Jon Knapp (.com)

The L-Train

The L-Train is a Flash-based learning management software (LMS) application and it is probably the largest software product I have created to date. The front end is Flash which allows every experience to deliver the same look and feel no matter what operating system or web browser.

The project was based around design, ease of use, and trying to get rid of the stigma that e-learning has to be the same old boring thing.

My role was to create the entire application from scratch, using only still photo mock-ups. This involved chopping out the assets, integrating them into Flash or HTML, adding appropriate animations, and tweaking the design as functionality and usability were introduced… and that’s just to get the artwork into the project.

• I built the application with a PHP and MySQL backend to handle all of the server side functionality.
• There is a CRON job that calculates client statistics every few hours so we have an idea of how the system is being operated.
• There is a PHP class for dynamically developing PDF files for course certificates which I integrated into the system.
• System alerts are delivered using jQuery in a Growl-like fashion.
• Part of the admins side is a Flex-based application for creating quiz pools, including picture uploads, that can be randomly drawn from during quizzes on the user side.

The project was a great learning experience and helped solidify larger project ideals, such as how to handle continued feature and support requests, how to take a project from design to web, and how to best manage the available resources for the project.

Technologies: ActionScript 2, ActionScript 3, CSS, Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, jQuery, MySQL, PHP