ExamWritePad

[Symbiosis]

If you highlighted a few words and pressed play what happens?

Without having access to the paper to debug the text I can’t say 100%, I would need to see the makeup of the PDF. Also which version of ExamWritePad are you using?

 

Hi, it seems it was an issue with a specific AQA paper - it's been fine with others

 

Cheers

[ass17]

Hi, it seems it was an issue with a specific AQA paper - it's been fine with others

 

Cheers

 

Got to love exam boards, they all should really follow the same framework when compiling papers for screen reading especially removing things like unnecessary headers and footers, numbers in the margins etc..

just no need

[thimon]

I'm getting the attached error when trying to open saved ExamWritePad files on my computer. I can open them fine in MS Word if I change the file extension from .ExamText to .docx. Any idea?

[ass17]

I'm getting the attached error when trying to open saved ExamWritePad files on my computer. I can open them fine in MS Word if I change the file extension from .ExamText to .docx. Any idea? [ATTACH=CONFIG]71508[/ATTACH]

 

Can you DM me a copy of the file over to test at my end please or email it to [email protected]

[thimon]

Thank you. I've sent an email, with the offending file attached.

[howartp]

For a future release could we have an option to preload more than 2 pdf files, some exams have 2 question papers each with a supplementary paper.

 

They surely wouldn’t sit the exam back to back, there must be a break in between like most exams where prep is done ready for the next exam.

 

Or do they?

 

Happy to do it if so…

 

You would think!?! It was a shock to us this morning when we saw they were allowed to complete both papers simultaneously and we had no way of dealing with that as our config is very restrictive... They ended up writing it all in 1 document and we went back to split it into 2 documents to print afterwards.

 

Will certainly look into this.

We've just had this with History, but for the writing side of it - we told students how to save/close their first paper, then re-open EWP and start their second paper. But DepHead has had complaints from teachers as they are allowed to jump back and forth between papers throughout the two hours.

 

So we could do with multiple output files as well as multiple pre-loaded PDF files.

 

Just when you've a minute or two spare...

[ass17]

We've just had this with History, but for the writing side of it - we told students how to save/close their first paper, then re-open EWP and start their second paper. But DepHead has had complaints from teachers as they are allowed to jump back and forth between papers throughout the two hours.

 

So we could do with multiple output files as well as multiple pre-loaded PDF files.

 

Just when you've a minute or two spare...

 

You can already do it, that what multiple instances is for in the config to allow you to run many ExamWritePads on a single device. And that way you have separate documents to work on your view, if such needed..

[emoji1303]

[badders]

You can have more than one instance running, look for AllowMultipleInstances in the config file.

[ass17]

Just a quick question to the ExamWritePad community, has anyone successfully managed to disable windows virtual desktops? Some schools are having issues with students swapping desktops on a physical desktop PC even with ExamWritePad in full screen mode.

 

Anything you can share a solution that is concrete and works, would be most helpful.

 

This is all I can find so far:

 

https://bit.ly/DisableTaskView

Edited May 16, 2024 by ass17

[Sephiroth]

I hide the UI buttons to get to it, then make an AutoHotKeys script run on login to prevent the shortcut keys working (amongst other things).

 

#Requires AutoHotkey v2.0

; Disable Alt+Tab
*!Tab:: return

; Disable Windows HotKeys
*#g:: return
*#a:: return
*#`;:: return
*#x:: return
*#p:: return
*#.:: return

; Disable Task View
*#Tab:: return
*#^Left:: return
*#^Right:: return
*#^d:: return

 

Our exams are conducted on dedicated laptops with complete lockdown and controlled only by the invigilators, so this works perfectly for us as it removes any way of accessing the function. As far as I can tell, there is no way of actually physically disabling it.

[mavhc]

Apparently set HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Multimon = 0

[ass17]

Apparently set HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Multimon = 0

 

Tried this and doesn’t work

[ass17]

I hide the UI buttons to get to it, then make an AutoHotKeys script run on login to prevent the shortcut keys working (amongst other things).

 

#Requires AutoHotkey v2.0

; Disable Alt+Tab
*!Tab:: return

; Disable Windows HotKeys
*#g:: return
*#a:: return
*#`;:: return
*#x:: return
*#p:: return
*#.:: return

; Disable Task View
*#Tab:: return
*#^Left:: return
*#^Right:: return
*#^d:: return

 

Our exams are conducted on dedicated laptops with complete lockdown and controlled only by the invigilators, so this works perfectly for us as it removes any way of accessing the function. As far as I can tell, there is no way of actually physically disabling it.

 

If you disable taskview and in ExamWritePad disable windows keys, the only thing I can see that would enable virtual desktops is the three finger trouchpad gesture swiping up. So while not an issue on a desktop it will be on a laptop and you probably will have to do something with gestures in the windows settings app.

[ThomL]

Would this gpo block the keys used? Turn off Windows Key hotkeys (admx.help)

[ass17]

Would this gpo block the keys used? Turn off Windows Key hotkeys (admx.help)

 

Quite possibly…

[Sephiroth]

Would this gpo block the keys used? Turn off Windows Key hotkeys (admx.help)

 

It didn't in my testing, hence the AHK routine. I'll have to look closer at the gestures on a trackpad though as that hasn't been flagged for me.

[ass17]

It didn't in my testing, hence the AHK routine. I'll have to look closer at the gestures on a trackpad though as that hasn't been flagged for me.

 

It’s specifically the three finger, settings —> devices —> touchpad/mouse

 

And also if you have the specific touchpad driver installed some come with a system tray app where you can also control gestures.

[Sephiroth]

The only way I've managed to completely disable this is to set it manually on each account in the Windows Settings UI. This is fine for us as it's a set of completely locked down, independent laptops with dedicated accounts that only have access to EWP that once set, get cloned to the other devices. All the central methods of removing this that I've found have either not worked or not been consistent. Problematic as this also works for all of our domain bound PCs!

 

Once I have some headspace after the exam season, I'll look in more detail at this and report back.

[ass17]

The only way I've managed to completely disable this is to set it manually on each account in the Windows Settings UI. This is fine for us as it's a set of completely locked down, independent laptops with dedicated accounts that only have access to EWP that once set, get cloned to the other devices. All the central methods of removing this that I've found have either not worked or not been consistent. Problematic as this also works for all of our domain bound PCs!

 

Once I have some headspace after the exam season, I'll look in more detail at this and report back.

 

I really don’t understand my Microsoft don’t allow it to be disabled. When specific apps run as a single instance, then you flip over to a new desktop not knowingly, then you try to run the software again and it doesn’t causes headaches and many support calls/emails.

 

Would love to have an absolute guaranteed way to disable it at some point in the future.

[Sephiroth]

Question of the day; Now that some exam boards are set on making it as complicated to get their papers as possible, is there any way of getting EWP to read a password protected PDF? We have had to remove the protection for this morning's English exam and mess around to allow the PDF to be readable.

[ass17]

Question of the day; Now that some exam boards are set on making it as complicated to get their papers as possible, is there any way of getting EWP to read a password protected PDF? We have had to remove the protection for this morning's English exam and mess around to allow the PDF to be readable.

 

The current version of ExamWritePad will read password protected PDFs fine as of the latest version.

 

There is however an issue where a specific PDF can take up to 30 seconds to load that was password protected, it doesn’t if the password is removed. And also doesn’t display properly.

This has been acknowledged by the developers of the PDF add-in I use and a fix is imminent within a week, 2 max.

 

My personal opinion regarding the whole password protecting PDFs is pointless given that we can still circumnavigate it and remove all protection and OCR the text. It’s certainly made life difficult for everyone involved in supporting the student to get them up and running.

[Sephiroth]

Ok, maybe I'm doing something wrong then. The application locked up when I tried this morning (it was left for over 5 minutes) and required a reboot to fix. I'll have another look as part of the review into other issues we faced today.

[ass17]

Ok, maybe I'm doing something wrong then. The application locked up when I tried this morning (it was left for over 5 minutes) and required a reboot to fix. I'll have another look as part of the review into other issues we faced today.

 

I would certainly like to know what issues anyone is faced with and whether I can help to fix them because they are related to ExamWritePad or even if it’s an environment issues at the users end. I’m alway here to help!

[ass17]

Ok, maybe I'm doing something wrong then. The application locked up when I tried this morning (it was left for over 5 minutes) and required a reboot to fix. I'll have another look as part of the review into other issues we faced today.

 

I can certainly look into the issue if it is PDF related, if you can PM me the PDF or email it to [email protected]

[Sephiroth]

Unfortunately it's a live exam so I can't share it at the moment. I'll see if I can replicate the issue and let you know.

 

The majority of the issues are due to a change in process and knowledge gaps. I'll share what I can when I've caught up with the exams co-ordinator and gone through their concerns and queries.