exams2html: Generation of Exams in HTML Format
In flaviobarros/exams: Automatic Generation of Exams in R

Description Usage Arguments Details Value References See Also Examples

Automatic generation of exams in HTML format.

  exams2html(file, n = 1L, nsamp = NULL, dir = ".", template = NULL,
    name = NULL, quiet = TRUE, edir = NULL, tdir = NULL, sdir = NULL, verbose = FALSE,
    question = "<h4>Question</h4>", solution = "<h4>Solution</h4>",
    mathjax = FALSE, resolution = 100, width = 4, height = 4, svg = FALSE,
    encoding = "", converter = NULL, ...)

  make_exercise_transform_html(converter = c("ttm", "tth", "pandoc", "tex2image"),
    base64 = TRUE, ...)
    
  make_exams_write_html(template = "plain", name = NULL,
    question = "<h4>Question</h4>", solution = "<h4>Solution</h4>",
    mathjax = FALSE)

`file`	character. A specification of a (list of) exercise files.
`n`	integer. The number of copies to be compiled from `file`.
`nsamp`	integer. The number(s) of exercise files sampled from each list element of `file`. Sampling without replacement is used if possible. (Only if some element of `nsamp` is larger than the length of the corresponding element in `file`, sampling with replacement is used.)
`dir`	character specifying the output directory (default: current working directory). If only a single HTML file is produced and no `dir` is explicitly specified, the file is displayed in the browser rather than saved in `dir`.
`template`	character. A specification of a HTML template. The default is to use the `"plain.html"` file provided in the package unless there are Rmd exercises in `file`. Then, `"plain8.html"` is used (which expects UTF-8 encoding as used by pandoc).
`name`	character. A name prefix for resulting exercises.
`quiet`	logical. Should output be suppressed when calling `xweave`?
`edir`	character specifying the path of the directory in which the files in `file` are stored (see also below).
`tdir`	character specifying a temporary directory, by default this is chosen via `tempdir`. Note that this is cleaned up and potentially temporary files are deleted.
`sdir`	character specifying a directory for storing supplements, by default this is chosen via `tempdir`.
`verbose`	logical. Should information on progress of exam generation be reported?
`question`	character or logical. Should the question be included in the HTML output? If `question` is a character it will be used as a header for resulting questions. Argument `question` may also be a vector that controls the output for the templates.
`solution`	character or logical, see argument `question`.
`mathjax`	logical. Should the JavaScript from http://www.MathJax.org/ be included for rendering mathematical formulas?
`resolution, width, height`	numeric. Options for rendering PNG (or SVG) graphics passed to `xweave`.
`svg`	logical. Should graphics be rendered in SVG or PNG (default)?
`encoding`	character, passed to `xweave`.
`base64`	logical. Should images be embedded using Base 64 coding? Argument `base64` may also be a character vector of file endings that should be Base 64 encoded, e.g. `base64 = c("png", "rda")` will only encode PNG images and binary `.rda` files.
`converter, ...`	arguments passed on to `make_exercise_transform_html`. The default for `converter` is set to `"ttm"` unless there are Rmd exercises in `file` where `"pandoc"` is used.

exams2html generates exams in a very simple HTML format using xexams. It proceeds by (1) calling xweave on each exercise, (2) reading the resulting LaTeX code, (3) transforming the LaTeX code to HTML, and (4) embedding the HTML code in a template (a simple and plain template is used by default).

For steps (1) and (2) the standard drivers in xexams are used.

For step (3) a suitable transformation function is set up on the fly using make_exercise_transform_html. This transforms the LaTeX code in question/questionlist and solution/solutionlist by leveraging one of four functions: ttm produces HTML with MathML for mathematical formulas, tth produces plain HTML that aims to emulate mathematical formulas, pandoc_convert employs pandoc offering different options for handling formulas, and tex2image runs LaTeX and turns the result into a single image. In all cases, images can either be stored in supplementary files or embedded directly in Base 64 coding.

For step (4) a simple writer function is set up on the fly that embeds the transformed HTML code into a template and writes a single HTML file for each exam.

exams2html returns a list of exams as generated by xexams.

make_exercise_transform_html returns a function that is suitable for being supplied as driver$transform to xexams.

make_exams_write_html returns a function that is suitable for being supplied as driver$write to xexams.

Zeileis A, Umlauf N, Leisch F (2014). Flexible Generation of E-Learning Exams in R: Moodle Quizzes, OLAT Assessments, and Beyond. Journal of Statistical Software, 58(1), 1–36. http://www.jstatsoft.org/v58/i01/.

xexams, ttm, tth, pandoc_convert, tex2image, browseURL

## load package and enforce par(ask = FALSE)
options(device.ask.default = FALSE)

if(interactive()) {
## compile a single random exam (displayed in the browser)
exams2html(list(
  "boxplots",
  c("tstat", "ttest", "confint"),
  c("regression", "anova"),
  "scatterplot",
  "relfreq"
))

## examples with different locales (UTF-8, ISO-8859-15)
## using special characters (Euro and Pound symbol, German umlaut)
if(!identical(Sys.getlocale(), "C")) {
## UTF-8
exams2html("currency8", encoding = "utf8", template = "plain8")

## ISO Latin 9 (aka ISO-8859-15)
exams2html("currency9", encoding = "latin9", template = "plain9")
}


## various versions of displaying mathematical formulae

## via MathML (displayed correctly in MathML-aware browsers, e.g. Firefox)
exams2html("tstat")

## via MathML + MathJax (should work in all major browsers,
## note the display options you get when right-clicking on the formulas
## in the browser)
exams2html("tstat", mathjax = TRUE)

## via plain HTML (works in all browsers but with inferior formatting)
exams2html("tstat", converter = "tth")

## via HTML with embedded picture (works in all browsers but
## is slow and requires LaTeX and ImageMagick)
## Not run: 
exams2html("tstat", converter = "tex2image")

## End(Not run)
}