Configuration: exercises

#Exercise styles

The exerciseStyles property declares the named styles an exercise picks with :::exercise{style="…"}. A style is the form of a family of exercises; the questions and the answers stay in the Markdown (see Exercises). One style, exercise, ships by default, so the fence works with no configuration; declaring exerciseStyles replaces it, and the first style declared is the one an exercise without style takes. Every field is optional, and the defaults follow the document language where schools differ: option labels, true/false letters, the long division layout, the words printed.

const config: PostextConfig = {
  exerciseStyles: [
    {
      id: 'activity',
      box: 'activity-frame',
      number: { shape: 'disc', background: { hex: '#2a5ea8', model: 'hex' } },
      instruction: { fontFamily: 'Source Sans 3' },
      options: { marker: 'circle' },
      blank: { look: 'dots', width: 'answer' },
      area: { kind: 'grid', lines: 4 },
      level: { glyph: '★', empty: '☆' },
      icons: { pair: { glyph: '👥' } },
    },
    { id: 'quiz', extends: 'activity', options: { layout: 'row', columns: 4 } },
  ],
};

#Number

number sets the exercise number. A bare number is bold, in the main colour, with a full stop after it; a shaped one is a white figure in a disc, a square or a rounded square of the main colour, with nothing after it.

#Instruction

instruction sets the leading paragraphs of the exercise. Unset fields take the body text's.

#Options

options sets the options of a choice question (- [ ] …).

#Blanks

blank sets how a [[…]] prints in the pupil's text: room the size of the answer with a line, dots or a box, the answer itself not painted.

#True or false

trueFalse sets the answers at the end of a statement.

#Match

match sets an exercise of pairs.

#Word bank

bank sets the box of words of a gaps exercise with bank or ::bank[…], and of every sort exercise. The box stands where a ::bank line is written, else under the instruction.

#Writing area

area sets the space under an open question, under a scrambled sentence and in the columns of a sort exercise.

#Grids

grid sets the cells of word searches, crosswords and operations in columns.

#Arithmetic

arithmetic sets operations in columns.

#Difficulty

level sets the marks a fence's level prints after the number, in a smaller size.

#Icons

icons maps an id to an activity icon (oral, written, pair work, listening, calculator), printed after the number when a fence names it: icon="pair".

An icon prints as an inline symbol after the number: the picture of resourceId when it names one, else the glyph set in fontFamily, in color (the text's when unset). It stands on the instruction's baseline, size ems tall, and its alt is read in its place.

#Answers

answers sets the answers wherever they show: a teacher's edition, the model item of an example exercise, rings and filled boxes, lines drawn between pairs, letters and digits in grids.

#Screen colours

digital sets how the HTML viewer and EPUB books show a checked answer.

#Book settings

The exercises property holds the settings of the whole book: the edition, where solutions print, the seed of every shuffle and the screen editions. A book that sets neither exercises nor exerciseStyles lays out and hashes as before.

const config: PostextConfig = {
  exercises: {
    edition: 'student',
    solutions: { placement: 'chapterEnd', layout: 'key' },
    seed: 3,
    digital: { check: 'instant' },
  },
};

#Solutions

exercises.solutions, and a style's solutions over it for that style's exercises.

#Screen editions

exercises.digital sets how exercises behave in the HTML viewer and in EPUB books.

The screen can have its own exercise settings: htmlViewer.overrides takes exercises and exerciseStyles too, merged over the book's before the HTML viewer lays out, so print keeps its solutions at the end of the chapter while the screen hides them, or the screen drops the writing areas a reader has no use for.

const config: PostextConfig = {
  htmlViewer: {
    overrides: {
      exercises: { solutions: { placement: 'none' } },
      exerciseStyles: [{ id: 'exercise', area: { kind: 'none' }, blank: { minWidth: { value: 6, unit: 'em' } } }],
    },
  },
};