classroom rocket scientist.
On previous projects we'd allowed for different languages and levels. To make it work off-line, we'd rather lazily used AJAX to load much of the content that changed. It is better to have the content in the page so this time we've taken a different approach. The configuration is still in json but language is stored in yaml which should make is easier to read for those who end up translating. Some perl scripts build the final json and use HTML templates containing pseudo SSI code to re-build the pages.
To change numerical values (masses, costs etc.), edit 'config/options_beginner.json' (and similar for intermediate and advanced). Those files contain links to text contained within %%. To change the text, edit config/en_beginner.yaml etc. Note that The config/en_beginner_options.json files are overwritten by the perl script, so any edits you make will be lost.
To update everything (json, html etc.), run the shell script:
./regenerate.sh
Alternatively, you can update individual parts.
The HTML is created from the templates directory so edit the files in there not the live files. The templates contain SSI-like commands as these are comments so don't display in a browser if they remain unparsed. The perl script reads the yaml and json files and uses these to process the templates. Variables, includes, and a basic for loop have been implemented as these are enough to get the job done. An HTML page is created for the front page and each of the three levels. Potentially, a version of each of these could be created for each language that exists; the filename could have the language code appended (not currently implemented).
To regenerate the static HTML there is a perl script:
perl config/template.pl -mode beginner templates/index.html index.html
perl config/template.pl -mode beginner templates/level.html beginner.html
perl config/template.pl -mode intermediate templates/level.html intermediate.html
perl config/template.pl -mode advanced templates/level.html advanced.html
We use SASS for the CSS as this gives re-useable variables and makes it easier to add all the browser prefixes. So, any changes to the CSS should be done in the css/style.scss file and the files referenced from that (e.g. in the tests/ directory for satellites and orbits). The main css/style.css file can be regenerated using:
sass css/style.scss css/style.css
The json files are created from the language files and a template for each level.
perl config/config.pl