I have used Courselab for a while and am very happy with the results that I am producing.

As a non-technical course creator, I find it hard to understand the variable function. I followed the examples and produced some drop and drag exercises. However I don't understand something like "#p1=='1' && #p2=='1' && #p3=='1' && #p4=='1' && #p5=='1' && #p6=='1' && #p7=='1' && #p8=='1'" really mean. Where are those p1,p2,p3 are coming from and what does 1 mean?

What do I need to understand first, java code, html code, or anything? Hope you can direct me to learn some basics so that I can start using variables.

Thank you!

Hi, Julie!

Quite helpful for beginner may be this link: http://php.about.com/od/programingglossary/g/boolean.htm
or do search on about.com with "boolean" string - it returns a lot of examples that quite easy to understand.

The == && + - etc are all fairly logical 'operators' that is standard maths but probably at a higher level than you usually use.
You want to look at boolean logic, possibly a C, C+ or any programming language primer would cover these.
They can be useful too. Taking the simple + operator 1+1 = 2 BUT you can also use it for concatenation when "hot"+"dog" will equal "hotdog" !
How much you would need to delve into these depends on what you want to do and how complex you want to make your modules.