What is the SmartComponents API?

The SmartComponent API was developed to integrate SmartComponents with tt knowledge force.
It consists of the Player API and the UI API.

What are SmartComponents

SmartComponents are objects that can be used in an e-learning. They enhance the editing and design possibilities in ttkf.
SmartComponents can be developed by customers or partners, without the need to make changes to ttkf itself. To implement
SmartComponents, two interfaces are used: The Player API is used for communication with the player in ttkf, whereas the
UI API allows for the integration with the authoring environment (document editor). SmartComponents provide a means to
implement custom e-learning requirements regardless of the ttkf release cycle.

SmartComponents always contain their own logic which communicates with the tt knowledge force player via the Player API.
Via the UI API, SmartComponents are integrated into the program interface of tt knowledge force. They are available to
the author as independent objects. SmartComponents feature their own edit dialog, which is designed during the creation
of a component. E-learning authors can modify SmartComponents via parameters (e.g. with regard to a components size,
or the colors used by it). If parameters are used to provide texts for a SmartComponent, those texts are subject to the
built-in translation process of tt knowledge force.

What is the aim of the Player API?

The Player API provides access to the functions of the player in tt knowledge force (the runtime environment of the e-learning).
Among the aims of the API are the following aspects:

• Provide information on SmartComponents.


• Transfer values that an author entered to the SmartComponent via Parameters.


• Initiate Events for other SmartComponents.


• Query data related to e-learning objects, such as the current page, a quiz page, the e-learnings page structure, or the e-learning as a whole.


• Generate quiz elements and transmit information to the Player API as to whether an element was answered correctly or incorrectly.


• Gather / set values via the e-learning stage at runtime.


• Access navigation and additional functions of the e-learning.

What is the aim of the UI API?

The UI API is an interface to the authoring environment in tt knowledge force.
The following things are made possible by the API:

• Generate a SmartComponent's properties page in the UI of tt knowledge force


• Query the UI language of tt knowledge force


• Transmit fixed parameters as defined in the com.tts namespace of a SmartComponent,
  allowing authors to pass on values from the edit dialog of a SmartComponent to the authoring environment of
  tt knowledge force
  


• Import files that are used by a SmartComponent into a tt knowledge force document