Two Custom Item Issues

[jasonp220]

Hi,

I've developed an experiment which consists of a series of questionnaires all of which use custom items. Almost everything works perfectly except two issues:

1. Not sure why, but sometimes the data files have varname = value rather than the value of the response (e.g., round1_01 = 1 instead of 1)

2. Free response items seem problematic with custom items. Is there a way to do this so I can keep a consistent look and feel and allow the participants to make comments with carriage returns.

Any help you could provide would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason
Media Lab 2006.2.40

[jasonp220]

I figured out the first issue. Turns out the machines I was testing on had a different version of ML than those on which I did the development. 2006 1.4 does not handle Custom items very well. 2.4 works like a champ.

I'm still wondering if I can use HTML and free response without messing up my data file.

Jason

[jarvis24]

Thanks for the update regarding the versions. Yes, we made many changes to the custom item methods during the 2006 release. They were certainly most reliable in the 2006.2.39 and 2006.2.40 releases. v2008 has some added benefits, but I'm not sure that they would be relevant here. Can you attach your free response html form and sample que file so I can test it out and see exactly what you mean?

[jasonp220]

Sure. Here they are. I added test scale items rather than over complicating matters with an experiment file and more HTML.

The problem is that carriage returns mess up the data files.

[jarvis24]

Thanks so much Jason, this is great to know--and especially that the final release of 2006 resolved this for you. Awesome.