Can anybody please tell me whether the External URL/file object creates a relative or absolute link?

I suspect that it will be absolute. I really need to create a relative link. I have some java applets that I can't get to run as CourseLab Java objects, however, they do run when included as External URL. I have these html documents (and supporting files) on disk. I would really like to include them on the published CD and have the external URL refer to them.

There might also be times that I want to refer to a word or excel document that will be included with the course CD as separate documents.

So is the link relative or absolute? If it is absolute, I suppose that it would be possible to publish the course to a folder on a hard drive and then edit the html documents that were created in order to change the links to being relative.

Hi Marius,
This is noted elsewhere as well in the forum and there are a few references to JS abd appletts.
# SCORM specifications say that links are relative to the module.
# A module is supposed to be a self contained entity so external links shouldn't actually exist, all referenced material should be a component part of the module itself.

Reliance on external urls or files is a bad practice, end of story.

However.... In production any links you add will be absolute. Once published they become relative to the start.html file.. Hence the often reported failure of external references, this effect is a little variable though and the context of the links seem to have an additional effect.

Your applets need to be in a folder you create which out to be nested at the same level as the courselab modules images are.

Thank you, Nick. I am not sure if I understand you correctly on all counts. At present, the applets reside somewhere on my harddisk. I can access the applets through an IFrame external link in CourseLab.

I do not understand all the interdependencies of the applets on various scripts and I have failed to implement them as pure Java applets. Also, CourseLab copies the java applet automatically to the images folder, however it seems like the applet expects to be in a certain subfolder and when it runs it gives a name/location error (The Java console seems to indicate this). So I have given up on that one.

Back to using an Iframe, I understand you as saying that during production I should already move all the external files to a subfolder of the course/module and it should be the same level as the images folder. Then publication should proceed correctly and the needed files will be linked correctly.

The previous posts by the development team say put the java applets in their own folder.
This will be inside the folder named "1" this should preserve the links to them when Courselab switched them from absolute to relative.