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Get PT more user fiendly

Me and my students very often use PT7, and propose the following:

  1. Eliminate the User Profile window on startup (see attach); it shows
    wrong information (Guest, while I'm logged in with my Netacad profile)
    and its only purpose seems... to be closed

  2. Speed up the opening of the .pkt or .pka files: the initial logo mask is
    there for at least 20-30" even in very recent and powerful PCs, with SSD...

  3. When opening .pka files, please put the instructions window in foreground.
    It's not user friendly to always hide it under the main Working area window.

Marco

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Marco Paganini shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
Referred to Helpdesk  ·  AdminSandra Ray (Customer Support Director, or Executive, Cisco Networking Academy) responded  · 

Thank you for your suggestions. We talked to the Packet Tracer team and they have provided the following:

1. User Profile window only shows up when you load an activity that requires it. The purpose is for the student to enter a name and email (Not their netacad login) that will let the instructor identify who worked on the activity. If the student changes this profile, it will reset the activity, thereby preventing cheating. Otherwise students will be able to share completed activities with one another. Although we ask the user to login to their netacad account, we do not use this information as a means to populate the file because some classrooms may use one installation with a single login.

2. The slow load times of PKT and PKAs require the user to send us their file. In general, 7.1 will load faster than 7.0. However, in our own testing, 20-30 seconds is an unusually long load time, so please open a ticket with the Support Desk so we can investigate this further. Some files are authored in such a way that load times are longer, due to scripts, or the request to run the simulation for a certain period of time.

3. The instruction window can be put in the foreground with the “top” checkbox.

- NetAcad Support

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  • Marco Paganini commented  ·   ·  Report

    Thanks Sandra, for your kind answer.
    I have now understood the purpose of the User Profile Window. It's still annoying, in my opinion, since all the PKA files require it, and the case of students cheating is not our case. Perhaps the development team could study a different way to activate such a function, i.e. a global flag to be set only in entities where it is needed.
    Moreover, the presence of the User Profile window, behind the PKA instructions, forces the user to move the working area window in foreground, to fill in or Cancel the User Profile window itself, and this generates the third problem I highlighted: the Instructions disappear under other windows, even before you can tick the Top checkbox.
    Concerning the opening time (second issue) I agree that the seconds are only 9-10, but it seems a long time, anyway.
    I have a 1 minute webex recording to show up all the above more clearly, but I cannot attach it here. Can you please send me an email addres to send the file, Sandra?
    Thanks in advance!
    Marco

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