Question Writer 3 Alpha Version

Question Writer 3 is finally available as a public alpha – download link. What does that mean? Well it’s like a beta – an early version of software which hasn’t been robustly tested, but a beta contains all the features that are to go in the final version. With an alpha version – there are features still to go in. That said, it’s pretty stable, and it’s already packed full of new features.
I’ll be blogging these in more details over the next few days but here’s a list of what’s new in the alpha –
New Features –
1. Sections. You can now group questions together and have fine grained control of how questions are selected, randomized and timed.
2. Sequencing Question Type This uses a drag and drop interface to order elements from top to bottom. It can also attempt to score partially correct sequences.
3. Importing Questions Text format or Moodle XML format to use questions created elsewhere.
4. Custom Background – use your own .jpg, .gif or .swf(version 6 or less) as a loader image and background to customize your quizzes.
5. Explanation Question Type allows you to add text or instructions at the start or in the middle of a quiz.
6. Language Switcher – change the interface language between English, German, French, Japanese and Turkish.
Technically, there are a lot of improvements too – behind the scenes all the code has been converted to C# – so no more J# redistributable. You’ll see the improvement in the installer straight away and it’ll work with any version of .NET 1.1+
If you’re an existing Question Writer 2 user, you should be able to use your existing license if you purchased the software in the past year (from February 1st 2007). Your license will continue to work with all Question Writer 3 releases. If you purchased before then, there will be upgrade pricing available. If you’re not a QW user yet, you can use this as a 30 day trial version.
Download the latest Alpha and try it out right now.